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“Crafts, of ‘Storrs and Crafts,’” replied Ames. “But he died a year ago. Storrs is gone, too. No help from that quarter.”
Lafelle moved thoughtfully toward the door. The valet appeared at that moment.
“Show Monsignor to his stateroom,” commanded Ames. “Good night, Monsignor, good night. Remember, we dock at seven-thirty, sharp.”
Returning to the table, Ames sat down and rapidly composed a message for his wireless operator to send across the dark waters to the city, and thence to acting-Bishop Wenceslas, in Cartagena. This done, he extinguished all the lights in the room excepting those which illuminated the stained-glass windows above. Drawing his chair up in front of the one which had stirred Lafelle’s query, he sat before it far into the morning, in absorbed contemplation, searching the sad features of the beautiful face, pondering, revolving, sometimes murmuring aloud, sometimes passing a hand across his brow, as if he would erase from a relentless memory an impression made long since and worn ever deeper by the recurrent thought of many years.
CHAPTER 14
Almost within the brief period of a year, the barefoot, calico-clad Carmen had been ejected from unknown Simití and dropped into the midst of the pyrotechnical society life of the great New World metropolis. Only an unusual interplay of mental forces could have brought about such an odd result. But that it was a very logical outcome of the reaction upon one another of human ambitions, fears, lust, and greed, operating through the types of mind among which her life had been cast, those who have followed our story thus far can have no doubt. The cusp of the upward-sweeping curve had been reached through the insane eagerness of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to outdo her wealthy society rivals in an arrogant display of dress, living, and vain, luxurious entertaining, and the acquisition of the empty honor attaching to social leadership. The coveted prize was now all but within the shallow woman’s grasp. Alas! she knew not that when her itching fingers closed about it the golden bauble would crumble to ashes.
The program as outlined by the Beaubien had been faithfully followed. Mrs. J. Wilton Ames had met Mrs. Hawley-Crowles––whom, of course, she had long desired to know more119intimately––and an interchange of calls had ensued, succeeded by a grand reception at the Ames mansion, the first of the social season. To this Mrs. Hawley-Crowles floated, as upon a cloud, attired in a French gown which cost fifteen hundred dollars, and shoes on her disproportioned feet for which she had rejoiced to pay thirty dollars each, made as they had been from specially selected imported leather, dyed to match her rich robe. It was true, her pleasure had not been wholly unalloyed, for she had been conscious of a trace of superciliousness on the part of some of the gorgeous birds of paradise, twittering and hopping in their hampering skirts about the Ames parlors, and pecking, with milk-fed content, at the rare cakes and ices. But she only held her empty head the higher, and fluttered about the more ostentatiously and clumsily, while anticipating the effect which her charming and talented ward would produce when she should make her bow to these same vain, haughty devotees of the cult of gold. And she had wisely planned that Carmen’sdébutshould follow that of Kathleen Ames, that it might eclipse her rival’s in its wanton display of magnificence.
On the heels of the Ames reception surged the full flood of the winter’s social orgy. Early in November Kathleen Ames was duly presented. The occasion was made one of such stupendous display that Mrs. Hawley-Crowles first gasped, then shivered with apprehension, lest she be unable to outdo it. She went home from it in a somewhat chastened frame of mind, and sat down at herescritoireto make calculations. Could she on her meager annual income of one hundred and fifty thousand hope to meet the Ames millions? She had already allowed that her wardrobe would cost not less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year, to say nothing of the additional expense of properly dressing Carmen. But she now saw that this amount was hopelessly inadequate. She therefore increased the figure to seventy-five thousand. But that took half of her income. Could she maintain her city home, entertain in the style now demanded by her social position, and spend her summers at Newport, as she had planned? Clearly, not on that amount. No, her income would not suffice; she would be obliged to draw on the principal until Carmen could be married off to some millionaire, or until her own father died. Oh? if he would only terminate his useless existence soon!
But, in lieu of that delayed desideratum, some expedient must be devised at once. She thought of the Beaubien. That obscure, retiring woman was annually making her millions. A tip now and then from her, a word of advice regarding the120market, and her own limited income would expand accordingly. She had not seen the Beaubien since becoming a member of Holy Saints. But on that day, and again, two months later, when the splendid altar to the late lamented and patriotic citizen, the Honorable James Hawley-Crowles, was dedicated, she had marked the woman, heavily veiled, sitting alone in the rear of the great church. What had brought her there? she wondered. She had shuddered as she thought the tall, black-robed figure typified an ominous shadow falling athwart her own foolish existence.
But there was no doubt of Carmen’s hold on the strange, tarnished woman. And so, smothering her doubts and pocketing her pride, she again sought the Beaubien, ostensibly in regard to Carmen’s forthcomingdébut; and then, very adroitly and off-handedly, she brought up the subject of investments, alleging that the added burden of the young girl now rendered it necessary to increase the rate of interest which her securities were yielding.
The Beaubien proved herself the soul of candor and generosity. Not only did she point out to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles how her modest income might be quadrupled, but she even offered, in such a way as to make it utterly impossible for that lady to take offense, to lend her whatever amount she might need, at any time, to further Carmen’s social conquest. And during the conversation she announced that she herself was acting on a suggestion dropped by the great financier, Ames, and was buying certain stocks now being offered by a coming power in world finance, Mr. Philip O. Ketchim.
