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“Say!” exclaimed the doctor, again sitting back and regarding her with amazement. “You have a marvelous memory for data!”
“But, Doctor, I am intensely interested in my fellow-men. I want to help them, and show them how to learn to live.”
“So am I,” he returned. “And I am doing all I can, the very best I know how to do.”
“I guess you mean you are doing what you are prompted to do by every vagrant impulse that happens to stray into your mentality, aren’t you?” she said archly. “You haven’t really seriously thought out your way, else you would not be here now urging Congress to spread a blanket of ignorance over the human mind. If you will reflect seriously, if you will lay aside monetary considerations, and a little of the hoary prejudice of the ages, and will carefully investigate our present medical systems, you will find a large number of schools of medicine, bitterly antagonistic to one another, and each accusing the other of inferiority as an exact science, and as grossly ignorant and reprehensibly careless of life. But which of these warring schools can show the greatest number of cures is a bit of data that has never been ascertained. A recent writer says: ‘As important as we all realize health to be, the public is receiving treatment that is anything but scientific, and the amount of unnecessary suffering that is going on in the world is certainly enough to make a rock shed tears.’ He further says that, ‘at least seventy-five per cent of the people we meet who are apparently well, are suffering from some chronic ailment that regular medical systems can not cure,’ and that many of these would try further experimentation were it not for the criticism that is going on in the medical world regarding various curative systems. The only hope under the drugging system is that the patient’s life and purse may hold out under the strain of trying everything until he can light upon the right thing before he reaches the end of the list.”
“And do you include surgery in your general criticism?” he asked.
“Surgery is no less an outgrowth of the belief of sentient matter than is the drugging system,” she replied. “It is admittedly necessary in the present stage of the world’s thought; but it is likewise admitted to be ‘the very uncertain art of performing operations,’ at least ninety per cent of which are wholly unnecessary.
“You see,” she went on, “the effect upon themoralnature of the sick man is never considered as rightfully having any influence upon the choice of the system to be employed. If Beelzebub can cast out demons, why not employ him? For,182after all, the end to be attained is the ejection of the demon. And if God had not intended minerals and plants to be used as both food and medicine, why did He make them? Besides, man must earn his bread in some way under our present crude and inhuman social system, and if the demand for drugs exists we may be very sure it will be supplied by others, if not by ourselves. Again, the influence of commercialism as a determining factor in the choice of a profession, is an influence that works to keep many in the practice of a profession that they know to be both unscientific and harmful. The result is an inevitable lowering of ideals to the lust of material accumulation.”
“Well!” he exclaimed. “You certainly are hard on us poor doctors! And we have done so much for you, too, despite your accusations. Think of the babies that are now saved from diphtheria alone!”
“And think of the children who are the victims of the medical mania!” she returned. “Think how they are brought up under the tyranny of fear! Fear of this and of that; fear that if they scratch a finger blood poisoning will deprive them of life; fear that eating a bit of this will cause death; or sitting in a breeze will result in wasting sickness! Isn’t it criminal? As for diphtheria antitoxin, it is in the same class as the white of an egg. It contains no chemicals. It is the result of human belief, the belief that a horse that has recovered from diphtheria can never again be poisoned by the microbe of that disease. The microbe, Doctor, is the externalization in the human mentality of the mortal beliefs of fear, of life and power in matter, and of disease and death. The microbe will be subject, therefore, to the human mind’s changing thought regarding it, always.”
“Well then,” said the doctor, “if people are spiritual, and if they really are a consciousness, as you say, why do we seem to be carrying about a body with us all the time––a body from which we are utterly unable to get away?”
“It is because the mortal mind and body are one, Doctor. The body is a lower stratum of the human mind. Hence, the so-called mind is never distinct from its body to the extent of complete separation, but always has its substratum with it. And, Doctor, the mind can not hold a single thought without that thought tending to become externalized––as Professor James tells us––and the externalization generally has to do with the body, for the mind has come to center all its hopes of happiness and pleasure in the body, and to base its sense of life upon it. The body, being a mental concept formed of false thought, passes away, from sheer lack of a definite principle183upon which to rest. Therefore the sense of life embodied in it passes away with it. You know, the ancients had some idea of the cause of disease when they attributed it to demons, for demons at least are mental influences. But then, after that, men began to believe that disease was sent by God, either to punish them for their evil deeds, or to discipline and train them for paradise. Funny, isn’t it? Think of regarding pain and suffering as divine agents! I don’t wonder people die, do you? Humboldt, you know, said: ‘The time will come when it will be considered a disgrace for a man to be sick, when the world will look upon it as a misdemeanor, the result of some vicious thinking.’ Many people seem to think that thought affects only the brain; but the fact is thatwe think all over!”
