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Tracy had shrunk promptly into his English shell when this speech began,
notwithstanding he had now been in severe training several weeks for
contact and intercourse with the common herd on the common herd's
terms; but he lost no time in pulling himself out again, and so by the time
the speech was finished his valves were open once more, and he was forcing
himself to accept without resentment the common herd's frank fashion of
dropping sociably into other people's conversations unembarrassed and
uninvited. The process was not very difficult this time, for the man's
smile and voice and manner were persuasive and winning. Tracy would
even have liked him on the spot, but for the fact--fact which he was not
really aware of--that the equality of men was not yet a reality to him,
it was only a theory; the mind perceived, but the man failed to feel it.
It was Hattie's ghost over again, merely turned around. Theoretically
Barrow was his equal, but it was distinctly distasteful to see him
exhibit it. He presently said:
"I hope in all sincerity that what you have said is true, as regards the
Americans, for doubts have crept into my mind several times. It seemed
that the equality must be ungenuine where the sign-names of castes were
still in vogue; but those sign-names have certainly lost their offence
and are wholly neutralized, nullified and harmless if they are the
undisputed property of every individual in the nation. I think I realize
that caste does not exist and cannot exist except by common consent of
the masses outside of its limits. I thought caste created itself and
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