When Rose-Marie came out into the sunlight of the street she glanced at her watch and saw, with an almost overwhelming surprise, that it was only four o'clock. It was just an hour since she had entered the cavern-like doorway of the tenement. But in that hour she had come, for the first time, against life in the rough. She had seen degeneracy, and poverty, and—she was thinking of the expression in Jim's eyes—a menace that she did not at all understand. She had seen the waste of broken middle age and the pity of blighted childhood. She had seen fear and, if she had stayed a few moments longer, she would have seen downright brutality. Her hand, reaching out, clutched Bennie's hand.
"Dear," she said—and realized, from the startled expression of his eyes, that he had not often been called "Dear,"—"is it always like that, in your home?"
Bennie looked up into her eyes. He seemed, somehow, younger than he had appeared the day before, younger and softer.
"Yes, Miss," he told her, "it's always like that, except when it's worse!"
"And," Rose-Marie was still asking questions, "do your older sister and brother just drift in, at any time, like that? And is your father home in the middle of the day? Don't any of them work?"
Bennie's barriers of shyness had been burned away by the warmth of her friendship. He was in a mood to tell anything.
"Pa, he works sometimes," he said. "An' Ella—she uster work till she had a fight with her boss last week. An' now she says she ain't gotta work no more 'cause there's a feller as will give her everythin' she wants, if she says th' word! An' Jim—I ain't never seen him do nothin', but he always has a awful lot o' money. He must do his workin' at night—after I'm asleep!"
Rose-Marie, her mind working rapidly, realized that Bennie had given revelations of which he did not even dream. Pa—his condition was what she had supposed it to be—but Ella was drifting toward danger-shoals that she had never imagined! Well she knew the conditions under which a girl of Ella's financial status stops working—she had heard many such cases discussed, with an amazing frankness, during her short stay at the Settlement House. And Jim—Jim with his sleek, patent-leather hair, and his rat-like face—Jim did his work at night! Rose-Marie could not suppress the shudder that ran over her. Quickly she changed the subject to the one bright spot in the Volsky family—to Lily.
"Your little sister," she asked Bennie, "has she always been as she is now? Wasn't there ever a time when she could hear, or speak, or see?"
Bennie winked back a suspicion of tears before he answered. Rose-Marie, who found herself almost forgetting the episode of the kitten, liked him better for the tears. "Yes, Miss," he told her, "she was born all healthy, Ma says. But she had a sickness—when she was a baby. An' she ain't been right since!"
They walked the rest of the way in silence—a silence of untold depth. But it was that silent walk, Rose-Marie felt afterward, that cemented the strange affection that had sprung suddenly into flower between them. As they said good-bye, in front of the brownstone stoop of the Settlement House, there was none of the usual restraint that exists between a child and a grown-up. And when Rose-Marie asked Bennie, quite as a matter of course, to come to some of their boys' clubs he assented in a manner as casual as her own.
* * * * *
As she sat down to dinner, that night, Rose-Marie was beaming with happiness and the pride of achievement. The Superintendent, tired after the day's work, noticed her radiance with a wearily sympathetic smile—the Young Doctor, coming in briskly from his round of calls, was aware of her pink cheeks and her sparkling eyes. All at once he realized that Rose-Marie was a distinct addition to the humdrum life of the place; that she was like a sweet old-fashioned garden set down in the gardenless slums. He started to say something of the sort before he remembered that a quarrel lay, starkly, between them.
Rose-Marie, herself, could scarcely have told why she was so bubbling over with gladness. When she left the tenement home of the Volskys she had been exceedingly depressed, when she parted from Bennie at the Settlement House steps she had been ready to cry. But the hours between that parting and dinnertime had brought her a sort of assurance, a sort of joyous bravery. She felt that at last she had found her true vocation, her real place in the sun. The Volsky family presented to her a very genuine challenge.
She glanced, covertly, at the Young Doctor. He was eating soup, and no man is at his best while eating soup. And yet as she watched him, she considered very seriously whether she should tell him of her adventure. His skill might, perhaps, find some way out for Lily, who had not been born a mute, who had come into the world with seeing eyes. Bennie had told her that the child's condition was the result of an illness. Perhaps the Young Doctor might be able to effect at least a partial cure. Perhaps it was selfish of her—utterly, absurdly selfish, to keep the situation to herself.
The Superintendent's voice broke, sharply, into her reverie. It was a pleasant voice, and yet Rose-Marie found herself resenting its questioning tone.
"Did you have a pleasant afternoon, dear?" the Superintendent was asking."I noticed that you were out for a long while, alone!"
"Why, yes," Rose-Marie faltered, as she spoke, and, to her annoyance, she could feel the red wave of a blush creeping up over her face (Rose-Marie had never learned to control her blushes). "Why, yes, I had a very delightful afternoon!"
The Young Doctor, glancing up from his soup, felt a sudden desire to tease. Rose-Marie, with her cheeks all flushed, made a startlingly colourful, extremely young picture.
"You're blushing!" he told her accusingly. "You're blushing!"
Rose-Marie, feeling the blushes creep still higher, knew a rude impulse to slap the Young Doctor. All of her desire to confide in him died away, as suddenly as it had been born. He was the man who had said that the people who lived in poverty are soulless. He would scoff at the Volskys, and at her desire to help them. Worse than that—he might keep her from seeing the Volskys again. And, in keeping her from seeing them, he would also keep her from making Bennie into a real, wholesome boy—he would keep her from showing Ella the dangers of the precipice that she was skirting. Of course, he might help Lily. But, Rose-Marie told herself that perhaps even Lily—golden-haired, angelic little Lily—might seem soulless to him.
"I'm not blushing, Dr. Blanchard," she said shortly, and could have bitten her tongue for saying it.
The Young Doctor laughed with a boyish vigour.
"I thought," he said annoyingly, "that you were a Christian, MissRose-Marie Thompson!"
Rose-Marie felt a tide of quite definite anger rising in her heart.
"I am a Christian!" she retorted.
"Then," the Young Doctor was still laughing, "then you must never, never tell untruths. You are blushing!"
The Superintendent interrupted. It had been her role, lately, to interrupt quarrels between the two who sat on either side of her table.
"Don't tease, Billy Blanchard!" she said, sternly. "If Rose-Marie went anywhere this afternoon, she certainly had a right to. And she also has a right to blush. I'm glad, in these sophisticated days, to see a girl who can blush!"
The Young Doctor was leaning back in his chair, surveying the pair of them with unconcealed amusement.
"How you women do stick together!" he said. "Talk about men being clannish! I believe," he chuckled, "from the way Miss Thompson is blushing, that she's got a very best beau! I believe that she was out with him, this afternoon!"
Rose-Marie, who had always been taught that deceit is wicked, felt a sudden, unexplainable urge to be wicked! She told herself that she hated Dr. Blanchard—she told herself that he was the most unsympathetic of men! His eyes, fixed mirthfully upon her, brought words—that she scarcely meant to say—to her lips.
"Well," she answered slowly and distinctly, "what if I was?"
