hen I'm
alone."

"I know I can trust you, Hildreth."

"What are you doing, boy?"

"I want to sit at your feet."

"You dear boy."

"I feel quite humble ... I don't want you to see my face when I talk."

She drew my head against her knees. Threw one arm as if protectingly
over my shoulder.

"There. Are you comfortable, boy?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"Quite ... don't be ashamed ... I know much about life that you do not
know ... tell me all."

* * * * *

So I told her all about myself ... my ambition ... my struggles ... my
morbidity ... my lack of experience with girls and women....

"And I must have experience soon ... it's obsessing me ... it can't last
this way much longer ... I shall go mad."

And I rehearsed to her a desperate resolve I had made ... to find a
woman of the streets, in New York, when I went in, the ensuing week ...
and force myself, no matter how I loathed it--

I buried my head in her lap and sobbed hysterically.

Then I apologised--"forgive me if I have been too frank!"

"I am a radical woman ... Penton and I both believe in the theory of
free love, though we happen to be married ... what you have told me is
all sweet and natural to me ... only--you must not do what you say
you'll do--in New York!--"

"I must, or--" and I paused, to go on in a lower, embarrassed voice ...
"Do--do you know what else I thought of--dreamed of--?

"In Paris--I understand--men live with women as a matter of course--

"You see--" I was hot with shame to the very ears, "you see--there, you
know,--I thought if I went there I would find some pretty little French
girl that I would take to live with me ... in some romantic attic in the
Montmartre district ... and we would be happy together ... and I would
be grateful, so grateful, to her!"

"Why you're the Saint Francis of the Radicals," Hildreth exclaimed.

"Please don't make fun of me ... I suppose you think me very foolish."

"Foolish?... No, I think you have a very beautiful soul. I wish every
man had a soul like that."

She took my head in her hands and kissed me on the brow.

"Hildreth, only tell me what I am to do?"

"I do not know ... theoretically I believe in freedom in sex ... I wish
to God I could help you."

"Why can't you?"

"Hush, you do not know what you're asking!"

"By the living Christ, I only know that I would crawl after you, and
kiss your holiest feet before all the world, if you helped me."

"