“But look here,” put in the doctor. “Here’s a question I intended to ask Hitt the other night. He said the five physical senses did not testify truly. Well now, if, as you say, the eyes do not testify to disease, then they can’t testify to cures either, eh?” He sat back with an air of triumph.
“Quite correct,” replied Carmen. “The physical senses testify only to belief. In the case of sickness, they testify to false belief. In the case of a cure, they testify to a changed belief, to a belief of recovered health, that is all. It is all on the basis of human belief, you see.”
“Eh? But––nerves feel––”
“Nerves, Doctor, like all matter, are externalizations of human thought. Can the externalization of thought talk back to thought? No. You are still on the basis of mere human belief.”
At that moment the doctor leaned over and tapped upon the window to attract the attention of some one in the street. Carmen looked out and caught sight of a tall, angular man dressed in clerical garb. The man bowed pleasantly to the doctor, and cast an inquiring glance at the girl, then passed on.
“A priest?” inquired Carmen.
“Yes, Tetham,” said the doctor.
“Oh, is that the man who maintains the lobby here at the Capital for his Church? I’ve heard about him. He––well, it is his business to see that members of his Church are promoted to political office, isn’t it? He trades votes of whole districts to various congressmen in return for offices for strong church members. He also got the parochial schools of New York exempt from compulsory vaccination. The Express––”
“Eh? The Express has heard from him?” inquired the doctor.
“Yes. We opposed the candidate Mr. Ames was supporting for Congress. We also supported Mr. Wales in his work on the cotton schedule. And so we heard from Father Tetham.184He is supporting the National Bureau of Health bill. He is working for the Laetare medal. He––”
“Say, Miss Carmen, will you tell me where you pick up your news? Really, you astonish me! Do you know something about everybody here in Washington?”
She laughed. “I have learned much here,” she said, “about popular government as exemplified by these United States. The knowledge is a little saddening. But it is especially saddening to see our constitutional liberties threatened by this Bureau of Health bill, and by the Government’s constant truckling to the Church of Rome. Doctor, can it be that you want to commit this nation to the business of practicing medicine, and to its practice according to the allopathic, or ‘regular’ school? The American Medical Association, with its reactionary policies and repressive tendencies, is making strenuous endeavors to influence Congress to enact certain measures which would result in the creation of such a Department of Health, the effect of which would be to monopolize the art of healing and to create a ‘healing trust.’ If this calamity should be permitted to come upon the American people, it would fall as a curtain of ignorance and superstition over our fair land, and shut out the light of the dawning Sun of Truth. It would mean a reversion to the blight and mold of the Middle Ages, in many respects a return in a degree to the ignorance and tyranny that stood for so many centuries like an impassable rock in the pathway of human progress. The attempt to foist upon a progressive people a system of medicine and healing which is wholly unscientific and uncertain in its effects, but which is admittedly known to be responsible for the death of millions and for untold suffering and misery, and then to say, ‘Thou shalt be cured thereby, or not be cured at all,’ is an insult to the intelligence of the Fathers of our liberties, and a crime upon a people striving for the light. It smacks of the Holy Inquisition: You accept our creed, or you shall go to hell––after we have broken you on the rack! Why, the thought of subjecting this people to years of further dosing and experimentation along the materialistic lines of the ‘regular’ school, of curtailing their liberties, and forcing their necks under the yoke of medical tyranny, should come to them with the insistence of a clarion call, and startle them into such action that the subtle evil which lurks behind this proposed legislative action would be dragged out into the light and exterminated! To permit commercialism and greed, the lust of mammon, and the pride of the flesh that expresses itself in the demand, ‘Who shall be greatest?’ to dictate the course of conduct that shall shape the destinies of a great people, is to admit the failure of185free government, and to revert to a condition of mind that we had thought long since outgrown. To yield our dear-bought liberties to Italian ecclesiastics, on the other hand––well, Doctor,it is just unthinkable!”