Why, to be sure, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had heard of this man! Was he not promoting a company in which her sister’s husband, and the girl herself, were interested? And if such investments were good enough for a magnate of Ames’s standing, they certainly were good enough for her. She would see Mr. Ketchim at once. Indeed, why had she not thought of this before! She would get Carmen to hypothecate her own interest in this new company, if necessary. That interest of itself was worth a fortune.
Quite true. And if Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and Carmen so desired, the Beaubien would advance them whatever they might need on that security alone. Or, she would take the personal notes of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles––“For, you know, my dear,” she said sweetly, “when your father passes away you are going to be very well off, indeed, and I can afford to discount that inevitable event somewhat, can I not?” And she not only could, but did.
Then Mrs. Hawley-Crowles soared into the empyrean, and121this self-absorbed woman, who never in her life had earned the equivalent of a single day’s food, launched the sweet, white-souled girl of the tropics upon the oozy waters of New York society with suchéclatthat the Sunday newspapers devoted a whole page, profusely illustrated, to the gorgeous event and dilated with much extravagance of expression upon the charms of the little Inca princess, and upon the very important and gratifying fact that the three hundred fashionable guests present displayed jewels to the value of not less than ten million dollars.
The function took the form of a musicale, in which Carmen’s rich voice was first made known to thebeau monde. The girl instantly swept her auditors from their feet. The splendid pipe-organ, which Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had hurriedly installed for the occasion, became a thing inspired under her deft touch. It seemed in that garish display of worldliness to voice her soul’s purity, its wonder, its astonishment, its lament over the vacuities of this highest type of human society, its ominous threats of thundered denunciation on the day when her tongue should be loosed and the present mesmeric spell broken––for she was under a spell, even that of this new world of tinsel and material veneer.
The decrepit old Mrs. Gannette wept on Carmen’s shoulder, and went home vowing that she would be a better woman and cut out her night-cap of Scotch-and-soda. Others crowded about the girl and showered their fulsome praise upon her. But not so Mrs. Ames and her daughter Kathleen. They stared at the lovelydébutantewith wonder and chagrin written legibly upon their bepowdered visages. And before the close of the function Kathleen had become so angrily jealous that she was grossly rude to Carmen when she bade her good night. For her own feeble light had been drowned in the powerful radiance of the girl from Simití. And from that moment the assassination of the character of the little Inca princess was decreed.
But, what with incessant striving to adapt herself to her environment, that she might search its farthest nook and angle; what with ceaseless efforts to check her almost momentary impulse to cry out against the vulgar display of modernity and the vicious inequity of privilege which she saw on every hand; what with her purity of thought; her rare ideals and selfless motives; her boundless love for humanity; and her passionate desire to so live her “message” that all the world might see and light their lamps at the torch of her burning love for God and her fellow-men, Carmen found her days a paradox, in that they were literally full of emptiness. After herdébut, event122followed event in the social life of the now thoroughly gay metropolis, and the poor child found herself hustled home from one function, only to change her attire and hurry again, weary of spirit, into the waiting car, to be whisked off to another equally vapid. It seemed to the bewildered girl that she would never learn what wasde rigueur; what conventions must be observed at one social event, but amended at another. Her tight gowns and limb-hampering skirts typified the soul-limitation of her tinsel, environment; her high-heeled shoes were exquisite torture; and her corsets, which her French maid drew until the poor girl gasped for air, seemed to her the cruellest device ever fashioned by the vacuous, enslaved human mind. Frequently she changed her clothing completely three and four times a day to meet her social demands. Night became day; and she had to learn to sleep until noon. She found no time for study; none even for reading. And conversation, such as was indulged under the Hawley-Crowles roof, was confined to insipid society happenings, with frequent sprinklings of racy items anent divorce, scandal, murder, or the debauch of manhood. From this she drew more and more aloof and became daily quieter.
It was seldom, too, that she could escape from the jaded circle of society revelers long enough to spend a quiet hour with the Beaubien. But when she could, she would open the reservoirs of her soul and give full vent to her pent-up emotions. “Oh,” she would often exclaim, as she sat at the feet of the Beaubien in the quiet of the darkened music room, and gazed into the crackling fire, “how can they––how can they!”
Then the Beaubien would pat her soft, glowing cheek and murmur, “Wait, dearie, wait.” And the tired girl would sigh and close her eyes and dream of the quiet of little Simití and of the dear ones there from whom she now heard no word, and yet whom she might not seek, because of the war which raged about her lowly birthplace.
The gay season was hardly a month advanced when Mrs. Ames angrily admitted to herself that her own crown was in gravest danger. The South American girl––and because of her, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her blasé sister––had completely captured New York’s conspicuous circle. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles apparently did not lack for funds, but entertained with a display of reckless disregard for expense, and a carelessness of critical comment, that stirred the city to its depths and aroused expressions of wonder and admiration on every hand. The newspapers were full of her and her charming ward. Surely, if the girl’s social prestige continued to soar, the Ames family soon would be relegated to the social “has-beens.” And Mrs.123Ames and her haughty daughter held many a serious conference over their dubious prospects.
