People Like That Part 14

"What can I do? I shouldn't have mentioned her." Selwyn's forehead ridged frowningly, and, taking out his watch, he looked at it, took up his hat and coat, and held out his hand.

"Thank you for letting me talk to you. And don't worry about the other girl. You can't do anything."

"Perhaps I can't, but you said just now one of the many things you couldn't understand in women was their disregard of other women.

That Mildred would probably give the girl no thought. The rich girl, you meant."

"Well--" Selwyn waited. "I did say it, but I don't see what you're getting at."

"That sometimes women do remember the woman who has to pay--the price; do give a thought to the girl who is left to pay it alone.

Come to-morrow--no, not to-morrow. Come next week. It will take Mrs. Mundy until then to--"

"Mrs. Mundy has nothing to do with Miss Swink. The other girl, I told you, can take care of herself. You mustn't look into that side of it. I'll attend to that, do what is necessary. It's only about her you seem to be thinking."

"I'm thinking about both girls, the poor one and the rich one. But the rich girl has a million-dollar mother to look after her.

Good-by, and come Tuesday. I forgot--What is the girl's name, the little cashier-girl's?"

"Etta--Etta something." Selwyn made effort to think, then took a note-book out of his pocket and looked at it. "Etta Blake is her name. I wish you'd forget her. There are some things one can't talk about, but certainly you know I will do what is right if Harrie--"

His face darkened.

"I know you will, but sometimes a girl needs a woman to do--what is right. She's such a little thing, and so young. Come Tuesday evening at eight o'clock."

CHAPTER XVII

Late that evening I had a talk with Mrs. Mundy. I told her where Etta Blake lived, that is, where she could find the house from which I had seen her come with the baby in her arms, the house whose address had been given me by Selwyn, and the next morning she was to go and see her; but the next morning Mrs. Mundy was ill. Acute indigestion was what the doctor called it, but to Bettina and me it seemed a much more dreadful thing, and for the time all thought of other matters was put aside and held in abeyance.

With Bettina's help I tried to do Mrs. Mundy's work, but my first breakfast was not an artistic product. I shall never know how to cook.

I don't want to know how. I don't like to cook. There were many other things I could do, however, and though Mrs. Mundy wept, being weak from nausea, at my refusal to leave undone the usual cleaning, I did it with pride and delight in the realization that, notwithstanding little practice, I could do it very well. I am a perfect dish-washer, and I can make up beds as well as a trained nurse.

Mrs. Mundy is much better to-day and to-morrow she will be up. Three days in bed is for her an unusual and depressing experience, and her sunny spirit drooped under the combined effects of over-indulgence in certain delectable dishes, and inability to do her usual work.

"It don't make any difference how much character a person's got, it's gone when sick-stomach is a-wrenching of 'em." Mrs. Mundy groaned feebly. "I 'ain't had a spell like this since Bettina was a baby. Pig feet did it. When they're fried in batter I'm worse than the thing I'm eating. I et three, and I never can eat more than two. And to think you had to do everything for Lillie Pierce, to get her off in time!

The doctor says she can't live many months. Outside the doctor, and Nurse White and Mr. Guard, don't anybody know she's been here. I reckon it ain't necessary to mention it. People are so--"

"People-ish! They love to stick pins in other people! It's tyranny--the fear of what people will think about us, say about us, do about us! I'm going to give myself a present when I get like Mr. Guard and can tell some people to go--go anywhere they please, if it's where I won't meet them. Are you all right now and ready for your nap?"

Mrs. Mundy nodded, looked at me with something of anxiety in her eyes as I straightened the counterpane of her spotless bed; but she said nothing more, and, lowering the shades at the windows lest the sunlight bother her, I went out of the room and left her to go asleep.

I am glad of the much work of these past few days. It has kept me from thinking too greatly of what Selwyn told me of Harrie, of the girl to whom he is engaged, and of the little cashier-girl whose terror-filled face is ever with me. It has kept me, also, from dwelling too constantly on the message Lillie Pierce sent by me to the women of clean and happy worlds. For herself there was no plea for pity or for pardon, no effort at palliation or excuse. But with strength born of bitter knowledge she begged, demanded, that I do something to make good women understand that worlds like hers will never pa.s.s away if men alone are left to rid earth of them. Ceaselessly I keep busy lest I realize too clearly what such a message means. I shrink from it, appalled at what it may imply. I am a coward. As great a coward as the women whose unconcern I have of late been so condemning.

Yesterday Lillie went away. Mr. Guard took her to the mountains where a woman he used to know in the days of his mission work will take care of her. He is coming back to-morrow. The sense of comfort that his coming means is beyond a.n.a.lysis or definition. Only once or twice in a lifetime does one meet a man of David Guard's sort, and whatever my mistakes, whatever my impulses and lack of judgment may lead me to do, he will never be impatient with me. We have had several long and frank and friendly talks since the day he brought Lillie in to Mrs. Mundy, and if Scarborough Square did no more for me than to give me his friendship I should be forever in its debt.

