“A humble bard presents his respects to my Lady Marechal Niel, and begs
her to step down to the gate for about two minutes.”
The note was handed to Ruth early the next morning as she stood in the
kitchen beating up eggs for an omelette for her mother’s breakfast. A
smile of mingled surprise and amusement overspread her face as she
read; instinctively turning the card, she saw, “Herbert Kemp, M. D.,” in
simple lithograph.
“Do I look all right, Mary?” she asked hurriedly, placing the bowl on
the table and half turning to the cook as she walked to the door. Mary
deliberately placed both hands on her hips and eyed her sharply.
“And striped flannel dresses and hairs in braids,” she began, as she
always did, as if continuing a thought, “being nice, pretty flannel and
nice, pretty braids, Miss Ruth do look sweet-like, which is nothing out
of the common, for she always do!”
The last was almost shouted after Ruth, who had run from the cook’s
prolixity.
As she hurried down the walk, she recognized the doctor’s carriage,
containing the doctor himself with Bob in state beside him. Two hands
went up to two respective hats as the gate swung behind her, and she
advanced with hand extended to Bob.
“You are looking much better,” she exclaimed heartily, shaking the
rather bashfully outstretched hand; “your first outing, is it not?”
“Yes, lady.” It had been impossible for her to make him call her by
name.
“He elected to pay his first devoirs to the Queen of Roses, as he
expressed it,” spoke up Kemp, with his disengaged hand on the boy’s
shoulder, and looking with a puzzled expression at Ruth. Last night she
had been a young woman; this morning she was a young girl; it was
only after he had driven off that he discovered the cause lay in the
arrangement of her hair.
“Thank you, Bob; presently I expect to have you paying me a visit on
foot, when we can come to a clearer understanding about my flower-beds.”
“He says,” returned the boy, turning an almost humbly devoted look on
Kemp, “that I must not think of gardening for some weeks. And so--and
so--”
“Yes?”
“And so,” explained the doctor, briskly, “he is going to hold my
reins on our rounds, and imbibe a world of sunshine to expend on some
flowers--yours or mine, perhaps--by and by.”
Bob’s eyes were luminous with feeling as they rested on the dark,
bearded face of his benefactor.
“Now say all you have to say, and we’ll be off,” said Kemp, tucking in
the robe at Bob’s side.
“I didn’t have anything to say, sir; I came only to let her know.”
“And I am so glad, Bob,” said Ruth, smiling up into the boy’s shy,
speaking eyes. People always will try to add to the comfort of a
convalescent, and Ruth, in turn, drew down the robe over the lad’s
hands. As she did so, her cousin, Jennie Lewis, passed hurriedly by. Her
quick blue eyes took in to a detail the attitudes of the trio.
“Good-morning, Jennie,” said Ruth, turning; “are you coming in?”
“Not now,” bowing stiffly and hurrying on.
“Cabbage-rose.”
Bob delivered himself of this sentiment as gently as if he had let fall
a pearl.
The doctor gave a quick look at Ruth, which she met, smiling.
“He cannot help his inspiration,” she remarked easily, and stepped back
as the doctor pulled the reins.
“Come again, Bob,” she called, and with a smile to Kemp she ran in.
“And I was going to say,” continued Mary, as she re-entered the kitchen,
“that a speck of aig splashed on your cheek, Miss Ruth.”
“Oh, Mary, where?”
“But not knowin’ that you would see anybody, I didn’t think to run after
you; so it’s just this side your mouth, like if you hadn’t wiped it good
after breakfast.”
Ruth rubbed it off, wondering with vexation if the doctor had noticed
it. Truth to say, the doctor had noticed it, and naturally placed the
same passing construction on it that Mary had suggested. Not that the
little yellow splash occupied much of his attention. When he drove
off, all he thought of Ruth’s appearance was that her braided hair hung
gracefully and heavily down her back; that she looked young,--decidedly
young and missish; and that he had probably spoken indiscreetly and
impulsively to the wrong person on a wrong subject the night before.
Dress has a subtile influence upon our actions: one gown can make a
romp, another a princess, another a boor, another a sparkling coquette,
out of the same woman. The female mood is susceptibly sympathetic to the
fitness or unfitness of dress. Now, Ruth was without doubt the same
girl who had so earnestly and sympathetically heard the doctor’s
unconventional story; but the fashion of her gown had changed the
impression she had made a few hours back.
An hour later, and Dr. Kemp could not have failed to recognize Ruth,
the woman of his confidence. Something, perhaps a dormant spirit of
worldliness, kept her from disclosing to her mother the reason of her
going out. She herself felt no shame or doubt as to the advisability
of her action; but the certain knowledge of her mother’s disapproval of
such a proceeding restrained the disclosure which, of a surety, would
have cost her the non-fulfilment of a kindly act. A bit of subterfuge
which hurts no one is often not only excusable, but commendable.