“H’m! Well, at least you are delightfully frank with me. Yet you have the effect of making me feel as if––as if I were in some way behind a veil. That––”
“Well, the human mind is very decidedly behind a veil––indeed, behind many of them. And how can it see God through them? Mankind just grope about all their lives back of these veils, not knowing that God is right before them all the time. God has got to be everything, or else He will be nothing. With or without drugs, it is God ‘who healeth all thy diseases.’ The difficulty with physicians is that they are densely ignorant of what healing means, and so they always start with a dreadful handicap. They believe that there is something real to be overcome––and of course fail to permanently overcome it. Many of them are not only pitiably ignorant, but are in the profession simply to make money out of the fears and credulity of the people. Doctor, the physician of to-day is in no way qualified to handle the question of public health––especially those doctors who say: ‘If you won’t take our medicines we’ll get a law passed that will make you take them.’ To place the health of the people in their hands would be a terrible mistake. The agitation for a federal Department of Health is based upon motives of ignorance and intentional wrong. If the people generally knew this, they would rise in a body against it. Make what laws you wish for yourself, Doctor. The human mind is constantly occupied in the making of ridiculous laws and limitations. But do not attempt to foist your laws upon the people. Tell me, why all this agitation about teaching sex-hygiene in the public schools? Why not, for a change, teach Christianity? What would be the result? But even the Bible has been put out of the schools. And by whom? By your Church, that its interpretation may continue to be falsely made by those utterly and woefully ignorant of its true meaning!”
For some moments they continued their meal in silence. Then the girl took up the conversation again. “Doctor,” she said, “will you come out from among them and be separate?”
He looked at her quizzically. “Oppose Ames?” he finally said.
“Ah, that is the rub, then! Yes, oppose ignorance and falsity, even though incarnate in Mr. Ames,” she replied.
“He would ruin me!” exclaimed the doctor. “He ruins everybody who stands in his way! The cotton schedule has gone against him, and the whole country will have to suffer for it!”
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“But how can he make the country suffer because he has been blocked in his colossal selfishness?” she asked.
“That I can not answer,” said the doctor. “But I do know that he has intimated that there will be no cotton crop in this country next year.”
“No cotton crop! Why, how can he prevent that?”
The doctor shook his head. “Mr. Ames stands as the claim of omnipotent evil,” was his laconic reply.
And when the meal was ended, the girl went her way, pondering deeply. “No cotton crop! What––what did he mean?” But that was something too dark to be reported to the Express.
Three weeks from the day he had his brush with Carmen in the presence of the President, Ames, the great corruptionist, the master manipulator, again returned from a visit to Washington, and in a dangerous frame of mind. What might have been his mental state had he known that the train which drew his private car also brought Carmen back to New York, can only be conjectured. It was fortunate, no doubt, that both were kept in ignorance of that fact, and that, while the great externalization of the human mind’s “claim” of business sulked alone in his luxurious apartments, the little follower after righteousness sat in one of the stuffy day coaches up ahead, holding tired, fretful babies, amusing restless children, and soothing away the long hours to weary, care-worn mothers.
When the financier’s car drew into the station his valets breathed great sighs of relief, and his French chef and negro porter mopped the perspiration from their troubled brows, while silently offering peans of gratitude for safe delivery. When the surly giant descended the car steps his waiting footman drew back in alarm, as he caught his master’s black looks. When he threw himself into the limousine, his chauffeur drew a low whistle and sent a timidly significant glance in the direction of the lackey. And when at last he flung open the doors of his private office and loudly summoned Hood, that capable and generally fearless individual quaked with dire foreboding.
“The Express––I want a libel suit brought against it at once! Draw it for half a million! File it in Judge Penny’s court!”
“Yes, sir,” responded the lawyer meekly. “The grounds?”
“Damn the grounds!” shouted Ames. Then, in a voice trembling with anger: “Have you read the last week’s issues? Then find your grounds in them! Make that girl a defendant too!”
“She has no financial interest in the paper, sir. And, as for187the reports which they have published––I hardly think we can establish a case from them––”
“What? With Judge Penny sitting? If you and he can’t make out a case against them, then I’ll get a judge and a lawyer who can! I want that bill filed to-morrow!” bringing his fist down upon the desk.
“Very well, sir,” assented Hood, stepping back.
“Another thing,” continued Ames, “see Judge Hanson and have the calling of the Ketchim case held in abeyance until I am ready for it. I’ve got a scheme to involve that negro wench in the trial, and drag her through the gutters! So, she’s still in love with Rincón, eh? Well, we’ll put a crimp in that little affair, I guess! Has Willett heard from Wenceslas?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“I’ll lift the scalp from that blackguard Colombian prelate if he tries to trick me! Has Willett found Lafelle’s whereabouts?”
“No, sir. But the detectives report that he has been in Spain recently.”