Early this morning I had a dream I have been trying all day to forget.

Through the first part of the night sleep had been impossible. The haunting memory of Lillie's eyes could not be shut out, and the sound of her voice made the stillness of the room unendurable. I tried to read, to write, to do anything but think. I fought, resisted; refused to face what I did not want to see, to listen to what I did not want to hear; and not until the dawn of a new day did I fall asleep.

In my dream Lillie was in front of me, the bit of wall-flower in her hands, and gaspingly she cried out that something should be done.

"It can never be made clean, the world we women live in. But there should never be such worlds. Good women pretend they do not know.

They do not want to know!"

"But, Lillie"--I tried to hold her twisting, writhing hands. "There is much that has been done. Some women do know, and homes and inst.i.tutions and societies--"

"Homes and inst.i.tutions and societies!" She drew her hands away in scornful gesture. "They are poultice and plaster things. They are for surface sores, and the trouble is in the blood. To cure, to cleanse, undo the evil of our world is not in human power. It's the root of the tree that must be killed. You can cut off its top for a thousand years and it will come back again. Women have got to go deeper than that and make men know that they'll be d.a.m.ned the same as we if they sin the same as we do."

She was slipping from me and I tried to hold her back. "Tell me what women must do! Tell me where they fail!" In terror I caught her hands. "Do not go until you tell me--"

In misty grayness she was vanishing. "When women make their sons know there is no less of sin and shame in sinful, shameful lives for them than for their sisters our worlds will pa.s.s away. You've got to stop the evil at the source. Men don't do what women won't stand for. Tell women that--"

She was gone and, waking, I found I was sitting up in bed, my hands outstretched.

I had a note from Selwyn to-day telling me the Swinks had come and are at the Melbourne. Harrie is not well.

Kitty telephoned me late yesterday afternoon that Billie had an engagement for a club dinner of some sort, and she had appendicitis, or something that felt like it, and wouldn't I please come up and have supper with her in her sitting-room. There was something she wanted to talk to me about.

Kitty has a remarkable voice. It is capable of every variation of appeal. I went. Mrs. Crimm came in to stay with Mrs. Mundy.

The appendicitis possibility was not disturbing, and in a very lovely pink velvet negligee, with cap and slippers and stockings to match, Kitty was waiting for me. She is peculiarly skilful in the settings she arranges for her pretty self, and as I looked at her they seemed far-away things, the world of Scarborough Square, with its daily struggle for daily bread, and the world of Lillie Pierce, with its evil and polluting life, and the world of the little cashier-girl with its temptations and denials. I tried to put them from me. The evening was to be Kitty's. She took her luxuries as the birds of the air take light and sunshine. Unearned, they seemed a right.

She did not like the dress I had on. It's a perfectly good dress.

"I'll certainly be glad when you stop wearing black. It's too severe for you; that is, black crepe de chine is. You're too tall and slender for it, though it gives you a certain distinction. Did Selwyn send you those violets?"

"He did. Where's your pain? What did the doctor say was the matter?"

"I telephoned him not to come. I haven't got any pain. It's gone. I just wanted you by myself." Kitty settled herself more comfortably in her cushion-filled chair and stretched her feet on the stool in front of her. "Why didn't you come to Grace Peterson's luncheon yesterday?"

"I had something else more important to do. Grace knew I wasn't coming when she asked me. Society and Scarborough Square can't be served at the same time." I smiled. "During the days of apprenticeship only a half-hour is allowed for lunch. Did you have a good time?"

"Of course I didn't. Who does with an anxious hostess? One of the guests was an out-of-town person who used to know you well. She wanted to hear all about you and everybody told her something different. All that's necessary is to mention your name and--"

"The play's begun. To be an inexhaustible subject of chatter is to serve a purpose in life. I'd prefer a n.o.bler one, still-- Who was my inquiring friend?"

"I've forgotten her name. She was the most miserable-looking woman I ever saw. On any one else her clothes would have been stunning. Don't think she and her husband hit it off very well. There's another lady he finds more entertaining than she is, and she hasn't the nerve to tell him to quit it or go to Ballyhack. Women make me tired!"

"They tire men, also. A woman who accepts insult is hardly apt to be interesting. Tell me about the luncheon. Who was at it?"

"Same old bunch. Grace left out nothing that could be brought in.

Most of the entertaining nowadays is a game of show-down, regular exhibitions of lace and silver and food and flowers and china and gla.s.s, and gorgeous gowns and stupid people. I'm getting sick of them."

"Why don't you start a new kind? You might have your butler hand a note to each of your guests on arriving, stating that all the things other people had for their tables you had for yours, but only what was necessary would be used. Then you might have a good time. It's difficult to talk down to an excess of anything."

"Wish I had the nerve to do it!" Kitty again changed her position; fixed more comfortably the pink-lined, embroidered pillows at her back, and looked at me uncertainly. I waited. Presently she leaned toward me.