Ames himself chuckled. Night after night, when the Beaubien’s dinner guests had dispersed, he would linger to discuss the social war now in full progress, and to exchange with her witty comments on the successes of the combatants. One night he announced, “Lafelle is in England; and when he returns he is coming by way of the West Indies. I shall cable him to stop for a week at Cartagena, to see Wenceslas on a little matter of business for me.”
The Beaubien smiled her comprehension. “Mrs. Hawley-Crowles has become nicely enmeshed in his net,” she returned. “The altar to friend Jim is a beauty. Also, I hear that she is going to finance Ketchim’s mining company in Colombia.”
“Fine!” said Ames. “I learned to-day that Ketchim’s engineer, Harris, has returned to the States. Couldn’t get up the Magdalena river, on account of the fighting. There will be nothing doing there for a year yet.”
“Just as well,” commented the Beaubien. Then abruptly––“By the way, I now hold Mrs. Hawley-Crowles’s notes to the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I want you to buy them from me and be ready to turn the screws when I tell you.”
Ames roared with laughter. “Shrewd girl!” he exclaimed, pinching her cheek. “All right. I’ll take them off your hands to-morrow. And by the way, I must meet this Carmen.”
“You let her alone,” said the Beaubien quickly in a low voice.
Ames wondered vaguely what she meant.
The inauguration of the Grand Opera season opened to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles another avenue for her astonishing social activities. With rare shrewdness she had contrived to outwit Mrs. Ames and secure the center box in the “golden horseshoe” at the Metropolitan. There, like a gaudy garden spider in its glittering web, she sat on the opening night, with her raptprotégéeat her side, and sent her insolent challenge broadcast. Multimillionaires and their haughty, full-toileted dames were ranged on either side of her, brewers and packers, distillers and patent medicine concoctors, railroad magnates and Board of Trade plungers, some under indictment, others under the shadow of death, all under the mesmeric charm of gold. In the box at her left sat the Ames family, with their newly arrived guests, the Dowager Duchess of Altern and her son. Though inwardly boiling, Mrs. Ames was smiling and affable when she exchanged calls with the gorgeous occupants of the Hawley-Crowles box.
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“So chawmed to meet you,” murmured the heir of Altern, a callow youth of twenty-three, bowing over the dainty, gloved hand of Carmen. Then, as he adjusted his monocle and fixed his jaded eyes upon the fresh young girl, “Bah Jove!”
The gigantic form of Ames wedged in between the young man and Carmen. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said genially, in a heavy voice that harmonized well with his huge frame; “but we haven’t had an opportunity to get acquainted until to-night.”
For some moments he stood holding her hand and looking steadily at her. The girl gazed up at him with her trustful brown eyes alight, and a smile playing about her mouth. “My, but you are big!” she naïvely exclaimed.
While she chatted brightly Ames held her hand and laughed at her frank, often witty, remarks. But then a curious, eager look came into his face, and he became quiet and reflective. He seemed unable to take his eyes from her. And when the girl gently drew her hand from his he laughed again, nervously.
“I––I know something about Colombia,” he said, “and speak the language a bit. We’ll have to get together often, so’s I can brush up.”
Then, apparently noticing Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her sister for the first time––“Oh, so glad to see you both! Camorso’s in fine voice to-night, eh?”
He wheeled about and stood again looking at Carmen, until she blushed under his close gaze and turned her head away. Then he went back to his box. But throughout the evening, whenever the girl looked in the direction of the Ames family, she met the steady, piercing gaze of the man’s keen gray eyes. And they seemed to her like sharp steel points, cutting into the portals of her soul.
Night after night during the long season Carmen sat in the box and studied the operas that were produced on the boards before her wondering gaze. Always Mrs. Hawley-Crowles was with her. And generally, too, the young heir of Altern was there, occupying the chair next to the girl––which was quite as the solicitous Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had planned.
“Aw––deucedly fine show to-night, Miss Carmen,” the youth ventured one evening, as he took his accustomed place close to her.
“The music is always beautiful,” the girl responded. “But the play, like most of Grand Opera, is drawn from the darkest side of human life. It is a sordid picture of licentiousness and cruelty. Only for its setting in wonderful music, Grand Opera is generally such a depiction of sex-passion, of lust and murder, that it would not be permitted on the stage. A few years125from now people will be horrified to remember that the preceding generation reveled in such blood scenes––just as we now speak with horror of the gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.”
The young man regarded her uncertainly. “But––aw––Miss Carmen,” he hazarded, “we must be true to life, you know!” Having delivered himself of this oracular statement, the youth adjusted his monocle and settled back as if he had given finality to a weighty argument.
The girl looked at him pityingly. “You voice the cant of the modern writer, ‘true lo life.’ True to the horrible, human sense of life, that looks no higher than the lust of blood, and is satisfied with it, I admit. True to the unreal, temporal sense of existence, that is here to-day, and to-morrow has gone out in the agony of self-imposed suffering and death. True to that awful, false sense of life which we must put off if we would ever rise into the consciousness ofreallife, I grant you. But the production of these horrors on the stage, even in a framework of marvelous music, serves only to hold before us the awful models from which we must turn if we would hew out a better existence. Are you the better for seeing an exhibition of wanton murder on the stage, even though the participants wondrously sing their words of vengeance and passion?”
“But––aw––they serve as warnings; they show us the things we ought not to do, don’t you know.”