“Spain! What’s he––up to there?” he exclaimed in a voice that began high and ended in a whisper.
He lapsed into a reflective mood, and for some moments his thoughts seemed to wander far. Then he pulled himself together and roused out of his meditations.
“You told Jayne that I would back the Budget to any extent, provided it would publish the stuff I sent it?”
“Yes, sir. He was very glad to accept your offer.”
“Very well. You and Willett set about at once getting up daily articles attacking the Express. I want you to dig up every move ever made by Hitt, Haynerd, that girl, Waite, Morton, and the whole miserable, sneaking outfit! Rake up every scandal, every fact, or rumor, that is in any way associated with any of them. I want them literally cannonaded by the Budget! Hitt’s a renegade preacher! Haynerd was a bum before he got the Social Era! Waite is an unfrocked priest! Miss Wall’s father was a distiller! That girl––that girl is a––Did you know that she used to be in a brothel down in the red-light district? Well, she did! Great record the publishers of the Express have, eh? Now, by God! I want you and Jayne to bury that whole outfit under a mountain of mud! I’m ready to spend ten millions to do it! Kill ’em! Kill ’em all!”
“I think we can do it, Mr. Ames,” returned the lawyer confidently.
“You’ve got to! Now, another matter: I’m out to get the President’s scalp! He’s got to go down! Begin with those New York papers which we can influence. I’ll get Fallom and188Adams over here for a conference. Meanwhile, think over what we’d better say to them. Our attacks upon the President must begin at once! I’ve already bought up a Washington daily for that purpose. They have a few facts now that will discredit his administration!”
“Very well, Mr. Ames. Ah––a––there is a matter that I must mention as soon as you are ready to hear it, Mr. Ames––regarding Avon. It seems that the reports which that girl has made have been translated into several languages, and are being used by labor agitators down there to stir up trouble. The mill hands, you know, never really understood what your profits were, and––well, they have always been quite ignorant, you know, regarding any details of the business. But now they think they have been enlightened––they think they see how the tariff has benefited you at their expense––and they are extremely bitter against you. That priest, Father Danny, has been doing a lot of talking since the girl was down there.”
“By God!” cried Ames, rising from his chair, then sinking back again.
“You see, Mr. Ames,” the lawyer continued, “the situation is fast becoming acute. The mill hands don’t believe now that you were ever justified in shutting down, or putting them on half time. And, whether you reduce wages or not, they are going to make very radical demands upon you in the near future, unless I am misinformed. These demands include better working conditions, better tenements, shorter hours, and very much higher wages. Also the enforcement of the child labor law, I am sorry to say.”
“They don’t dare!” shouted Ames.
“But, after all, Mr. Ames, you know you have said that it would strengthen your case with Congress if there should be a strike at Avon.”
“But not now! Not now!” cried Ames. “It would ruin everything! I am distinctly out of favor with the President––owing to that little negro wench! And Congress is going against me if I lose Gossitch, Logue, and Mall! That girl has put me in bad down there! Wales is beginning to threaten! By G––”
“But, Mr. Ames, she can be removed, can she not?”
“Violence would still further injure us. But––if we can drive the Express upon the shoals, and then utterly discredit that girl, either in the libel suit or the Ketchim trial, why, then, with a little show of bettering things at Avon, we’ll get what we want. But we’ve got work before us. Say, is––is Sidney with the Express?” he added hesitatingly.
Hood started, and shot a look of mingled surprise and curiosity at his master. Was it possible that Ames––
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“You heard my question, Mr. Hood?”
“I––I beg pardon! Yes, sir––Sidney is still with them. He––a––they say he has quite conquered his––his––”
“You mean, he’s no longer a sot?” Ames asked brutally. “Out with it, man! Don’t sit there like a smirking Chinese god!”
“Well, Mr. Ames, I learn that Sidney has been cured of his habits, and that the––that girl––did it,” stammered the nervous lawyer.
Ames’s mouth jerked open––and then snapped shut. Silence held him. His head slowly sank until his chin touched his breast. And as he sat thus enwrapped, Hood rose and noiselessly left the room.
Alone sat the man of gold––ah, more alone than even he knew. Alone with his bruised ambitions, his hectored egoism, his watery aims. Alone and plotting the ruin of those who had dared bid him halt in his mad, destroying career. Alone, this high priest of the caste of absolutism, of the old individualism which is fast hurrying into the realm of the forgotten. Alone, and facing a new century, with whose ideals his own were utterly, stubbornly, hopelessly discrepant.