There was silence for a moment. And then—with something of an effort—the Superintendent spoke.
"I told you," she said, "not to bother Rose-Marie, Doctor. If Rose-Marie was out with a young man I'm sure that she had every right to be. Rose-Marie"—was it possible that her eyes were fixed a shade inquiringly upon the blushing girl—"would have nothing to do with any one who had not been approved by her aunts. And she realizes that she is, in a way, under my care—that I am more or less responsible for her safety and welfare. Rose-Marie is trustworthy, absolutely trustworthy. And she is old enough to take care of herself. You must not bother her, Billy Blanchard!"
It was a long speech for the Superintendent, and it was a kindly one. It was also a speech to invite confidences. But—strangely enough—Rose-Marie could not help feeling that there was a question half concealed in the kindliness of it. She could not help feeling that the Superintendent was just a trifle worried over the prospect of an unknown young man.
It was her time, then, to admit that there was nobody, really—that she had gone out on an adventure by herself, that there had been no "beau." But the consciousness of the Young Doctor's eyes, fixed upon her face, prohibited all speech. She could not tell him about the Volskys—neither could she admit that no young man was interested in her. Every girl wants to seem popular in the eyes of some member of the opposite sex—even though that member may be an unpleasant person—whom she dislikes. And so, with a feeling of utter meanness in her soul—with a real weight of deceit upon her heart—she smiled into the Superintendent's anxious face.
"I do appreciate the way you feel about me," she said softly, "I do, indeed! You may be sure that I won't do anything that either you, or my aunts, would disapprove of!"
After all, she assured herself a trifle uncomfortably, she had in no way told a direct falsehood. They had assumed too much and she had not corrected their assumptions. She said fiercely, in her heart, that she was not to blame if they insisted upon taking things for granted!
As the days crept into weeks, Rose-Marie no longer felt the dull unrest of inaction. She was busy at the Settlement House—her clubs for mothers and young girls, her kindergarten for the little tots, had grown amazingly popular. And at the times when she was not busy at the Settlement House, she had the Volsky family and their many problems to occupy her.
The Volsky family—and their many problems! Rose-Marie would have found it hard to tell which problem was the most important! Of course Lily came first—her infirmities and her sweetness made her the central figure. But the problem of Ella was a more vital one to watch—it was, somehow, more immediate. Rose-Marie had found it hard to reach Ella—except when Lily was the topic of conversation; except when Lily's welfare was to be considered, she stayed silently in the background. But the flashings of her great dark eyes, the quiverings of her too scarlet mouth, were ominous. Rose-Marie could see that the untidiness of the flat, the drunken mutterings of Pa, and her mother's carelessness and dirt had strained Ella's resistance to the breaking point. Some day there would be a crash and, upon that day Ella would disappear like a gorgeous butterfly that drifts across the road, and out of sight. Rose-Marie was hoping to push that day into the background—to make it only a dim uncertainty rather than the sword of Damocles that it was. But she could only hope.
Bennie, too, was a problem. But it was Bennie who cheered Rose-Marie when she felt that her efforts in behalf of Ella were failing. For Bennie's brain was the fertile ground in which she could plant ideals, and dreams. Bennie was young enough to change, and easily. He got into the way of waiting for her, after his school had been dismissed, in the little park. And there, seated close together on an iron bench, they would talk; and Rose-Marie would tell endless stories. Most of the stories were about knights who rode upon gallant quests, and about old-time courtesy, and about wonderful animals. But sometimes she told him of her home in the country—of apple trees in bloom, and frail arbutus hiding under the snow. She told him of coasting parties, and bonfires, and trees to climb. And he listened, star-eyed and adoring. They made a pretty picture together—the slim, rosy-cheeked girl and the ragged little boy, with the pale, city sunshine falling, like a mist, all about them.
Lily and Ella and Bennie—Rose-Marie loved them, all three. But Jim Volsky was the unsolvable problem—the one that she tried to push to the back of her mind, to avoid. Mrs. Volsky and Pa she gave up as nearly hopeless—she kept, as much as possible, out of Pa's way, and Mrs. Volsky could only be helped in the attaining of creature comforts—her spirit seemed dead! But Jim insisted upon intruding upon her moments in the flat; he monopolized conversations, and asked impertinent questions, and stared. More than once he had offered to "walk her home" as she was leaving; more than once he had thrust himself menacingly across her path. But she had managed, neatly, to avoid him.
Rose-Marie was afraid of Jim. She admitted it to herself—she even admitted, at times, that the Young Doctor might be of assistance if any emergency should arise out of Jim's sleek persistence. She had noticed, from the first, that the doctor was an impressive man among men—she had seen the encouraging swell of muscles through the warm tweed of his coat sleeve. But to have asked his help in the controlling of Jim would have been an admission of deceit, of weakness, of failure! To prove her own theory that the people were real, underneath—to prove that they had some sort of a code, and worth-while impulses—she had to make the reformation of the Volsky family her own, individual task.
Yes—Rose-Marie was busy. Almost she hated to give up moments of her time to the letters she had to write home—to the sewing that she had to do. She made few friends among the teachers and visitors who thronged the Settlement House by day—she was far too tired, when night came, to meet with the Young Doctor and the Superintendent in the cosy little living-room. But often when her activities lasted well along into the evening, often when her clubs gave sociables or entertainments, she was forced to welcome the Young Doctor (the Superintendent was always welcome); to make room for him beside her own place.
It was during one of these entertainments—her Girls' Sewing Society was giving a party—that she and the Young Doctor had their first real talk. Before the quarrel at the luncheon table they had had little time together; since the quarrel the Young Doctor had seldom been able to corner Rose-Marie. But at the entertainment they were placed, by the hand of circumstance, upon a wooden settee in the back of the room. And there, for the better part of two hours—while Katie Syrop declaimed poetry and Helen Merskovsky played upon the piano, and others recited long and monotonous dialogues—they were forced to stay.
The Young Doctor was in a chastened mood. He applauded heartily whenever a part of the program came to a close; the comments that he made behind his hand were neither sarcastic nor condescending. He praised the work that Rose-Marie had done and then, while she was glowing—almost against her will—from the warmth of that praise, he ventured a remark that had nothing to do with the work.
"When I see you," he told her very seriously, "when I see you, sitting here in one of our gray coloured meeting rooms, I can't help thinking how appropriate your name is. Rose-Marie—there's a flower, isn't there, that's named Rosemary? I like flowery names!"
Rose-Marie laughed, as lightly as she could, to cover a strange feeling of embarrassment.
"Most people don't like them," she said—"flowery names, I mean. I don't myself. I like names like Jane, and Anne, and Nancy. I like names like Phyllis and Sarah. I've always felt that my first name didn't fit my last one. Thompson," she was warming to her subject, "is such a matter-of-fact name. There's no romance in it. But Rose-Marie—"
The Young Doctor interrupted.
"But Rose-Marie," he finished for her, "is teeming with romance! It suggests vague perfumes, and twilight in the country, and gay little lights shining through the dusk. It suggests poetry."
Rose-Marie had folded her hands, softly, in her lap. Her eyes were bent upon them.