She smiled. “The sculptor who would chisel a beautiful form, does he set before him the misshapen body of a hunchback, in order that he may see what not to carve?” she asked. “And we who would transform the human sense of life into one of freedom from evil, can we build a perfect structure with such grewsome models as this before us? You don’t see it now,” she sighed; “you are in the world, and of it; and the world is deeply under the mesmeric belief of evil as a stern reality. But the day is coming when our musicians and authors will turn from such base material as this to nobler themes––themes which will excite our wonder and admiration, and stimulate the desire for purity of thought and deed––themes that will be beacon lights, and true guides. You don’t understand. But you will, some day.”
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles frowned heavily as she listened to this conversation, and she drew a sigh of relief when Carmen, sensing the futility of any attempt to impress her thought upon the young man, turned to topics which he could discuss with some degree of intelligence.
Late in the evening Ames dropped in and came directly to the Hawley-Crowles box. He brought a huge box of imported126candy and a gorgeous bouquet of orchids, which he presented to Carmen. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles beamed upon him like the effulgent midday sun.
“Kathleen wants you, Reggy,” Ames abruptly announced to the young man, whose lips were molding into a pout. “Little gathering up at the house. Take my car.” His huge bulk loomed over the younger man like a mountain as he took him by the shoulders and turned him toward the exit.
“But I wish to see the opera!” protested the youth, with a vain show of resistance.
Ames said nothing; but his domineering personality forced the boy out of the box and into the corridor.
“But––Uncle Wilton––!”
Ames laughed curtly. Then he took the seat which his evicted nephew had vacated, and bent over Carmen. With a final hopeless survey of the situation, Reginald turned and descended to the cloak room, muttering dire but futile threats against his irresistible relative.
“Now, little girl!” Ames’s manner unconsciously assumed an air of patronage. “This is the first real opportunity I’ve had to talk with you. Tell me, what do you think of New York?”
Carmen smiled up at him. “Well,” she began uncertainly, “since I have thawed out, or perhaps have become more accustomed to the cold, I have begun to make mental notes. Already I have thousands of them. But they are not yet classified, and so I can hardly answer your question, Mr. Ames. But I am sure of one thing, and that is that for the first few months I was here I was too cold to even think!”
Ames laughed. “Yes,” he agreed, “the change from the tropics was somewhat abrupt. But, aside from the climate?”
“It is like awaking from a deep sleep,” answered Carmen meditatively. “In Simití we dream our lives away. In New York all is action; loud words; harsh commands; hurry; rush; endeavor, terrible, materialistic endeavor! Every person I see seems to be going somewhere. He may not know where he is going––but he is on the way. He may not know why he is going––but he must not be stopped. He has so few years to live; and he must pile up money before he goes. He must own an automobile; he must do certain things which his more fortunate neighbor does, before his little flame of life goes out and darkness falls upon him. I sometimes think that people here are trying to get away from themselves, but they don’t know it. I think they come to the opera because they crave any sort of diversion that will make them forget themselves for a few moments, don’t you?”
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“H’m! well, I can’t say,” was Ames’s meaningless reply, as he sat regarding the girl curiously.
“And,” she continued, as if pleased to have an auditor who at least pretended to understand her, “the thing that now strikes me most forcibly is the great confusion that prevails here in everything, in your government, in your laws, in your business, in your society, and, in particular, in your religion. Why, in that you have hundreds of sects claiming a monopoly of truth; you have hundreds of churches, hundreds of religious or theological beliefs, hundreds of differing concepts of God––but you get nowhere! Why, it has come to such a pass that, if Jesus were to appear physically on earth to-day, I am sure he would be evicted from his own Church!”
“Well, yes, I guess that’s so,” commented Ames, quite at sea in such conversation. “But we solid business men have found that religious emotion never gets a man anywhere. It’s weakening. Makes a man effeminate, and utterly unfits him for business. I wouldn’t have a man in my employ who was a religious enthusiast.”
“But Jesus was a religious enthusiast,” she protested.
“I doubt if there ever was such a person,” he answered dryly.
“Why, the Bible––”
“Is the most unfortunate and most misunderstood piece of literature ever written,” he interrupted. “And the Church, well, I regard it as the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race.”
“You mean that to apply to every church?”
“It fits them all.”
She studied his face for a few moments. He returned her glance as steadily. But their thoughts were running in widely divergent channels. The conversational topic of the moment had no interest whatsoever for the man. But this brilliant, sparkling girl––there was something in those dark eyes, that soft voice, that brown hair––by what anomaly did this beautiful creature come out of desolate, mediaeval Simití?
“Mr. Ames, you do not know what religion is.”
“No? Well, and what is it?”
“It is that which binds us to God.”
“And that?”
“Love.”
No, he knew not the meaning of the word. Or––wait––did he? His thought broke restraint and flew wildly back––but he caught it, and rudely forced it into its wonted channel. But, did he love his fellow-men? Certainly not! What would that profit him in dollars and cents? Did he love his wife? his128children? The thought brought a cynical laugh to his lips. Carmen looked up at him wonderingly. “You will have to, you know,” she said quixotically.