Alone he sat, looking out, unmoved, upon the want and pain of countless multitudes gone down beneath the yoke of conditions which he had made too hard for them. Looking, unmoved, unhearing, upon the bitter struggles of the weak, the ignorant, the unskilled, the gross hewers of wood and drawers of water. Looking, and knowing not that in their piteous cry for help and light was sounded his own dire peril.
The door opened, and the office boy announced the chief stenographer of the great bank below. Ames looked up and silently nodded permission for the man to enter.
“Mr. Ames,” the clerk began, “I––I have come to ask a favor––a great favor. I am having difficulty––considerable difficulty in securing stenographers, but––I may say––my greatest struggle is with myself. I––Mr. Ames, I can not––I simply can not continue to hire stenographers at the old wage, nine dollars a week! I know how these girls are forced to live. Mr. Ames, with prices where they are now, they can not live on that! May I not offer them more? Say, ten or twelve dollars to start with?”
Ames looked at him fixedly. “Why do you come to me with your request?” he asked coldly. “Your superior is Mr. Doan.”
“Yes, sir, I know,” replied the young man with hesitation. “But––I––did speak to him about it, and––he refused.”
“I can do nothing, sir,” returned Ames in a voice that chilled the man’s life-current.
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“Then I shall resign, Mr. Ames! I refuse to remain here and hire stenographers at that criminal wage!”
“Very well, sir,” replied Ames in the same low, freezing tone. “Hand your resignation to Mr. Doan. Good day, sir.”
Again the guardian of the sanctity of private property was left alone. Again, as he lapsed into dark revery, his thought turned back upon itself, and began the reconstruction of scenes and events long since shadowy dreams. And always as they built, the fair face of that young girl appeared in the fabric. And always as he retraced his course, her path crossed and crossed again his own. Always as he moved, her reflection fell upon him––not in shadow, but in a flood of light, exposing the secret recesses of his sordid soul.
He dwelt again upon the smoothness of his way in those days, before her advent, when that group of canny pirates sat about the Beaubien’s table and laid their devious snares. It was only the summer before she came that this same jolly company had merged their sacred trust assets to draw the clouds which that autumn burst upon the country as the worst financial panic it had known in years. And so shrewdly had they planned, that the storm came unheralded from a clear sky, and at a time when the nation was never more prosperous.
He laughed. It had been rich fun!
And then, the potato scheme. They had wagered that he could not put it through. How neatly he had turned the trick, filled his pockets, and transformed their doubts into wondering admiration! It had been rare pleasure! Oh, yes, there had been some suffering, he had been told. He had not given that a thought.
And the Colombian revolution! How surprised the people of these United States would be some day to learn that this tropic struggle was in essence an American war! The smug and unthinkingly contented in this great country of ours regarded the frenzied combat in the far South as but a sort ofopéra bouffe. What fools, these Americans! And he, when that war should end, would control navigation on the great Magdalena and Cauca rivers, and acquire a long-term lease on the emerald mines near Bogotá. The price? Untold suffering––countless broken hearts––indescribable, maddening torture––he had not given that a thought.
He laughed again.
But he was tired, very tired. His trip to Washington had been exhausting. He had not been well of late. His eyes had been bloodshot, and there had been several slight hemorrhages from the nose. His physician had shaken his head gravely, and had admonished him to be careful––
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But why did that girl continue to fascinate him? he wondered. Why now, in all his scheming and plotting, did he always see her before him? Was it only because of her rare physical beauty? If he wrote or read, her portrait lay upon the page; if he glanced up, she stood there facing him. There was never accusation in her look, never malice, nor trace of hate. Nor did she ever threaten. No; but always she smiled––always she looked right into his eyes––always she seemed to say, “You would destroy me, but yet I love you.”
God! What a plucky little fighter she was! And she fought him fairly. Aye, much more so than he did her. She would scorn the use of his methods. He had to admitthat, though he hated her, detested her, would have torn her into shreds––even while he acknowledged that he admired her, yes, beyond all others, for her wonderful bravery and her loyal stand for what she considered the right.
He must have dozed while he sat there in the warm office alone. Surely, that hideous object now floating before his straining gaze, that thing resembling the poor, shattered Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, was not real! It was but a shadow, a flimsy thing of thought! And that woestricken thing there, with its tenuous arms extended toward him––was that Gannette? Heavens, no! Gannette had died, stark mad! But, that other shade––so like his wife, a few months dead, yet alive again! Whence came that look of horror in a face once so haughty! It was unreal, ghastly unreal, as it drifted past! Ah, now he knew that he was dreaming, for there, there in the light stood Carmen! Oh, what a blessed relief to see that fair image there among those other ghastly sights! He would speak to her––
But––God above!What was that?A woman––no, not Carmen––fair and––
Her white lips moved––they were transparent––he could see right through them––and great tears dropped from her bloodless cheeks when her accusing look fell upon him!
