"I blame myself for trying to excuse my own failure on the plea that things
generally have gone wrong. At times it seems to me that I'm responsible for
having lost my faith in what I used to think was the right thing to do; and
then again it seems as if the world were all so bad that no real good could
be done in the old way, and that my faith is gone because there's nothing
for it to rest on any longer. I feel that something must be done; but I
don't know what."
"It would be hard to say," said the doctor.
She perceived that her exaltation amused him, but she was too much in
earnest to care. "Then we are guilty--all guilty--till we find out and
begin to do it. If the world has come to such a pass that you can't do
anything but harm in it--"
"Oh, is it so bad as that?" he protested.
"It's _quite_ as bad," she insisted. "Just see what mischief I've done
since I came back to Hatboro'. I took hold of that miserable Social Union
because I was outside of all the life about me, and it seemed my only
chance of getting into it; and I've done more harm by it in one summer than
I could undo in a lifetime. Just think of poor Mr. Brandreth's love affair
with Miss Chapley broken off, and Lyra's lamentable triumph over Miss
Northwick, and Mrs. Munger's duplicity, and Ralph's escapade--all because I
wanted to do good!"
A note of exaggeration had begun to prevail in her self-upbraiding, which
was real enough, and the time came for him to suggest, "I think you're a
little morbid, Miss Kilburn."
"Morbid! Of course I am! But that doesn't alter the fact that everything is
wrong, does it?"
"Everything!"
"Why, you don't pretend yourself, do you, that everything is right?"
"A true American ought to do so, oughtn't he?" teased the doctor. "One
mustn't be a bad citizen."
"But if you _were_ a bad citizen?" she persisted.
"Oh, then I might agree with you on some points. But I shouldn't say such
things to my patients, Miss Kilburn."
"It would be a great comfort to them if you did," she sighed.
The doctor broke out in a laugh of delight at her perfervid concentration.
"Oh, no, no! They're mostly nervous women, and it would be the death of
them--if they understood me. In fact, what's the use of brooding upon such
ideas? We can't hurry any change, but we can make ourselves uncomfortable."