Then she reached out a hand and laid it on his. He looked down at it, so soft, so white, so small, and he contrasted it with the huge, hairy bulk of his own. This little girl was drawing him. He felt it, felt himself yielding. He was beginning to look beyond the beautiful features, the rare grace and charm of physical personality, which had at first attracted only the baser qualities of his nature, and was seeing glimpses of a spiritual something which lay back of all that––infinitely more beautiful, unspeakably richer, divine, sacred, untouchable.
“Of course you will attend the Charity Ball, Mr. Ames?” The thin voice of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles jarred upon his ear like a shrill discord. Ames turned savagely upon her. Then he quickly found himself again.
“No,” he laughed harshly. “But I shall be represented by my family. And you?” He looked at Carmen.
“Most assuredly,” returned Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, taking the query to herself. “That is, if my French dressmaker does not fail me. She is dreadfully exasperating! What will Mrs. Ames wear, do you think?” She arched her brows at him as she propounded this innocent question.
Ames chuckled. “I’ll tell you what it is this year,” he sagely replied. “It’s diamonds in the heels!” He gave a sententious nod of his head. “I overheard Kathleen and her mother discussing plans. And––do you want to know next season’s innovation? By George! I’m a regular spy.” He stopped and laughed heartily at his own treasonable deceit.
“Yes! yes!” whispered Mrs. Hawley-Crowles eagerly, as she drew her chair closer. “What is it?”
“One condition,” replied Ames, holding up a thick finger.
“Of course! Anything!” returned the grasping woman.
“Well, I want to get better acquainted with your charming ward,” he whispered.
“Of course; and I want you to know her better. That can be arranged very easily. Now what’s the innovation?”
“Colored wigs,” said Ames, with a knowing look.
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles settled back with a smile of supreme satisfaction. She would boldly anticipate next season at the coming Charity Ball. Then, leaning over toward Ames, she laid her fan upon his arm. “Can’t you manage to come and see us some time, my sister and Carmen? Any time,” she added. “Just call me up a little in advance.”
The blare of trumpets and the crash of drums drew their129attention again to the stage. Ames rose and bowed his departure. A business associate in a distant box had beckoned him. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles dismissed him reluctantly; then turned her wandering attention to the play.
But Carmen sat shrouded in thoughts that were not stimulated by the puppet-show before her. The tenor shrieked out his tender passion, and the tubby soprano sank into his inadequate arms with languishing sighs. Carmen heeded not their stage amours. She saw in the glare before her the care-lined face of the priest of Simití; she saw the grim features and set jaw of her beloved, black-faced Rosendo, as he led her through the dripping jungle; she saw Anita’s blind, helpless babe; she saw the little newsboy of Cartagena; and her heart welled with a great love for them all; and she buried her face in her hands and wept softly.
CHAPTER 15
“Wait, my little princess, wait,” the Beaubien had said, when Carmen, her eyes flowing and her lips quivering, had again thrown herself into that strange woman’s arms and poured out her heart’s surcease. “It will not be long now. I think I see the clouds forming.”
“I want to go back to Simití, to Padre Josè, to my home,” wailed the girl. “I don’t understand the ways and the thoughts of these people. They don’t know God––they don’t know what love is––they don’t know anything but money, and clothes, and sin, and death. When I am with them I gasp, I choke––”
“Yes, dearest, I understand,” murmured the woman softly, as she stroked the brown head nestling upon her shoulder. “It is social asphyxia. And many even of the ‘four hundred’ are suffering from the same disease; but they would die rather than admit it. Poor, blind fools!”
To no one could the attraction which had drawn Carmen and the Beaubien together seem stranger, more inexplicable, than to that lone woman herself. Yet it existed, irresistible. And both acknowledged it, nor would have had it otherwise. To Carmen, the Beaubien was a sympathetic confidante and a wise counselor. The girl knew nothing of the woman’s past or present life. She tried to see in her only the reality which she sought in every individual––the reality which she felt that Jesus must have seen clearly back of every frail mortal concept of humanity. And in doing this, who knows?––she may have transformed the sordid, soiled woman of the world into130something more than a broken semblance of the image of God. To the Beaubien, this rare child, the symbol of love, of purity, had become a divine talisman, touching a dead soul into a sense of life before unknown. If Carmen leaned upon her, she, on the other hand, bent daily closer to the beautiful girl; opened her slowly warming heart daily wider to her; twined her lonely arms daily closer about the radiant creature who had come so unexpectedly into her empty, sinful life.
“But, mother dear”––the Beaubien had long since begged Carmen always to address her thus when they were sharing alone these hours of confidence––“they will not listen to my message! They laugh and jest about real things!”
“True, dearie. And yet you tell me that the Bible says wise men laughed at the great teacher, Jesus.”
“Oh, yes! And his message––oh, mother dearest, his message would have helped them so, if they had only accepted it! It would have changed their lives, healed their diseases, and saved them from death. And my message”––her lip quivered––“my message is only his––it is the message of love. But they won’t let me tell it.”
“Then, sweet, live it. They can not prevent that, can they?”
“I do live it. But––I am so out of place among them. They scoff at real things. They mock all that is noble. Their talk is so coarse, so low and degraded. They have no culture. They worship money. They don’t know what miserable failures they all are. And Mrs. Hawley-Crowles––”
The Beaubien’s jaw set. “The social cormorant!” she muttered.