"My mother," she said, and her voice was quiet and tender, "loved poetry. I've heard how she used to read it every afternoon, in her garden. She loved perfumes, too, and twilight in the country. My mother was the sort of a woman who would have found the city a bit hard, I think, to live in. Beauty meant such a lot—to her. She gave me my name because she thought, just as you think, that it had a hint of lovely things in it. And, even though I sometimes feel that I'd like a plainer one, I can't be sorry that she gave it to me. For it was a part of her—a gift that was built out of her imagination," all at once she coughed, perhaps to cover the slight tremor in her voice, and then—
"To change the subject," she said, "I'll tell you what Rosemary really is. You said that you thought it was a flower. It's more than a flower," she laughed shakily, "it's a sturdy, evergreeny sort of little shrub. It has a clean fragrance, a trifle like mint. And it bears small blue blossoms. Folk say that it stands for remembrance," suddenly her eyes were down, again, upon her clasped hands. "Let's stop talking about flowers and the country—and mothers—" she said suddenly. Her voice broke upon the last word.
The Young Doctor's understanding glance was on the girl's down-bent face.After a moment he spoke.
"Are you ever sorry that you left the home town, Miss Rose-Marie?" he questioned.
Rose-Marie looked at him, for a moment, to see whether he was serious.And then, as no flicker of mirth stirred his mouth, she answered.
"Sometimes I'm homesick," she said. "Usually after the lights are out, at night. But I'm never sorry!"
The Young Doctor was staring off into space—past the raised platform where the girls of the club were performing.
"I wonder," he said, after a moment, "I wonder if you can imagine what it is to have nothing in the world to be lonesome for, Miss Rose-Marie?"
Rose-Marie felt a quick wave of sympathy toward him.
"My mother and my father are dead, Dr. Blanchard—you know that," she told him, "but my aunts have always been splendid," she added honestly, "and I have any number of friends! No, I've never felt at all alone!"
The Young Doctor was silent for a moment. And then—
"It isn't an alone feeling that I mean," he told her, "not exactly! It's rather an empty feeling! Like hunger, almost. You see my father and mother are dead, too. I can't even remember them. And I never had any aunts to be splendid to me. My childhood—even my babyhood—was spent in an orphan asylum with a firm-fisted matron who punished me; with nobody to give me the love I needed. I came out of it a hard man—at fourteen. I—" he broke off, suddenly, and then—
"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," he said; "you wouldn't be in the least interested in my school days—they were pretty drab! And you wouldn't be interested in the scholarship that gave me my profession. For," his tone changed slightly, "you aren't even interested in the result—not enough to try to understand my point of view, when I attempt to tell you, frankly, just what I think of the people down here—barring girls like these," he pointed to the stage, "and a few others who are working hard to make good! You act, when I say that they're like animals, as if I'm giving you a personal insult! You think, when I suggest that you don't go, promiscuously, into dirty tenements, that I'm trying to curb your ambition—to spoil your chances of doing good! But I'm not, really. I'm only endeavouring, for your own protection, to give you the benefit of my rather bitter experience. I don't want any one so young, and trusting and—yes, beautiful—as you are, to be forced by experience into my point of view. We love having you here, at the Settlement House. But I almost wish that you'd go home—back to the place and the people that you're lonesome for—after the lights are out!"
Rose-Marie, watching the play of expression across his keen dark face, was struck, first of all by his sincerity. It was only after a moment that she began to feel the old resentment creeping back.
"Then," she said at last, very slowly, "then you think that I'm worthless here? It seems to me that I can help the people more, just because I am fresh, and untried, and not in the least bitter! It seems to me that by direct contact with them I may be able to show them the tender, guiding hand of God—as it has always been revealed to me. But you think that I'm worthless!"
There was a burst of loud singing from the raised platform. The girls of the sewing club loved to sing. But neither Rose-Marie nor the Young Doctor was conscious of it.
"No," the Young Doctor answered, also very slowly, "no, I don't think that you are worthless—not at all.-But I'm almost inclined to think that you'rewasted. Go home, child, go home to the little town! Go home before the beautiful colour has worn off the edge of your dreams!"
Again Rose-Marie felt the swift burst of anger that she had felt upon other occasions. Why did he persist in treating her like a child? But her voice was steady as she answered.
"Well," she said, "I'm afraid that I'll have to disappoint you! For I came here with a definite plan to carry out. And I'm going to stay here until I've at least partly made good!"
The Young Doctor was watching her flushed face. He answered almost regretfully.
"Then," he said, "I'm glad that you have a sweetheart—you didn't deny it, you know, the other night! He'll take you away from the slums, I reckon, before very long! He'll take you away before you've been hurt!"
Rose-Marie, looking straight ahead, did not answer. But the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked.
Yes, the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked! But later that night, after the club members had gone home, dizzy with many honours, it was not the weight of deceit that troubled her. As she crept into her narrow little bed she was all at once very sorry for herself; and for a vanished dream! Dr. Blanchard could be so nice—when he wanted to. He could be so understanding, so sympathetic! There on the bench in the rear of the room they had been, for a moment, very close together. She had nearly come back, during their few minutes of really intimate conversation, to her first glowing impression of him. And then he had changed so suddenly—had so abruptly thrust aside the little house of friendship that they had begun to build. "If he would only let me," she told herself, "I could teach him to like the things I like. If he would only understand I could explain just how I feel about people. If he would only give me a chance I could keep him from being so lonely."
Rose-Marie had known few men. The boys of her own town she scarcely regarded as men—they were old playmates, that was all. No one stood out from the other, they were strikingly similar. They had carried her books to school, had shared apples with her, had played escort to prayer-meetings and to parties. But none of them had ever stirred her imagination as the Young Doctor stirred it.
There in the dark Rose-Marie felt herself blushing. Could it be possible that she felt an interest in the Young Doctor, an interest that was more than a casual interest? Could it be possible that she liked a man who showed plainly, upon every possible occasion, that he did not like her? Could it be possible that a person who read sensational stories, who did not believe in the greatness of human nature, who refused to go to church, attracted her?
Of a sudden she had flounced out of bed; had shrugged her slender little body into a shapeless wrapper—the parting gift of a girl friend—from which her small flushed face seemed to grow like some delicate spring blossom. With hurried steps—she might almost have been running away from something—she crossed the room to a small table that served as a combination dresser and writing desk. Brushing aside her modest toilet articles, she reached for a pad of paper and a small business-like fountain pen. Her aunts—she wanted them, all at once, and badly. She wished that she might talk with them—writing seemed so inadequate.
"My dears," she began, "I miss you very much. Often I'm lonely enough to cry. Of course," she added hastily (for they must not worry), "of course, every one is nice to me. I like every one, too. That is, except Dr. Blanchard. I guess I told you about him; he's the resident physician. He's awfully good looking but he's not very pleasant. I never hated any one so—" she paused, for a moment, as a round tear splashed devastatingly down upon the paper.
