"No. They will not always go on the same way. They will continue
so to go, however, until women--good women--understand they must
chiefly bring about the change. For centuries women have been
cowards, been ignorant of what they should know, been silent when
they should speak. They prefer to be--"

"White roses! But white roses do not necessarily live in
hot-houses." I pushed my chair farther from the fire. "That is one
of the reasons I am here. I want to know where women fail."

He looked up. "One does not often find a woman willing to know.
Behind the confusion of such terms as ignorance and innocence most
women continue their irresponsibility in certain directions. They
have accepted man's decree that certain evils, having always
existed, must always exist, and they have made little effort to
test the truth of the assertion. Lillie Pierce and the women of
her world are largely the product of the attitude of good women
toward them. To the sin of men good women shut their eyes, pretend
they do not know. They do not want to know."

"They not only do not want to know, themselves--that is, many of
them--but they would keep others from knowing. Perhaps it is
natural. So many things have happened to life in the past few
years that even clever, able women are still bewildered, still
uncertain what is right to do. Life can never be again what it
once was, and still, most of us are trying to live a new thing in
an old way. We have so long been purposely kept ignorant, so long
not permitted to have opinions that count, so long been told our
work is elsewhere, that cowardice and indifference, the fear of
inability to deal with new conditions, new obligations, new