oise. Now I know."

"Had you never called there before?" I asked when he paused to light
his pipe.

"No, I always went to her office in the Mission and had her in a
different setting, a bare room, desk, filing-cases, placards on the
wall, scrupulously neat and business-like, but uncompromising, Roger,
and severe. The house makes a better frame for her somehow--"

I knew what he meant, for I had seen her in it, but of course was
silent.

"She's doing a tremendous work down town. She _is_ the Mission. The
superintendent and nurses idolize her. I was questioning her mother
about it. Una has a way with her. The women that come there have to be
handled carefully, it seems. I'm afraid they're a bad lot, though Una
won't talk about 'em. She says I wouldn't understand. I suppose I
wouldn't. I've never learned much about women yet, Roger. Funny, too.
They seem so easy to understand, and yet they're not. It's the men
that bring the women down--ruin them, but I can't see why it couldn't
just as well be the other way about. Men are weak, too; why are the
men always blamed? That's what I want to know, and what does it all
mean? I suppose I'm awfully ignorant. Things go in one ear and out the
other without making any impression. I lack something. It's the way
I'm made. I've missed something, of the meaning of life, I suppose,
because I've lived it all with so few people, you, Una, Uncle
Jack--Flynn and the boys--"

"And Marcia," I put in suggestively.

He ignored my remark.

"Most chaps I've met seem to take so much of my knowledge for granted.
The boys at Flynn's puzzled me, their strange phrases, hinting at
hidden vices, but I wasn't going to question _them_. It's up to you,
Roger. I want to know. What is this threat to Una's reputation when
Marcia tells of our meeting here alone?"

As I remained resolutely silent, Jerry got up and paced with long
strides up and down before me.

"Why shouldn't she and I meet here alone if we want to? And why these
absurd restrictions surrounding the life of girls? I've accepted them,
as I accept my morning coffee, because they're there. But what do they
mean? I know that a girl is more delicate than a boy, a being to be
sheltered and cared for; that seems natural. I accept that. But it
goes too far. Una does what she pleases. Why shouldn't she? What is
the meaning of unconventional morality? And why unconventional? Is
morality so vague a term that there can be any sort of doubt as to it