As Lily pattered across the room, on her soft, almost noiseless little feet, Rose-Marie stopped talking. She had been having one of her rare conversations alone with Mrs. Volsky—a conversation that she had almost schemed for—and yet she stopped. It struck her suddenly as strange that Lily's presence in any place should make such a vast difference—that the child should bring with her a healing silence and a curious tenderness. She had felt, many times before, a slowing up in conversations—she had seen the bitterness drain from Ella's face, the stolidness from Bennie's. She had even seen Pa, half intoxicated, turn and go quietly from a room that Lily was entering. And now, as she watched, she saw a spark leap into the dullness of Mrs. Volsky's eyes.
With a gentle hand she reached out to the child, drew her close. Lily nestled against her side with a slight smile upon her faintly coral lips, with her blue, vacant gaze fixed upon space—or upon something that they could not see! Rose-Marie had often felt that Lily was watching beautiful vistas with those sightless eyes of hers; that she was hearing wonderful sounds, with her useless little ears—sounds that normal people could not hear. But she did not say anything of the sort to Mrs. Volsky—Mrs. Volsky would not have been able to understand. Instead she spoke of something else that had lain, for a long time, upon her mind.
"Has Lily ever received any medical attention?" she asked abruptly.
Mrs. Volsky's face took on lines of blankness. "What say?" she mouthed thickly. "I don' understan'?"
Rose-Marie reconstructed her question.
"Has Lily ever been taken to a doctor?" she asked.
Mrs. Volsky answered more quickly than she usually answered questions.
"When she was first sick, years ago," she told Rose-Marie, "she had a doctor then. He say—no help fer her. Las' year Ella, she took Lily by a free clinic. But the doctors, there, they say Lily never get no better. And if there comes another doctor to our door, now—" she shrugged; and her shrug seemed to indicate the uselessness of all doctors.
Rose-Marie, with suddenly misting eyes, lifted Lily to her knee… "The only times," she said slowly, "when I feel any doubt in my mind of the Divine Plan—are the times when I see little children, who have never done anything at all wicked or wrong, bearing pain and suffering and…" she broke off.
Mrs. Volsky answered, as she almost always answered, with a mechanical question.
"What say?" she murmured dully.
Rose-Marie eyed her over the top of Lily's golden head. After all, she told herself, in the case of Mrs. Volsky she could see the point of Dr. Blanchard's assertion! She had known many animals who apparently were quicker to reason, who apparently had more enthusiasm and ambition, than Mrs. Volsky. She looked at the dingy apron, the unkempt hair, the sagging flesh upon the gray cheeks. And she was conscious suddenly of a feeling of revulsion. She fought it back savagely.
"Christ," she told herself, "never turned away from people because they were dirty, or ugly, or stupid. Christ loved everybody—no matter how low they were. He would have loved Mrs. Volsky."
It was curious how it gave her strength—that reflection—strength to look straight at the woman in front of her, and to smile.
"Why," she asked, and the smile became brighter as she asked it, "why don't you try to fix your hair more neatly, Mrs. Volsky? And why don't you wear fresh aprons, and keep the flat cleaner? Why don't you try to make your children's home more pleasant for them?"
Mrs. Volsky did not resent the suggestion as some other women might have done. Mrs. Volsky had reached the point where she no longer resented even blows.
"I uster try—onct," she said tonelessly, "but it ain't no good, no more. Ella an' Bennie an' Jim don' care. An' Pa—he musses up th' flat whenever he comes inter it. An' Lily can't see how it looks. So what's th' use?"
It was a surprisingly long speech for Mrs. Volsky. And some of it showed a certain reasoning power. Rose-Marie told herself, in all fairness, that if she were Mrs. Volsky—she, too, might be inclined to ask "What's th' use?" She leaned forward, searching desperately in her mind for something to say.
"Do you likeme, Mrs. Volsky?" she questioned at last, "Do you like me?"
The woman nodded, and again the suggestion of a light flamed up in her eyes.
"Sure I like you," she said, "you are good to all of us—an' to Lily."
"Then," Rose-Marie's voice was quivering with eagerness, "then won't you try—for my sake—to make things here," the sweep of her hand included every corner of the ugly room, "a little better? I'll help you, very gladly. I'll make new aprons for you, and I'll"—her brave resolution faltered, but only for a moment—"I'll wash your hair, and take you to the free baths with me. And then," she had a sudden inspiration, "then Lily will love to touch you, you'll be so nice and clean! Then Lily will be glad that she has you for a mother!"
All at once the shell of stupidity had slipped from Mrs. Volsky's bent shoulders. All at once she was eager, breathlessly eager.
"Miss," she said, and one thin, dingy hand was laid appealingly upon Rose-Marie's dress, "Miss, you can do wit' me as you wish to! If you t'ink dat my bein' clean will make Lily glad"—she made a sudden impetuous gesture with her hand—"den I will be clean! If you t'ink dat she will like better dat I should be her mother," the word, on her lips, was surprisingly sweet, "den I will do—anyt'ing!" All at once she broke into phrases that were foreign to Rose-Marie, phrases spoken lovingly in some almost forgotten tongue. And the girl knew that she was quite forgotten—that the drab woman was dreaming over some youthful hope, was voicing tenderly the promises of a long dead yesterday, and was making an impassioned pledge to her small daughter and to the future! The words that she spoke might be in the language of another land—but the tone was unmistakable, was universal.
Rose-Marie, listening to her, felt a sudden desire to kneel there, on the dirty tenement floor, and say a little prayer of thanksgiving. Once again she had proved that she was right—and that the Young Doctor was wrong.
It was Bennie who came first to the Settlement House. Shyly, almost, he slipped through the great doors—as one who seeks something that he does not quite understand. As he came, a gray kitten, creeping out from the shadows of the hall, rubbed affectionately against his leg. And Bennie, half unconsciously—and with absolutely no recognition—stooped to pat its head. Rose-Marie would have cried with joy to have seen him do it, but Rose-Marie was in another part of the building, teaching tiny children to embroider outlines, with gay wool, upon perforated bits of cardboard. The Young Doctor, passing by the half-opened door of the kindergarten room, saw her there and paused for a moment to enjoy the sight. He thought, with a curious tightening of his lips, as he left noiselessly, that some day Rose-Marie would be surrounded by her own children—far away from the Settlement House. And he was surprised at the sick feeling that the thought gave him.
"I've been rather a fool," he told himself savagely, "trying to send her away. I've been a fool. But I'd never known anything like her—not in all of my life! And it makes me shiver to think of what one meeting with some unscrupulous gangster would do to her point of view. It makes me want to fight the world when I realize how an unpleasant experience would affect her love of people. I'd rather never see her again," he was surprised, for a second time, at the pain that the words caused him, "than to have her made unhappy. I hope that this man of hers is a regular fellow!"
He passed on down the hall. He walked slowly, the vision of Rose-Marie, a dream child held close to her breast, before his eyes. That was why, perhaps, he did not see Bennie—why he stumbled against the boy.
"Hello," he said gruffly, for his voice was just a trifle hoarse (voices get that way sometimes, when visionswillstay in front of one's eyes!) "Hello, youngster! Do you want anything? Or are you just looking around?"
