If Mrs.
Eppingwell suffered going up the hill, she too suffered, lying face
downward on the bed, dry-eyed, dry-mouthed, dumb.
Mrs. Eppingwell's knowledge of human nature was great. She aimed at
universality. She had found it easy to step from the civilized and
contemplate things from the barbaric aspect. She could comprehend
certain primal and analogous characteristics in a hungry wolf-dog or a
starving man, and predicate lines of action to be pursued by either under
like conditions. To her, a woman was a woman, whether garbed in purple
or the rags of the gutter; Freda was a woman. She would not have been
surprised had she been taken into the dancer's cabin and encountered on
common ground; nor surprised had she been taken in and flaunted in
prideless arrogance. But to be treated as she had been treated, was
unexpected and disappointing. Ergo, she had not caught Freda's point of
view. And this was good. There are some points of view which cannot be
gained save through much travail and personal crucifixion, and it were
well for the world that its Mrs. Eppingwells should, in certain ways,
fall short of universality.
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