Slowly she floated nearer––she stopped before him, and laid a hand upon his shoulder––it was cold, cold as ice! He tried to call out––to rise––to break away––
And then, groaning aloud, and with his brow dripping perspiration, he awoke.
Hood entered, but stopped short when he saw his master’s white face. “Mr. Ames! You are ill!” he cried.
Ames passed a hand across his wet forehead. “A––a little tired, that’s all, I guess. What now?”
The lawyer laid a large envelope upon the desk. “It has come,” he said. “There’s a delegation of Avon mill hands in the outer office. Here are their demands. It’s just what I thought.”
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Ames slowly took up the envelope. For a moment he hesitated. Again he seemed to see that smiling girl before him. His jaw set, and his face drew slowly down into an expression of malignity. Then, without examining its contents, he tore the envelope into shreds, and cast the pieces into the waste basket.
“Put them out of the office!” he commanded sharply. “Wire Pillette at once to discharge these fellows, and every one else concerned in the agitation! If those rats down there want to fight, they’ll find me ready!”
CHAPTER 14
The immense frame of J. Wilton Ames bent slightly, and the great legs might have been seen to drag a bit, as the man entered his private elevator the morning after his rejection of the mill hands’ demands, and turned the lever that caused the lift to soar lightly to his office above. And a mouse––had the immaculate condition of his luxurioussanctumpermitted such an alien dweller––could have seen him sink heavily into his great desk chair, and lapse into deep thought. Hood, Willett, and Hodson entered in turn; but the magnate gave them scant consideration, and at length waved them all away, and bent anew to his meditations.
Truth to tell––though he would not have owned it––the man was now dimly conscious of a new force at work upon him; of a change, slowly, subtly taking place somewhere deep within. He was feebly cognizant of emotions quite unknown; of unfamiliar sentiments, whose outlines were but just crystallizing out from the thick magma of his materialistic soul.
And he fought them; he hated them; they made him appear unto himself weak, even effeminate! His abhorrence of sentimentalism had been among the strongest of his life-characteristics; and yet, though he could not define it, a mellowing something seemed to be acting upon him that dull, bitterly cold winter morning, that shed a soft glow throughout his mental chambers, that seemed to touch gently the hard, rugged things of thought that lay within, and soften away their sharp outlines. He might not know what lay so heavily upon his thought, as he sat there alone, with his head sunk upon his breast. And yet the girl who haunted his dreams would have told him that it was an interrogation, even the eternal question, “What shall it profit a man––?”
Suddenly he looked up. The door had opened, he thought. Then he sat bolt upright and stared.
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“Good morning, Mr. Ames. May I come in?”
Come in! Had ever such heavenly music touched his ears before! This was not another dream! The vision this time was real! He sprang to his feet. He would have held out his arms to her if he could.
And yet, how dared she come to him? How dared she, after what she had done? Was this fresh affrontery? Had she come again to flout him? To stand within the protection which her sex afforded and vivisect anew his tired soul? But, whatever her motives, this girl did the most daring things he had ever seen a woman do.
“Isn’t it funny,” she said, as she stood before him with a whimsical little smile, “that wherever I go people so seldom ask me to sit down!”
Ames sank back into his seat without speaking. Carmen stood for a moment looking about her rich environment; then drew up a chair close to him.
“You haven’t the slightest idea why I have come here, have you?” she said sweetly, looking up into his face.
“I must confess myself quite ignorant of the cause of this unexpected pleasure,” he returned guardedly, bending his head in mock deference, while the great wonder retained possession of him.
“Well,” she went on lightly, “will you believe me when I tell you that I have come here because I love you?”
Aha! A dark suspicion sprang up within him. So this was an attack from a different quarter! Hitt and Haynerd had invoked her feminine wiles, eh?
Nonsense! With one blow the unfamiliar sentiment which had been shedding its influence upon him that morning laid the ugly suspicion dead at his feet. A single glance into that sweet face turned so lovingly up to his brought his own deep curse upon himself for his hellish thought.