“––she will not let me speak of God in her house. She told me to keep my views to myself and never voice them to her friends. And she says I must marry either a millionaire or a foreign noble.”
“Humph! And become a snobbish expatriate! Marry a decadent count, and then shake the dust of this democratic country from your feet forever! Go to London or Paris or Vienna, and wear tiaras and coronets, and speak of disgraceful, boorish America in hushed whispers! The empty-headed fool! She forgets that the tarnished name she bears was dragged up out of the ruck of the impecunious by me when I received Jim Crowles into my house! And that I gave him what little gloss he was able to take on!”
“Mother dear––I would leave them––only, they need love, oh, so much!”
The Beaubien strained her to her bosom. “They need you, dearie; they little realize how they need you! I, myself, did not know until you came to me. There, I didn’t mean to let131those tears get away from me.” She laughed softly as Carmen looked up anxiously into her face. “Now come,” she went on brightly, “we must plan for the Charity Ball.”
A look of pain swept over the girl’s face. The Beaubien bent and kissed her. “Wait, dearie,” she repeated. “You will not leave society voluntarily. Keep your light burning. They can not extinguish it. They will light their own lamps at yours––or they will thrust you from their doors. And then,” she muttered, as her teeth snapped together, “you will come to me.”
Close on the heels of the opera season followed the Charity Ball, the Horse Show, and the Fashion Show in rapid succession, with numberless receptions, formal parties, and nondescript social junketings interspersed. During these fleeting hours of splash and glitter Mrs. Hawley-Crowles trod the air with the sang-froid and exhilaration of an expert aviator. Backed by the Beaubien millions, and with the wonderful South American girl always at her right hand, the worldly ambitious woman swept everything before her, cut a social swath far wider than the glowering Mrs. Ames had ever attempted, and marched straight to the goal of social leadership, almost without interference. She had apparently achieved other successes, too, of the first importance. She had secured the assistance of Ames himself in matters pertaining to her finances; and the Beaubien was actively coöperating with her in the social advancement of Carmen. It is true, she gasped whenever her thought wandered to her notes which the Beaubien held, notes which demanded every penny of her principal as collateral. And she often meditated very soberly over the large sums which she had put into the purchase of Simití stock, at the whispered suggestions of Ames, and under the irresistibly pious and persuasive eloquence of Philip O. Ketchim, now president of that flourishing but as yet non-productive company. But then, one day, an idea occurred to her, and she forthwith summoned Carmen into the library.
“You see, my dear,” she said, after expounding to the girl certain of her thoughts anent the famous mine, “I do not want Mr. Ketchim to have any claim upon you for the expense which he incurred on account of your six months in the Elwin school. That thought, as well as others relating to your complete protection, makes it seem advisable that you transfer to me your share in the mine, or in the Simití company. See, I give you a receipt for the same, showing that you have done this as part payment for the great expense to which I have been put in introducing you to society and in providing for your wants here. It is merely formal, of course. And it keeps your share132still in our family, of which you are and always will be a member; but yet removes all liability from you. Of course, you know nothing about business matters, and so you must trust me implicitly. Which I am sure you do, in view of what I have done for you, don’t you, dear?”
Of course Carmen did; and of course she unhesitatingly transferred her claim on La Libertad to the worthy Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. Whereupon the good woman tenderly kissed the innocent child, and clasped a string of rich pearls about the slender, white neck. And Carmen later told the Beaubien, who said nothing, but frowned darkly as she repeated the tidings over her private wire to J. Wilton Ames. But that priest of finance only chuckled and exclaimed: “Excellent, my dear! Couldn’t be better! By the way, I had a cable from Lafelle this morning, from Cartagena. Oh, yes, everything’s all right. Good-bye.” But the Beaubien hung up the receiver with a presentiment that everything was far from right, despite his bland assurance. And she regretted bitterly now that she had not warned Carmen against this very thing.
The Charity Ball that season was doubtless the most brilliant function of its kind ever held among a people who deny the impossible. The newspapers had long vied with one another in their advertisements and predictions; they afterward strove mightily to outdo themselves in their vivid descriptions of the gorgeousfête. The decorative effects far excelled anything ever attempted in the name of “practical” charity. The display of gowns had never before been even closely approximated. The scintillations from jewels whose value mounted into millions was like the continuous flash of the electric spark. And the huge assemblage embraced the very cream of the nobility, the aristocracy, the rich and exclusive caste of a great people whose Constitution is founded on the equality of men, and who are wont to gather thus annually for a few hours to parade their material vestments and divert their dispirited mentalities under the guise of benefaction to a class for whom they rarely hold a loving thought.
Again the subtle Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had planned and executed acoup. Mrs. Ames had subscribed the munificent sum of twenty-five thousand dollars to charity a week before the ball. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had waited for this. Then she gloated as she telephoned to the various newspaper offices that her subscription would be fifty thousand. Did she give a new note to the Beaubien for this amount? That she did––and she obtained the money on the condition that the little Inca princess should lead the grand march. Of course, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles knew that she must gracefully yield first place133to the South American girl; and yet she contrived to score a triumph in apparent defeat. For, stung beyond endurance, Mrs. Ames and her daughter Kathleen at the last moment refused to attend the function, alleging fatigue from a season unusually exacting. The wily Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had previously secured the languid young Duke of Altern as a partner for Carmen––and then was most agreeably thwarted by Ames himself, who, learning that his wife and daughter would not attend, abruptly announced that he himself would lead the march with Carmen.
