responsibilities, still holds us back. I get impatient, indignant,
and then I realize--"

David Guard laughed. "That many are still in the child class?"
His head tossed back the long lock of hair that fell over his
forehead. "It is true, but certainly you do not think because I
see the backwardness, the blindness of some women, I do not see the
forwardness, the vision of others? Men have hardly guessed as yet
that it is chiefly due to women that the world is now asking
questions it has never asked before, beginning to look life in the
face where once it blinked at it. Because of what women have
suggested, urged, insisted on, and worked for, the social
conscience all over the earth has been aroused, social legislation
enacted, and social dreams stand chance of coming true. Certain
fields they have barely entered yet, however. It is easy to
understand why. When they realize what is required of them, they
will not hold back. But as yet, among the women you know, how many
give a thought to Lillie Pierce's world, to the causes and
conditions which make her and her kind?"

I shook my head. "I do not know. I've never heard her world
discussed."

"I suppose not. In this entire city there are few women who think
of girls like Lillie Pierce, or care to learn the truth concerning
them; care enough to see that though they went unto dogs, unto dogs
they need not return if they wish to get away. Most people, both
men and women, imagine such girls like their hideous life; that
they entered it from deliberate choice. Out of a hundred there may
be a dozen who so chose, but each of the others has her story, in