“You know,” she bubbled, with a return of her wonted airy gaiety, “I just had to run the gauntlet through guards and clerks and office boys to get here. Aren’t you glad I didn’t send in my card? For then you would have refused to see me, wouldn’t you?”
“I would not!” he replied harshly. Then he repented his tone. “If I had known you were out there,” he said more gently, “I’d have sent out and had you dragged in. I––I have wanted something this morning; and now I am sure it was––”
“Yes,” she interrupted, taking the words out of his mouth, “you wantedme. I knew you would. You see, it’s just absolutely impossible to oppose anybody who loves you. You know, that’s the very method Jesus gave for overcoming our enemies––to194love them, just love them to pieces, until we find that we haven’t any enemies at all any more. Isn’t it simple? My! Well, that’s the way I’ve been doing with you––just loving you.”
The man’s brows knotted, and his lips tightened. Was this girl ridiculing him? Or was there aught but the deepest sincerity expressed in the face from which he could not take his eyes? Impossible! And yet, did ever human being talk so strangely, so weirdly, as she?
He bent a little closer to her. “Did you say that you loved me?” he asked. “I thought you looked upon me as a human monster.” After all, there was a note of pathos in the question. Carmen laid her hand upon his.
“It’s therealyou that I love,” she answered gently. “The monster is only human thought––the thought that has seemed to mesmerize you. But you are going to throw off the mesmerism, aren’t you? I’ll help you,” she added brightly. “You’re going to put off the ‘old man’ completely––and you’re going to begin by opening yourself and letting in a little love for those poor people down at Avon, aren’t you? Yes, you are!”
At the mention of the people of Avon his face became stern and dark. And yet she spoke of them alone. She had not mentioned the Beaubien, Miss Wall, the Express, nor herself. He noted this, and wondered.
“You see, you don’t understand, Mr. Ames. You’ll be, oh, so surprised some day when you learn a little about the laws of thought––even the way human thought operates! For you can’t possibly do another person an injury without that injury flying back and striking you. It’s a regular boomerang! You may not feel the effects of its return right away––but it does return, and the effects accumulate. And then, some day, when you least expect it, comes the crash! But, when you love a person, why, that comes back to you too; and it never comes alone. It just brings loads of good with it. It helps you, and everybody. Oh, Mr. Ames,” she cried, suddenly rising and seizing both his hands, “you’ve justgotto love those people down there! You can’t help it, even if you think you can, for hate is not real––it’s an awful delusion!”
It was not so much an appeal which the girl made as an affirmation of things true and yet to come. The mightyThou shalt not!which Moses laid upon his people, when transfused by the omnipotent love of the Christ was transformed from a clanking chain into a silken cord. The restriction became a prophecy; for when thou hast yielded self to the benign influence of the Christ-principle, then, indeed, thou shalt not desire to break the law of God.
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Carmen returned to her chair, and sat eagerly expectant. Ames groped within his thought for a reply. And then his mental grasp closed upon the words of Hood.
“They are very bitter against me––they hate me!” he retorted lamely.
“Ah, yes,” she said quickly. “They reflect in kind your thought of them. Your boomerangs of greed, of exploitation, of utter indifference which you have hurled at them, have returned upon you in hatred. Do you know that hatred is a fearful poison? And do you know that another’s hatred resting upon you is deadly, unless you know how to meet and neutralize it with love? For love is the neutralizing alkaloid.”
“Love is––weakness,” he said in a low tone. “That kind, at least.”
“Love weakness! Oh! Why, there is no such mighty power in the whole universe as love! It is omnipotent! It is hatred that is weak!”
Ames made a little gesture of contempt. “We argue from different standpoints,” he said. “I am a plain, matter-of-fact, cold-blooded business man. There is no love in business!”
“And that,” she replied in a voice tinged with sadness, “is why business is such chaos; why there is so much failure, so much anxiety, fear, loss, and unhappiness in the business world. Mr. Ames, you haven’t the slightest conception of real business, have you?”
She sat for a moment in thought. Then, brightly, “I am in business, Mr. Ames––?”
“Humph! I am forced to agree with you there! The business of attempting to annihilate me!”
“I am in the business of reflecting good to you, and to all mankind,” she gently corrected.
“Then suppose you manifest your love for me by refraining from meddling further in my affairs. Suppose from now on you let me alone.”
“Why––I am not meddling with you, Mr. Ames!”
“No?” He opened a drawer of the desk and took out several copies of the Express. “I am to consider that this is not strictly meddling, eh?” he continued, as he laid the papers before her.