Bennie straightened up. The kitten that he had been patting rubbed reassuringly against his legs, but Bennie needed more reassurance than the affection of a kitten can give. The kindness of Rose-Marie, the stories that she had told him, had given him a great deal of confidence. But he had not yet learned to stand up, fearlessly, to a big man with a gruff voice. It is a step forward to have stopped hurting the smaller things. But to accept a pretty lady's assurance that things larger than you will be kind—that is almost too much to expect! Bennie answered just a shade shrinkingly.
"Th' kids in school," he muttered, "tol' me 'bout a club they come to here. It's a sort of a Scout Club. They wears soldier clo's. An' they does things fer people. An' I wanter b'long," he gulped, noisily.
The Young Doctor leaned against the wall. He did not realize how tall and strong he looked, leaning there, or he could not have smiled so whimsically. To him the small dark boy with his earnest face, standing beside the gray kitten, was just an interesting, rather lovable joke.
"Which do you want most," he questioned, "to wear soldier clothes, or to do things for people?"
Bennie gulped again, and shuffled his feet. His voice came, at last, rather thickly.
"I sorter want to do things fer people!" he said.
More than anything else the Young Doctor hated folk, even children, who say or do things for effect. And he knew well the lure that soldier clothes hold for the small boy.
"Say, youngster," he inquired in a not too gentle voice, "are you trying to bluff me? Or do you really mean what you're saying? And if you do—why?"
Bennie had never been a quitter. By an effort he steadied his voice.
"I mean," he said, "what I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously he was quoting from the gospel of Rose-Marie, "wi' my life! I wanter be a good husban' an' father—"
All at once the Young Doctor was laughing. It was not an unkind laugh—it gave Bennie heart to listen to it—but it was exceedingly mirthful. Bennie could not know that the idea of himself, as a husband and father, was sending this tall man into such spasms of merriment—he could not know that it was rather incongruous to picture his small grubby form in the shining armour of St. George or of King Arthur. But, being glad that the doctor was not angry, he smiled too—his strange, twisted little smile.
The Young Doctor stopped laughing almost as quickly as he had begun. With something of interest in his face he surveyed the little ragged boy.
"Where," he questioned after a moment, "did you learn all of that stuff about knights, and saints, and doing things with your life, and husbands and fathers? Who told you about it?"
Bennie hesitated a moment. Perhaps he was wondering who had given this stranger a right to pry into his inner shrine. Perhaps he was wondering if Rose-Marie would like an outsider to know just what she had told him. When he answered, his answer was evasive.
"A lady told me," he said. "A lady."
The Young Doctor was laughing again.
"And I suppose," he remarked, with an effort at solemnity, "that gentlemen don't pass ladies' names about between 'em—I suppose that you wouldn't tell me who this lady of yours may be, even though I'd like to meet her?"
Bennie's lips closed in a hard little line that quirked up at one end. He shook his head.
"I'd ruther not," he said very slowly. "Say—Where's th' Scout Club?"
The Young Doctor shook his head.
"It's such a strange, old-fashioned, young person!" he informed the empty hallway. And then—"Come with me, youngster," he said kindly, "and we'll find this very wonderful club where small boys learn about doing things for people—and, incidentally, wear soldier clothes!"
Bennie, following stealthily behind him, felt that he had found another friend—something like his lady, only different!
Rose-Marie was exceptionally weary that night. It had been a hard day. All three of her classes had met, and—late in the afternoon—she had made good her promise to wash Mrs. Volsky's hair. The task had not been a joyous one—she felt that she could never wash hair again—not even her own soft curls or the fine, snowy locks that crowned her aunts' stately heads. Mrs. Volsky had once more relapsed into her shell of silence—she had seemed more apathetic, more dull than ever. But Rose-Marie had noticed that there were no unwashed dishes lying in the tub—that the corners of the room had had some of the grime of months swept out of them. When Ella Volsky came suddenly into the flat, with lips compressed, and a high colour, Rose-Marie had been glowingly conscious of her start of surprise. And when she had said, haltingly, in reference to the hair—"I'll dry it for you, Miss Rose-Marie!" Rose-Marie could have wept with happiness. It was the first time that she had ever heard Ella offer to do anything for her mother.
Jim—coming in as she was about to leave—had added to Rose-Marie's weariness. He had been more insistent than usual—he had commented upon her rosy cheeks and he had made a laughing reference to her wide eyes. And he had asked her, gruffly, why she didn't take up with some feller like himself—a good provider, an' all, that'd doll her up the way she'd oughter be dolled up? And when Ella had interrupted, her dark eyes flashing, he had told her—with a burst of soul-chilling profanity—to mind her own business.
And then Pa had come in—apparently more drunk than he had ever been. And Rose-Marie had seen his bleary eyes pass, without a flicker of interest, over his wife's clean apron and freshly washed hair; had seen him throw his coat and his empty bottle into one of the newly dusted corners, had seen his collapse into a heap in the center of the room. And, last of all, as she had hurried away, with Jim's final insinuation ringing in her ears, she had known the fear that all was not well with Bennie—for Bennie came in every afternoon before she left. She could not know that Bennie, by this time a budding Boy Scout, was learning more lessons of the sort that she had taught him.
Yes, she was weary, in every fibre of her being, as she sat down to supper that night. She had it quite alone in the dining-room, which, all at once, seemed very large—for the Superintendent was sitting, somewhere, with a dying woman, and the Young Doctor had been called out on an emergency case. And then, still alone, she wandered into the library of the Settlement House and picked up a book. She felt, somehow, too tired to sleep—too utterly exhausted to lay her head upon her pillow. It was in the library that the Superintendent, coming wearily back from the watch with death, found her.
"My dear," said the Superintendent, and there was a sound of tears in her usually steady voice, "my dear, I'm about all in! Yes, I know it's slang, but I can't help it—I feel slangy! Come up to my sitting-room for a few minutes and we'll have a cup of hot chocolate!"
Rose-Marie laid down her book with alacrity. She realized, suddenly, that she wanted companionship of her own sort—that she longed with all of her soul to chat with some one who did not murder the queen's English, that she wanted to exchange commonplaces about books, and music, and beautiful things—things that the Volskys would not understand.
"I guess," she said, as she followed the Superintendent into the cozy sitting-room, "I guess that tiredness is in the air to-day. I'm all in, myself. A cup of chocolate and a friendly talk will be a godsend to me, this evening!"
The Superintendent was laying aside her coat and her hat. She smoothed her hair with a nervous hand, and straightened her linen collar, before she sank into an easy chair.
"Child," she said abruptly, "youshouldn't be tired—not ever! You've got youth, and all of the world at your feet. You've got beauty, and confidence, and faith. And I—well, I'm getting to be an old woman! I feel sometimes as if I've been sitting on the window sill, watching life go by, for centuries. You mustn't—" She paused, and there was a sudden change in her voice, "You're not tiring yourself, Rose-Marie? You're not doing more than your strength will permit? If you could have read the letter that your aunts sent to me, when you first came to the Settlement House! I tell you, child, I've felt my responsibility keenly! I'd no more think of letting you brush up against the sort of facts I'm facing, than I would—"
Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, as she interrupted.