Why not? Was it not quite proper that the city’s leading man of finance should, in the absence of his wife and daughter, and with their full and gratuitous permission––nay, at their urgent request, so it was told––lead with this fair young damsel, this tropical flower, who, as rumor had it, was doubtless a descendant of the royal dwellers in ancient Cuzco?
“Quite proper,O tempora, O mores!” murmured one Amos A. Hitt, erstwhile Presbyterian divine, explorer, and gentleman of leisure, as he settled back in his armchair in the fashionable Weltmore apartments and exhaled a long stream of tobacco smoke through his wide nostrils. “And, if I can procure a ticket, I shall give myself the pleasure of witnessing this sacred spectacle, produced under the deceptive mask of charity,” he added.
In vain the Beaubien labored with Ames when she learned of his intention––though she said nothing to Carmen. Ames had yielded to her previously expressed wish that he refrain from calling at the Hawley-Crowles mansion, or attempting to force his attentions upon the young girl. But in this matter he remained characteristically obdurate. And thereby a little rift was started. For the angry Beaubien, striving to shield the innocent girl, had vented her abundant wrath upon the affable Ames, and had concluded her denunciation with a hint of possible exposure of certain dark facts of which she was sole custodian. Ames smiled, bowed, and courteously kissed her hand, as he left her stormy presence; but he did not yield. And Carmen went to the Ball.
Through the perfumed air and the garish light tore the crashing notes of the great band. The loud hum of voices ceased, and all eyes turned to the leaders of the grand march, as they stepped forth at one end of the great auditorium. Then an involuntary murmur arose from the multitude––a murmur of admiration, of astonishment, of envy. The gigantic form of Ames stood like a towering pillar, the embodiment of potential force, the epitome of human power, physical and mental. His massive shoulders were thrown back as if in haughty defiance134of comment, critical or commendatory. The smile which flitted about his strong, clean-shaven face bespoke the same caution as the gentle uplifting of a tiger’s paw––behind it lay all that was humanly terrible, cunning, heartless, and yet, in a sense, fascinating. His thick, brown hair, scarcely touched with gray, lay about his great head like a lion’s mane. He raised a hand and gently pushed it back over the lofty brow. Then he bent and offered an arm to the slender wisp of a girl at his side.
“Good God!” murmured a tall, angular man in the crowd. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know, Hitt,” replied the friend addressed. “But they say she belongs to the Inca race.”
The graceful girl moving by the side of her giant escort seemed like a slender ray of light, a radiant, elfish form, transparent, intangible, gliding softly along with a huge, black shadow. She was simply clad, all in white. About her neck hung a string of pearls, and at her waist she wore the rare orchids which Ames had sent her that afternoon. But no one saw her dress. No one marked the pure simplicity of her attire. The absence of sparkling jewels and resplendent raiment evoked no comment. The multitude saw but her wonderful face; her big eyes, uplifted in trustful innocence to the massive form at her side; her rich brown hair, which glittered like string-gold in the strong light that fell in torrents upon it.
“Hitt, she isn’t human! There’s a nimbus about her head!”
“I could almost believe it,” whispered that gentleman, straining his long neck as she passed before him. “God! has she fallen into Ames’s net?”
Immediately behind Carmen and Ames strode the enraptured Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who saw not, neither heard, and who longed for no further taste of heaven than this stupendous triumph which she had won for herself and the girl. Her heavy, unshapely form was squeezed into a marvelous costume of gold brocade. A double ballet ruffle of stiff white tulle encircled it about the hips as a drapery. The bodice was of heavy gold net. A pleated band of pale moire, in a delicate shade of pink, crossed the left shoulder and was caught at the waist in a large rose bow, ambassadorial style. A double necklace of diamonds, one bearing a great pendant of emeralds, and the other an alternation of emeralds and diamonds, encircled her short, thick neck. A diamond coronet fitted well around her wonderful amber-colored wig––for, true to her determination, she had anticipated the nowpasséeMrs. Ames and had boldly launched the innovation of colored wigs among the smart set. An ivory, hand-painted fan, of great value, dangled from her thick wrist. And, as she lifted her skirts to an unnecessary135height, the gaping people caught the glitter of a row of diamonds in each high, gilded heel.
At her side the young Duke of Altern shuffled, his long, thin body curved like a kangaroo, and his monocle bent superciliously upon the mass of common clay about him. “Aw, beastly crush, ye know,” he murmured from time to time to the unhearing dame at his right. And then, as she replied not, he fell to wondering if she fully realized who he was.
Around and across the great hall the gorgeous pageant swept. The big-mouthed horns bellowed forth their noisy harmony. In the distant corridors great illuminated fountains softly plashed. At the tables beyond, sedulous, touting waiters were hurriedly extracting corks from frosted bottle necks. The rare porcelain and cut glass shone and glittered in rainbow tints. The revelers waxed increasingly merry and care-free as they lightly discussed poverty over rich viands and sparkling Burgundy. Still further beyond, the massive oak doors, with their leaded-glass panes, shut out the dark night and the bitter blasts of winter. And they shut out, too, another, but none the less unreal, externalization of the mortal thought which has found expression in a social system “too wicked for a smile.”
