There was a long pause while Dr. H. looked eagerly from me to Mr. Astley and back, but chiefly at Mr. Astley, who at last said, “Ah.”
Dr. H. said sharply, “Sir, do you disagree with my prediction?”
“Not if it pleases Mrs. Wedderburn.”
Both of these clever men looked hard at me. I suddenly felt very warm and saw from my hands that I was blushing. I said awkwardly, “You said a thing that surprised me, Dr. Hooker. You said brainy people find it easier to control their evil animal instincts. I have seen and played with a lot of animals, and none of them were evil to me. A bitch with a broken leg growled and snapped while I fixed the splint, but only because I was hurting her. When she felt better she treated me like a pal. Are there many evil animals?”
“There are NO evil animals,” said Dr. Hooker warmly, “and you are right to correct me on that point. Let me explain it another way. Human beings contain two natures, a higher and a lower. The higher nature loves clean, beautiful things: the lower one loves dirty, ugly ones. You are a well-bred young lady so have no lower impulses. You have received an Anglo-Saxon education suited to your sex and class, which has protected you from the degrading spectacle of human filth and misery. You come from Britain, where a fine police-force keeps criminals, the unemployed and other incurably dirty creatures away from places where the nobler natures, the Anglo-Saxon natures live. I hear that in Britain the lower class is predominantly Irish.”
I said indignantly, “I am a woman of the world, Dr. Hooker. My guardian took me all round it while I was recovering from my accident. I saw all sort of people, and some wore cracked boots and patched coats and grubby underwear, just like the poor people we laugh at in Punch. But none were ever as horrid as you suggest.”
“You have been to China and Africa?”
“Parts of them. I have been to Cairo, in Egypt.”
“And you have seen the fellahin whining for Baksheesh?”
“Change the subject, Hooker!” said Mr. Astley sharply, but I would not allow that. I said, “When God took me to see the pyramids we left the hotel in the middle of a crowd. Some people were shouting words like aaa-ee, aaa-ee at the edge of the crowd, but I did not see them. What does Baksheesh mean, Dr. Hooker? I never asked at the time.”
“If you disembark with me in Alexandria tomorrow I will show you what it means in fifteen minutes or less. The sight will shock but educate you. When you have seen it you will understand three things: the innate depravity of the unredeemed human animal; why Christ died for our sins; why God has sent the Anglo-Saxon race to purify the globe with fire and sword.”
“You have broken your word, Hooker,” said Mr. Astley coldly. “You have not kept our bargain.”
“I am sorry for it yet glad of it, Astley!” cried Dr. H. (and I had not seen a man so excited since Candle proposed to me and Wedder won at roulette). “Mrs. Wedderburn’s speech shows she has recovered from the worst effects of her railway accident. Though she has not regained her earliest memories her speech displays a mind as clear and logical as yours and mine, but if we do not provide the information she craves it will remain the mind of a precocious infant. You English may prefer to keep your women in that state, but in the American West we want our women to be equal partners. Do you accept my invitation to see the seamy side of Alexandria, Mrs. Wedderburn? Perhaps you could persuade your husband to come.”
“I will accept whether my poor man comes or not,” I told him, feeling fearfully excited.
“You come too, Astley,” said Dr. H. “Let us give our fair companion a joint Anglo-American escort.”
Mr. A. blew out a thoughtful-looking stream of smoke, shrugged and said, “So be it.”
I left the table at once. I needed quietness to think of all the new strange things I had heard. Maybe my cracked knob is to blame but I feel less happy since Dr. H. explained there is nothing wrong with the world which the Anglo-Saxons are not curing with fire and sword. Before now I thought everyone I met was part of the same friendly family, even when a hurt one acted like our snappish bitch. Why did you not teach me politics, God?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
At this point Baxter’s voice faltered into silence and I saw him struggling to overcome a very deep emotion.
“Read the next six pages for yourself,” he said suddenly, and passed them over. I give the pages here as they were given to me: 
They are printed by a photogravure process which exactly reproduces the blurring caused by tear stains, but does not show the pressure of pen strokes which often ripped right through the paper.
“A catastrophic reversion to an earlier phase with a brisk recovery at the end,” I said. “What do the scrawls mean, Baxter? Here — take them back. Only you can decipher them.”
Baxter sighed and in a steady, uninflected voice told me, “They say, no no no no no no no no no, help blind baby, poor little girl help help both, trampled no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no, no where my daughter, no help for blind babies poor little girls I am glad I bit Mr. Astley.”
Baxter then laid the letter down, pulled out a handkerchief, folded it into a cushion (his handkerchiefs were a quarter the size of a bed-sheet) and pushed his face into it. For a moment I feared he was trying to smother himself, then muffled eruptions showed he was using it to absorb glandular evacuations. When he removed it his eyes were extra bright.
“What then?” I asked impatiently. “What then? Does the next entry explain all that?”
“No, but what happened emerges eventually. The remaining entries are written weeks or months after her romance with Harry Astley—“
“ROMANCE!” I screamed—
“Calm yourself, McCandless. On her side it was a Platonic affair. That it helped her mental growth is shown in the writing which suddenly becomes small, regular and upright; in her spelling which rapidly conforms to the standard dictionaries; in the separation between her entries, where a straight horizontal line replaces the playful row of stars. But her growth appears most clearly in the quality of her reflections. From now onward these blend the spiritual insights of an oriental sage with the analytical acuteness of David Hume and Adam Smith. Attend!”
16. Alexandria to Gibraltar: Astley’s Bitter Wisdom
Thinking has maddened me for weeks. My one relief has been argument with Harry Astley. He says I will only find peace by embracing his bitter wisdom — and him. I want neither — except as enemies. He says cruelty to the helpless will never end because the healthy live by trampling these down. I say if this is true we must stop living so. He has given me books which he says prove this is impossible: Malthus’ Essay on Population, Darwin’s Origin of Species and Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man. They make my head ache. I was changing the dressing on his hand today when he told me his wife had died a year ago, then said, “You are not legally married to Wedderburn, are you?”
“How clever of you to guess, Mr. Astley.”
“Please call me Harry.”