hall and outer room, through folding-doors thrown
back, a figure in a large chair before a table, a voice, vibrant,
compelling, "My dear Mrs. Besant, I have so long wished to see you,"
and I was standing with my hand in her firm grip, and looking for
the first time in this life straight into the eyes of "H.P.B." I
was conscious of a sudden leaping forth of my heart--was it
recognition?--and then, I am ashamed to say, a fierce rebellion, a
fierce withdrawal, as of some wild animal when it feels a mastering
hand. I sat down, after some introductions that conveyed no ideas to
me, and listened. She talked of travels, of various countries, easy
brilliant talk, her eyes veiled, her exquisitely moulded fingers
rolling cigarettes incessantly. Nothing special to record, no word of
Occultism, nothing mysterious, a woman of the world chatting with her
evening visitors. We rose to go, and for a moment the veil lifted, and
two brilliant, piercing eyes met mine, and with a yearning throb in
the voice: "Oh, my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come among us!"
I felt a well-nigh uncontrollable desire to bend down and kiss her,
under the compulsion of that yearning voice, those compelling eyes,
but with a flash of the old unbending pride and an inward jeer at my
own folly, I said a commonplace polite good-bye, and turned away with
some inanely courteous and evasive remark. "Child," she said to me
long afterwards, "your pride is terrible; you are as proud as Lucifer
himself." But truly I think I never showed it to her again after that
first evening, though it sprang up wrathfully in her defence many and
many a time, until I learned the pettiness and the worthlessness of
all criticism, and knew that the blind were objects of compassion not
of scorn.

Once again I went, and asked about the Theosophical Society, wishful
to join, but fighting against it. For I saw, distinct and clear--with
painful distinctness, indeed--what that joining would mean. I had
largely conquered public prejudice against me by my work on the London
School Board, and a smoother road stretched before me, whereon effort
to help should be praised not blamed. Was I to plunge into a new
vortex of strife, and make myself a mark for ridicule--worse than
hatred--and fight again the weary fight for an unpopular truth? Must I
turn against Materialism, and face the shame of publicly confessing
that I had been wrong, misled by intellect to ignore the Soul? Must I
leave the a