When he questioned a statement made by one of these people, he came down
upon him with a rush that quite carried him away and then, turning to the
others, looked at them wisely like a cat that has swallowed a mouse. "Ask
us another question if you dare," their faces seemed to be saying, while
their tongues declared that they were but students of the great problem of
right living.
With these new people Sam never made any progress toward real
understanding and friendship. For a time he tried honestly to get some of
their own fervent devotions to their ideas and to be impressed by what
they said of their love of man, even going with them to some of their
meetings, at one of which he sat among the fallen women gathered in, and
listened to a speech by Sue.
The speech did not make much of a hit, the fallen women moving restlessly
about. A large woman, with an immense nose, did better. She talked with a
swift, contagious zeal that was very stirring, and, listening to her, Sam
was reminded of the evening when he sat before another zealous talker in
the church at Caxton and Jim Williams, the barber, tried to stampede him
into the fold with the lambs. While the woman talked a plump little member
of the _demi monde_ who sat beside Sam wept copiously, but at the end of
the speech he could remember nothing of what had been said and he wondered
if the weeping woman would remember.
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