"Bah!" I muttered. "The spleen of a jealous woman; it stops nowhere--at nothing!"
"But what was there in the story," he persisted, "to cause so much tension? I felt it in the air, Roger. It was in the looks of those about me, in Una's face. She was troubled. I had to speak."
"You did well, Jerry. You had to speak--to defend her--"
"The results of her own imprudence," I said slowly, feeling my way with difficulty. "Una's visits here and at the cabin were not what are called conventional."
"Conventional! Perhaps not. But where does the question of morality come in?" he went on boring straight at the mark.
"It doesn't," I remarked calmly. "It seems to me that Una's reply was quite clear upon that point."
He frowned. "Yes, but she said that Marcia's mind wasn't clean, or that's what she meant. That's a terrible thing to say and Una shouldn't have said it. She shouldn't have, Roger."
"She had to defend herself," I muttered. "That's the privilege of the poorest beast of the woods."
"Yes," he said slowly, "but it has upset me, given me a new view of things, of women, of life. What is this terrible thing that threatens them, that they fear and court at the hands of men? They act it in their advances and sudden defenses. I've learned that much--Even Una--Why, Roger, there's something that they're more jealous of than they are of life itself. Reputation! That's what Una called it. Una--who's giving up her life to try to make people better! If a girl like Una has to defend herself, then the world is a rotten place and Marcia--"
"She has gone too far, Roger--too far." He paused before me.
"But you haven't answered my questions," he said flatly.
"You've hardly given me time," I said with a smile.
To be truthful, I did not propose to answer them. Aside from a curious shyness born of our long and innocent intimacy which made frankness now seem a violation of the precedent of years, I found that the desire was born in me, born anew with Jerry's awakening consciousness, to stand by my guns, and await the results of his lessons from the world. He must solve the riddle of the Great Experiment alone.
"You haven't answered my questions, Roger," he insisted.
I was unjointing Jerry's rod with scrupulous care.