“God, no––I’d get arrested! I can’t!”
The frail, hungry woman who stood before the great doors clutched her wretched shawl closer about her thin shoulders. Her teeth chattered as she stood shivering in the chill wind. Then she hurried away.
At the corner of the building the cold blast almost swept her off her feet. A man, dirty and unkempt, who had been waiting in an alley, ran out and seized her.
“I say, Jude, ain’t ye goin’ in? Git arrested––ye’d spend the night in a warm cell, an’ that’s better’n our bunk, ain’t it?”
“I’m goin’ to French Lucy’s,” the woman whispered hoarsely. “I’m dead beat!”
“Huh! Ye’ve lost yer looks, Jude, an’ ol’ Lucy ain’t a-goin’ to take ye in. We gotta snipe somepin quick––or starve! Look, we’ll go down to Mike’s place, an’ then come back here when it’s out, and ye kin pinch a string, or somepin, eh? Gawd, it’s cold!”
The woman glanced back at the lights. For a moment she stood listening to the music from within. A sob shook her, and she began to cough violently. The man took her arm, not unkindly; and together they moved away into the night.
“Well, little girl, at last we are alone. Now we can exchange confidences.” It was Ames talking. He had, late in136the evening, secured seats well hidden behind a mass of palms, and thither had led Carmen. “What do you think of it all? Quite a show, eh? Ever see anything like this in Simití?”
Carmen looked up at him. She thought him wonderfully handsome. She was glad to get away for a moment from the crowd, from the confusion, and from the unwelcome attentions of the now thoroughly smitten young Duke of Altern.
“No,” she finally made answer, “I didn’t know there were such things in the world.”
Ames laughed pleasantly. How refreshing was this ingenuous girl! And what a discovery for him! A new toy––one that would last a long time. But he must be careful of her.
“Yes,” he went on genially, “I’ll wager there’s millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry here to-night.”
“Oh!” gasped Carmen. “And are the people going to sell it and give the money to the poor?”
“Sell it! Ha! ha! Well, I should say not!”
“But––this is a––a charity––”
“Oh, I see. Quite so. No, it’s the money derived from the sale of tickets that goes to the poor.”
“And how much is that?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“But––aren’t you interested in the poor?”
“Of course, of course,” he hastened to assure her, in his easy casual tone.
For a long time the girl sat reflecting, while he studied her, speculating eagerly on her next remark. Then it came abruptly:
“Mr. Ames, I have thought a great deal about it, and I think you people by your charity, such as this, only make more charity necessary. Why don’t you do away with poverty altogether?”
“Do away with it? Well, that’s quite impossible, you know. ‘The poor ye have always with you’, eh? You see, I know my Bible.”
She threw him a glance of astonishment. He was mocking her! She was deeply serious, for charity to her meant love, and love was all in all.
“No,” she finally replied, shaking her head, “you donotknow your Bible. It is the poor thought that you have always with you, the thought of separation from good. And that thought becomes manifested outwardly in what is called poverty.”
He regarded her quizzically, while a smile played about his mouth.
“Why don’t you get at the very root of the trouble, and destroy137the poverty-thought, the thought that there can be any separation from God, who is infinite good?” she continued earnestly.
“Well, my dear girl, as for me, I don’t know anything about God. As for you, well, you are very innocent in worldly matters. Poverty, like death, is inevitable, you know.”
“You are mistaken,” she said simply. “Neither is inevitable.”
“Well, well,” he returned brightly, “that’s good news! Then there is no such thing as ‘the survival of the fittest,’ and the weak needn’t necessarily sink, eh?”
She looked him squarely in the eyes. “Do you consider, Mr. Ames, that you have survived as one of the fittest?”
“H’m! Well, now––what would you say about that?”
“I should say decidedly no,” was the blunt reply.
A dark shade crossed his face, and he bit his lip. People did not generally talk thus to him. And yet––this wisp of a girl! Pshaw! She was very amusing. And, heavens above! how beautiful, as she sat there beside him, her head erect, and her face delicately flushed. He reached over and took her hand. Instantly she drew it away.
“You are the kind,” she went on, “who give money to the poor, and then take it away from them again. All the money which these rich people here to-night are giving to charity has been wrested from the poor. And you give only a part of it back to them, at that. This Ball is just a show, a show of dress and jewels. Why, it only sets an example which makes others unhappy, envious, and discontented. Don’t you see that? You ought to.”
“My dear little girl,” he said in a patronizing tone, “don’t you think you are assuming a great deal? I’m sure I’m not half so bad as you paint me.”
Carmen smiled. “Well, the money you give away has got to come from some source, hasn’t it? And you manipulate the stock market and put through wheat corners and all that, and catch the poor people and take their money from them! Charity is love. But your idea of charity makes me pity you. Up here I find a man can pile up hundreds of millions by stifling competition, by debauching legislatures, by piracy and legalized theft, and then give a tenth of it to found a university, and so atone for his crimes. That is called charity. Oh, I know a lot about such things! I’ve been studying and thinking a great deal since I came to the United States.”
“Have you come with a mission?” he bantered. And there was a touch of aspersion in his voice.
“I’ve come with a message,” she replied eagerly.