“No, not at all,” she promptly replied. “That’s uncovering evil, so’s it can be destroyed. All that evil, calling itself you and your business, has got to come to the surface––has got to come up to the light, so that it can be––”
“Ah! I see. Then I, the monster, must be exposed, eh? And afterward destroyed. A very pretty little idea! And the mines and mills which I own––”
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“You own nothing, Mr. Ames, except by consent of the people whom you oppress. They will wake up some day; and then state and national ownership of public utilities will come, forced by such as you.”
“And that desideratum will result in making everybody honest, I suppose?”
“No,” she answered gravely. “We must go deeper than that. All our present troubles, whether domestic, business, civic, or social, come from a total misapprehension of the nature of God––a misunderstanding of what is reallygood. We haveallgot to prove Him. And we are very foolish to lose any more time setting about it, don’t you think so?
“You see,” she went on, while he sat studying her, “those poor people down at Avon don’t know any more about what is the real good than you do. And that’s why their thoughts and yours center upon the false pleasures of this ephemeral existence called life––this existence of the so-called physical senses––and why you both become the tools of vice, disease, and misfortune. They build up such men as you, and then you turn about and crush them. And in the end you are both what the Bible says––poor, deluded fools.”
“Well, I’ll be––”
“Oh, don’t swear!” she pleaded, again seizing his hand and laughing up into his face. But then her smile vanished.
“It’s time you started to prove God,” she said earnestly. “Won’t you begin now––to-day? Haven’t you yet learned that evil is the very stupidest, dullest, most uninteresting thing in the world? It is, really. Won’t you turn from your material endeavors now, and take time to learn to really live? You’ve got plenty of time, you know, for you aren’t obliged to work for a living.”
She was leaning close to him, and her breath touched his cheek. Her soft little hand lay upon his own. And her great, dark eyes looked into his with a light which he knew, despite his perverted thought, came from the unquenchable flame of her selfless love.
Again that unfamiliar sentiment––nay, rather, that sentiment long dormant––stirred within him. Again his worldly concepts, long entrenched, instantly rose to meet and overthrow it. He had not yet learned to analyze the thoughts which crept so silently into his ever-open mentality. To all alike he gave free access. And to those which savored of things earthy he still gave the power to build, with himself as a willing tool.
“You will––help me––to live?” he said. He thought her the most gloriously beautiful object he had ever known, as she sat there before him, so simply gowned, and yet clothed with that which all the gold of Ophir could not have bought.
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“Yes, gladly––oh, so gladly!” Her eyes sparkled with a rush of tears.
“Don’t you think,” he said gently, drawing his chair a little closer to her, “that we have quite misunderstood each other? I am sure we have.”
“Perhaps so,” she answered thoughtfully. “But,” with a happy smile again lighting her features, “we can understand each other now, can’t we?”
“Of course we can! And hasn’t the time come for us to work together, instead of continuing to oppose each other?”
“Yes! yes, indeed!” she cried eagerly.
“I––I have been thinking so ever since I returned yesterday from Washington. I am––I––”
“We need each other, don’t we?” the artless girl exclaimed, as she beamed upon him.
“I am positive of it!” he said with suggestive emphasis. “I can help you––more than you realize––and I want to. I––I’ve been sorry for you, little girl, mighty sorry, ever since that story got abroad about––”
“Oh, never mind that!” she interrupted happily. “We are living in the present, you know.”
“True––and in the future. But things haven’t been right for you. And I want to see them straightened out. And you and I can do it, little one. Madam Beaubien hasn’t been treated right, either. And––”
“There!” she laughed, holding up a warning finger. “We’re going to forget that in the good we’re going to do, aren’t we?”
“Yes, that’s so. And you are going to get a square deal. Now, I’ve got a plan to make everything right. I want to see you in the place that belongs to you. I want to see you happy, and surrounded by all that is rightfully yours. And if you will join me, we will bring that all about. I told you this once before, you may remember.”
He stopped and awaited the effect of his words upon the girl.
“But, Mr. Ames,” she replied, her eyes shining with a great hope, “don’t think about me! It’s the people at Avon that I want to help.”
“We’ll help them, you and I. We’ll make things right all round. And Madam Beaubien shall have no further trouble. Nor shall the Express.”
“Oh, Mr. Ames! Do you really mean it? And––Sidney?”
“Sidney shall come home––”
With a rush the impulsive girl, forgetting all but the apparent success of her mission, threw herself upon him and clasped her arms about his neck. “Oh,” she cried, “it is love that has done all this! And it has won you!”