"Somehow," she said, "I can't think that you and my aunts are quite right about shielding me—about keeping me from brushing up against life, and the real facts of life. It seems to me that there's only one way to develop—really. And that way is to learn to accept things as they come; to meet situations—no matter how appalling they may be, with one's eyes open. If I," she was warming to her subject, "am never to tire myself out, working for others, how am I to help them? If I am never to see conditions as they are how am I ever to know the sort of a problem that we, here at the Settlement House, are fighting? Dr. Blanchard wouldn't try to treat a case if he had no knowledge of medicine—he wouldn't try to set a broken leg if he had never studied anatomy. You wouldn't be in charge, here, if you didn't know the district, if you didn't realize the psychological reasons back of the things that the people of the district say and do. Without the knowledge that you're trying to keep from me you'd be as useless as"—she faltered—"as I am!"
The Superintendent's expression reflected all the tenderness of her nature; the mother-instinct, which she had never known, made her smile into the girl's serious face.
"My dear," she said, "you must not think that you're useless. You must never think that! Look at the success you've had in your club work—remember how the children that you teach have come to love you. You've done more with them, because of the things that you don't know, than I could ever do—despite the hard facts that I've had to brush up against. Find content, dear, in being the sweet place in our garden—that has so pitifully few flowers. Do not long for the hard, uncomfortable places on the other side of the garden wall!"
Despite the Superintendent's expression—despite the gentle tone of her voice, Rose-Marie felt a sudden desire to cry out against the irony of it all. She was so tired of being classed with the flowers! "They toil not, neither do they spin," came back to her, from a certain golden text that she had learned, long ago, in Sunday-school. Even at the time it had seemed to her as if the flowers enjoyed lives that were a shade too easy! At the time it had seemed unfair that they, who were not workers, should be beautiful—more beautiful than the ants, for instance, that uncomplainingly toiled all day long for their existence.
"I don't want to be a flower," she exclaimed, almost fretfully, "I want to be a worth while member of society—that's what I want! What's the use of being a decoration in a garden! What's the use of knowing only the sunshine? I want to know storms, too, and gales of wind. I want to share the tempests that you go through!" She hesitated; and then—"I read a book once," she said slowly, "I forget what it was—but I remember, in one place, that a woman was being discussed. She was a very beautiful elderly woman who, despite her age, had a face as unlined and calm as a young girl's face could be. One character in the book commented upon the woman's youth and charm, and another character agreed that shewasbeautiful and charming, but that she'd be worth more if she had a few lines on her face. 'She's never known tears,' the character said, 'she's never liveddeeplyenough to know tears! Her life has been just a surface life. If you go down deep enough into the earth you find water, always. If you go down deep enough into life you invariably find tears. It's one of the unbreakable rules!'" Rose-Marie paused, for a moment, and stole a covert glance at the Superintendent's face. "You don't want me to be a woman whose life is only a surface life," she pleaded, "and it will be just that if you keep me from helping, as I want to help! You don't want me to have a perfectly unlined face when I'm eighty years old?"
All at once the Superintendent was laughing. "You child!" she exclaimed when the first spasm of mirth had passed, "you blessed child! If you could know how ridiculously young you looked, sitting there and talking about lined faces—and yourself at eighty. Eighty is a long way off, Rose-Marie—for you!"
The girl joined, a trifle shamefacedly, in the older woman's laughter.
"I reckon," she agreed, "that I do take myself too seriously! But—well, there are families that I'm just dying to help—families that I've come in contact with through the"—again she was forced to a slight deceit—"through the Settlement House. I'm sure that I could help them if you'd let me visit them, in their own homes. I'm sure that I'd be able to reform ever so many people if you'd only let me go out and find them. The city missionary who spoke once in our church, back home, told of wonderful things that he'd done—of lives that he'd actually made over. Of course, I couldn't do the sort of work he did, but I'm sure—if you'd only give me a chance—" She paused.
The Superintendent was silent for a moment. And then—
"Maybe you're right, dear," she said, "and maybe you're wrong. Maybe I am cramping your ambitions—maybe I am hampering your mental and spiritual growth. But then, again, maybe I'm right! And I'm inclined to think that I am right. I'm inclined to adhere to my point, that it will be better for you to wait, until you're older, before you go into many tenements—before you do much reforming outside of the Settlement House. When you're older and more experienced I'll be glad to let you do anything—"
She was interrupted by a rap upon the door. It was a gentle rap, but it was, above all, a masculine one. There was real gladness on her face as she rose to answer it.
"I didn't expect Billy Blanchard—he thought he had an all-night case," she told Rose-Marie. "How nice!"
But Rose-Marie was rising to her feet.
"I don't think that I'll stay," she said hurriedly, "I'm too tired, after all! I think—"
The Superintendent had paused in her progress to the door. Her voice was surprisingly firm, of a sudden; firmer than Rose-Marie had ever heard it.
"No, my dear," said the Superintendent, "you're not too tired! You just don't want to be civil to a very fine boy—who has had a harder day than either of us. You came to the slums, Rose-Marie, to help people—to show that you were a Christian. I think that you can show it, to-night, by forgetting a silly quarrel that happened weeks ago—by forgetting the words Dr. Blanchard said that he never really meant, inside. If he thought that these people weren't worth it, do you suppose he'd stay here, at the Settlement House, for a mere pittance? He's had many a chance to go to fashionable hospitals, up-town!"
Rose-Marie, bewildered, and not a little ashamed, sank back into her seat as the Superintendent swung open the door.
The Young Doctor came in with a springing step, but there were gray lines that spoke of extreme fatigue about his mouth, and his eyes were darkly circled. His surprise, at the sight of Rose-Marie, was evident—though he tried to hide it by the breeziness of his manner.
"You'll be glad to know," he told the Superintendent, "that the stork has called on the Stefan family. It's a boy—nine pounds—with lots of dark hair. There have been three girls, in the Stefan family," he explained to Rose-Marie, "and so they are wild with joy at this latest addition. Papa Stefan is strutting about like a proud turkey, with his chest out. And Mamma Stefan is trying to sing a lullaby. I feel something like a tool in the hand of Providence, to-night!" He threw himself upon the sofa.
There was deep, motherly affection in the Superintendent's face as she smiled at him.
"We're all of us mental and physical wrecks this evening, Billy!" she said. "I think that I've never been so utterly worn out before. Katie" (Katie was the stolid maid) "is making chocolate for us!"
"Chocolate!" The Young Doctor's glance answered the affection that shone out of the Superintendent's face—"Youarea dear!" He smiled at her, and then—all at once—turned swiftly to Rose-Marie.
"Don't let's squabble to-night," he said childishly, "not about anything! We're dog-tired, all three of us, and we're not up to even a tiny quarrel. I'm willing to admit anything you want me to—even that I'm wrong on a lot of subjects. And I want you to admit, yourself, that you'd rather be here, with the two of us, than out in some den of iniquity—reforming people. Am I right?"
Rose-Marie felt a glow of friendship toward the Young Doctor. Why couldn't he always be like this—confiding and boyish and approachable? She smiled at him, very sweetly, as she answered.
"You're right," she admitted. "I'm afraid that I haven't the heart to think of reforming any one, this evening! I'm just glad—glad from the very soul of me—to be here with you all, in the very center of this—island!"
The Superintendent's face was puzzled—the Superintendent's eyes were vague—as she asked a question.
"You said—island?" she questioned.
Rose-Marie laughed with a shade of embarrassment.
"I didn't really mean to say island," she explained, "but—well, you remember what Dr. Blanchard told us, once, about the little bugs that fastened together—first one and then another until there were billions? And how, at last, they made an island?" She paused and, at their nods of assent, went on. "Ever since then," she told them slowly, "I've thought of us, here at the Settlement House, as the first little bugs—the ones that the others must hold to. And I've felt, though many of them don't realize it, though we hardly realize it ourselves, that we're building an island together—an island of faith!"
There was silence for a moment. And then the Young Doctor spoke. His voice was a trifle husky.
"You've made me more than a bit ashamed of myself, Miss Rose-Marie," he said, "and I want to thank you for putting a real symbolism into my chance words. After all"—suddenly he laughed, and then—"after all," he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if you are right! I had a curious experience, this afternoon, that would go to prove your theory."
The Superintendent was leaning back, shielding her eyes from the light."Tell us about your experience, Billy," she said.
The chocolate had come, and the Young Doctor took an appreciative sip before he answered.
"Just as I was going out this afternoon," he said, at last, "I ran into a dirty little boy in the hall. He was fondling a kitten—that thin gray one that you brought to the Settlement House, Miss Rose-Marie. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was hunting for a Scout Club that he'd heard about. I"—the Young Doctor chuckled—"I engaged him in conversation. And he told me that his ambition was to be a combination of St. George and King Arthur and all the rest of those fellows. He said that, some day, he wanted to be a good husband and father. When I asked him where he got his large ambitions he told me that a lady had given them to him."
Rose-Marie was leaning forward. "Did he tell you the lady's name?" she breathed.
The Young Doctor shook his head.
"Not a thing did he tell me!" he said dramatically. "The lady's name seemed to be something in the nature of a sacred trust to him. But his big dark eyes were full of the spirit that she'd given him. And his funny little crooked mouth was—" He paused, suddenly, his gaze fixed upon Rose-Marie. "What's the matter?" he queried. "What's the matter? You look as if somebody'd just left you a million dollars!"
Rose-Marie's face was flushed and radiant. Her eyes were deep wells of joy.
"I have every reason in the world," she said softly, "to be happy!" And she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to realize that a sudden cloud had crept across the brightness of the Young Doctor's face.
And then the climax of Ella's life—the crash that Rose-Marie had been expecting—happened. It happened when Ella came furiously into the Volsky flat, early one afternoon, and—ignoring the little Lily, who sat placidly on Rose-Marie's lap—hurried silently into her own room. Mrs. Volsky, bending over the wash-tubs, straightened up as if she could almost feel the electric quality of the air, as Ella passed her, but Rose-Marie only held tighter to Lily—as if, somehow, the slim little body gave her comfort.
"I wonder what's the matter?" she ventured, after a moment.
Mrs. Volsky, again bending over the wash-tubs, answered.
"Ella, she act so funny, lately," she told Rose-Marie, "an' there is some feller; Bennie, he tell me that he have seen her wit' some feller! A rich feller, maybe; maybe he puts Ella up to her funny business!"
There were sounds of activity from the inner room, as if clothing was being torn down from hooks—as if heavy garments were being flung into bags. Rose-Marie listened, apprehensively, to the sounds before she spoke again.
"Perhaps I'd better go in and see what's the matter," she suggested.
Mrs. Volsky, looking back over her shoulder, gave a helpless little shrug. "If you t'inks best," she said hopelessly. "But Ella—she not never want to take any help…"
Only too well Rose-Marie knew what Mrs. Volsky meant by her twisted sentence. Only too well she understood that Ella would never allow herself to be biased by another's judgment,—that Ella would not allow herself to be moved by another's plea. And yet she set Lily gently down upon the floor and rose to her feet.
"I'll see what she's doing," she told Mrs. Volsky, and pushed open the inner door.
Despite all of the time that she had spent in the Volsky flat, Rose-Marie had never been past the front room with its tumbled heaps of bedding, and its dirt. She was surprised to see that the inner room, shared by Ella and Lily, was exquisitely neat, though tiny. There were no windows—the only light came from a rusty gas fixture—but Rose-Marie, after months in the slums, was prepared for that. It was the geranium, blooming on the shabby table, that caught her eye; it was the clean hair-brush, lying on the same table, and the framed picture of a Madonna, upon the wall, that attracted her. She spoke of them, first, to the girl who knelt on the floor, packing a cheap suit-case—spoke of them before she questioned gently:
"You're not going away, are you, Ella?"
Ella glanced up from her packing.
"Yes. I'm going away!" she said, shortly. And then, as if against her will, she added:
"I got th' flower an' th' picture for Lily. Oh, sure, I know that she can't see 'em! But I sorter feel that she knows they're here!"
Rose-Marie's voice was very soft, as she spoke again.
"I'm glad that you chose the picture you did," she said, "the picture of the Christ Child and His Mother!"
Ella wadded a heavy dress into the suit-case.
"I don't hold much with religious pictures," she said, without looking up; "religion never did much fer me! I only got it 'cause th' Baby had hair like Lily's hair!"
Rose-Marie crouched down, suddenly, upon the floor beside the girl. She laid her hand upon the suit-case.
"Where are you going, Ella?" she asked abruptly. "Where are you going—and when will you be back?"
Ella's lips drew up into the semblance of a smile—a very bitter one—as she answered.
"It's none of yer business where I'm goin'," she said, "an' I may not ever come back—see?"
Rose-Marie caught her breath in a kind of sob. It was as she had guessed—and feared!
"Ella," she asked slowly, "are you going alone?"
The girl's face coloured swiftly, with a glorious wave of crimson. She tossed her head with a defiant movement.
"No, I ain't goin' alone!" she told Rose-Marie. "You kin betcha life I ain't goin' alone!"
Rose-Marie—sitting beside her on the floor—asked God, silently, for help before she spoke again. She felt suddenly powerless, futile.
"Whyare you going, dear?" she questioned, at last.
Ella dropped the shoes that she had been about to tuck into the suit-case. Her eyes were grim.
"Because," she said, "I'm tired of all o' this," Her finger pointed in the direction of the outer room. "I'm tired o' dirt, and drunken people, and Jim's rotten talk. I'm tired o' meals et out o' greasy dishes, an' cheap clothes, and jobs that I hate—an' that I can't nohow seem ter hold! I'm tired, dog-tired, o' life. All that's ever held me in this place is Lily. An' sometimes, when I look at her, I don't think that she'd know the difference whether I was here 'r not!"
Rose-Marie was half sobbing in her earnestness.
"Ah, but she would know the difference," she cried. "Lily loves you with all of her heart. And your mother is really trying to be neater, to make a better home for you! She hasn't a pleasant time of it, either—your mother. But she doesn't run away. She stays!"
There was scorn in the laugh that came, all at once, from Ella's twisted mouth. Her great eyes were somberly sarcastic.
"Sure, she stays," said Ella, "'cause she ain't got enough gumption ter be gettin' out! I know."
In her heart Rose-Marie was inclined to agree with Ella. She knew, herself, that Mrs. Volsky would never have the courage to make any sort of a definite decision. But she couldn't say so—not while Ella was staring at her with that cynical expression.
"I guess," she said bravely, "that we'd better leave your mother out of this discussion. After all, it's between you—and your conscience."
"Say," Ella's face was suddenly drawn and ugly, "say, where do you get off to pull this conscience stuff? You've always had a nice home, an' pretty clothes, an' clean vittles, an'—an' love! I ain't had any of it. But," her eyes flamed, "I'm goin' to! Don't you dast ter pull this conscience stuff on me—I've heard you profess'nal slummers talk before—a lot o' times. What good has a conscience ever done me—huh?"
Rose-Marie had been watching the girl's face. Of a sudden she shot her thunderbolt.
"Are you running away to be married, Ella?" she asked.
A second flush ran over Ella's face, and receded slowly—leaving it very pale. But her head went up rather gallantly.
"No, I ain't," she retorted. "Marriage," she said the words parrot-like, "was made fer th' sort o' folks who can't stick at nothin' unless they're tied. I ain't one of those folks!"
Across the nearly forgotten suit-case, Rose-Marie leaned toward EllaVolsky. Her eyes were suddenly hot with anger.
"Who gave you that sort of an argument?" she demanded. "Who has been filling your head with lies? You never thought of that yourself, Ella—I know you never thought of that yourself!"
Ella's eyes met Rose-Marie's angry glance. Her words, when she spoke, came rapidly—almost tumbled over each other. It was as if some class-resentment, long repressed, were breaking its bounds.
"How d' you know," she demanded passionately, "that I didn't think of that myself? How do you know? You're th' only one, I s'pose," her tone was suddenly mocking, "that knows how t' think! No"—as Rose-Marie started to interrupt—"don't try t' pull any alibi on me! I know th' way you Settlement Houseladies"—she accented the word—"feel aboutus. You have clubs for us, an' parties, an' uplift meetin's. You pray fer us—an' with us. You tell us who t' marry, an' how t' bring up our children, an' what butcher t' buy our meat off of. But when it comes t' understandin' us—an' likin' us! Well, you're too good, that's all." She paused, staring at Rose-Marie's incredulous face with insolent eyes.
"You're like all th' rest," she went on, after a moment, "just like all th' rest. I was beginnin' t' think that you was diff'rent. You've been so white about Bennie. An' you washed Ma's hair—I wouldn't 'a' done that myself! But now—now it sticks out all over you; th' I'm-better-'n-you-are stuff. I never could think of a thing,Icouldn't. But you—you're smart, you are. You could think—"
Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed with a very real resentment, as she interrupted the girl's flow of half-articulate speech.
"Ella," she said, and her words, too, came rapidly, "you know that you're not being fair—you know it! I've never held apart from you in any way. Oh, I realize that we've been brought up in different—surroundings. And it's made us different from each other in the unimportant things. But we're both girls, Ella—we're both young and we've both got all of life before us. And so, perhaps, we can understand each other"—she was fumbling mentally for words, in an effort to make clear her meaning—"more than either of us realize. I wasn't, for one moment, trying to patronize you when I said what I did. I was only wondering how you happened to say something that I wouldn't ever dream of saying—that no nice girl, who had a real understanding of life"—she wondered, even as she spoke the words, what the Young Doctor would think if he could hear them issuing from her lips—"would dream of saying. You're a nice girl, Ella—or you wouldn't be in the same family with Bennie and Lily. And you're a sensible girl, so you must realize how important and sacred marriage is. Who told you that it was a mistake, Ella? Who," her childish face was very grave, indeed, "who told you such a terrible thing?"
Ella's eyes were blazing—Rose-Marie almost thought that the girl was going to strike her! But the blazing eyes wavered, after a moment, and fell.
"My gentleman fren' says marriage is wrong," said Ella. "He knows a lot. And he hassomuch money"—she made a wide gesture with her hands—"I can have a nice place ter live, Miss Rose-Marie, an' pretty clothes. Lookit Ma; she's married an' she ain't got nothin'! I can have coats an' hats an'—"
Rose-Marie touched Ella's hand, timidly, with her cool fingers.
"But you'll have to pay for them, Ella," she said. "Think, dear; will the coats and hats be worth the price that you'll have to pay? Will they be worth the price of self-respect—will they be worth the price of honourable wifehood and—motherhood? Will the pretty clothes, Ella, make it easier for you to look into the face of some other woman—who has kept straight? Will they?"
Ella raised her eyes and, in their suddenly vague expression, Rose-Marie saw a glimmering of the faded, crushed mother. She hurried on.
"What kind of a chap is this gentleman friend," she raged, "to ask so much of you, dear? Is there—is there any reason why he can't marry you? Is he tied to some one else?"
All at once Ella was sobbing, with gusty, defiant sobs.
"Not as far as I've heard of, there ain't nobody else," she sobbed. "I don't know much about him, Miss Rose-Marie. Jim gimme a knockdown ter him, one night, in a dance-hall. I thought he was all right—Jim said he was … An' he said he loved me, an'"—wildly—"I love him, too! An' I hate it all, here, except Lily—"
Rose-Marie, thinking rapidly, seized her advantage.
"Will going away with him," she asked steadily, "be worth never seeing Lily again? For you wouldn't be able to see her again—you wouldn't feel able to touch her, you know, if your hands weren't—clean. You bought her a religious picture, Ella, and a flower. Why? Because you know, in your heart, that she's aware of religion and beauty and sweetness! Going away with this man, Ella, will separate you from Lily, just as completely as an ocean—flowing between the two of you—would make a separation! And all of your life you'll have to know that she's suffering somewhere, perhaps; that maybe somebody's hurting her—that her dresses are dirty and her hair isn't combed! Every time you hear a little child crying you'll think of Lily—who can't cry aloud. Every time a pair of blue eyes look into your face you'll think of her eyes—that can't see. Will going away with him be worth never knowing, Ella, whether she's alive or dead—"
Ella had stopped sobbing, but the acute misery of her face was somehow more pitiful than tears. Rose-Marie waited, for a moment, and then—as Ella did not speak—she got up from her place beside the suit-case, and going to the dividing door, opened it softly.
The room was as she had left it. Mrs. Volsky was still bending above the tubs, Lily was standing in almost the same place in which she had been left. With hurried steps Rose-Marie crossed the room, and took the child's slim, little hand in her own.
"Come with me, honey," she said, almost forgetting that Lily could not hear her voice. "Come with me," and she led her gently back to the inner room.