Besides, it saved her mother an annoying controversy; and so, fully
satisfied as to her part, Ruth took her way down the street. The
question as to whether the doctor had gone beyond the bounds of their
brief acquaintance had of course been presented to her mind; but if a
slight flush came into her face when she remembered the nature of the
narrative and the personality of the narrator, it was quickly banished
by the sweet assurance that in this way he had honored her beyond the
reach of current flattery.
A certain placid strength possessed her and showed in her grave brown
eyes; with her whole heart and soul she wished to do this thing, and
she longed to do it well. Her purpose robbed her of every trace of
nervousness; and it was a sweet-faced young woman who gently knocked
at room Number 10 on the second floor of a respectable lodging-house on
Polk Street.
Receiving no answer to her knock, she repeated it somewhat more loudly.
At this a tired voice called, “Come in.”
She turned the knob, which yielded to her touch, and found herself in
a small, well-lighted, and neat room. Seated in an armchair near the
window, but with her back toward it, was what on first view appeared to
be a golden-haired child in black; one elbow rested on the arm of the
chair, and a childish hand supported the flower-like head. As Ruth
hesitated after closing the door behind her, she found a pair of
listless violet eyes regarding her from a small white face.
“Well?” queried the girl, without changing her position except to allow
her gaze to travel to the floor.
“You are Miss Rose Delano?” said Ruth, as she came a step nearer.
“What of that?” Asked the girl, lifelessly, her dull eyes wandering
everywhere but to the face of her strange interlocutor.
“I am Ruth Levice, a friend of Dr. Kemp. Will that introduction be
enough to make you shake hands with me?”
She advanced toward her, holding out her hand. A burning flame shot
across Rose Delano’s face, and she shrank farther back among her
pillows.
“No,” she said, putting up a repellent hand; “it is not enough. Do not
touch me, or you will regret it. You must not, I say.” She arose quickly
from her chair and stood at bay, regarding Ruth. The latter, taller than
she by head and shoulders, looked down at her smiling.
“I know no reason why I must not,” she replied gently.
“You do not know me.”
“No; but I know of you.”
“Then why did you come; why don’t you go?” The blue eyes looked with
passionate resentment at her.
“Because I have come to see you; because I wish to shake hands with
you.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why do you wish to do that?”
“Because I wish to be your friend. May we not be friends? I am not much
older than you, I think.”
“You are centuries younger. Who sent you here? Dr. Kemp?”
“No one sent me; I came of my own free will.”
“Then go as you came.”
“No.”
She stood gracefully and quietly before her. Rose Delano moved farther
from her, as if to escape her grave brown eyes.
“You do not know what you are doing,” cried the girl, excitedly; “have
you no father or mother, no one to tell you what a girl should not do?”
“I have both; but I have also a friend,--Dr. Kemp.”
“He is my friend too,” affirmed Rose, tremulously.
“Then we have one good thing in common; and since he is my friend and
yours, why should we not be friends?”
“Because he is a man, and you are a woman. He has then told you my
story?”
“Yes.”
“And you feel yourself unharmed in coming here--to such a creature as
I?”
“I feel nothing but pity for you; I do not blame you. But, oh, little
one, I do so grieve for you because you won’t believe that the world is
not all merciless. Come, give me your hand.”
“No,” she said, clasping her hands behind her and retreating as the
other advanced; “go away, please. You are very good, but you are very
foolish. Bad as I am, however, I shall not let you harm yourself more;
leave my room, please.”
“Not till I have held your hands in mine.”
“Stop! I tell you I don’t want you to come here; I don’t want your
friendship. Can’t you go now, or are you afraid that your sweetheart
will upbraid you if you fail to carry out his will?”
“My sweetheart?” she asked in questioning wonder.
“Yes; only a lover could make a girl like you so forget herself. I speak
of Dr. Kemp.”
“But he is not my lover,” she stated, still speaking gently, but with a
pale face turned to her companion.
“I--I--beg your pardon,” faltered the girl, humbly drooping her head,
shamed by the cold pride in her tormentor’s face; “but why, oh, why,
then, won’t you go?” she continued, wildly sobbing. “I assure you it is
best.”
“This is best,” said Ruth, deliberately; and before Rose knew it she had
seized her two hands, and unclasping them from behind her, drew them to
her own breast.
“Now,” she said, holding them tightly, “who is the stronger, you or I?”
She looked pleasantly down at the tear-stained face so close to hers.
“O God!” breathed the girl, her storm-beaten eyes held by the power of
her captor’s calmness.
“Now we are friends,” said Ruth, softly, “shall we sit down and talk?”
Still holding the slender hands, she drew up a chair, and seating the
frail girl in the armchair, sat down beside her.
“Oh, wait!” whispered Rose; “let me tell you everything before you make
me live again.”
“I know everything; and truly, Rose, nothing you can say could make me
wish to befriend you less.”
“How nobly, how kindly he must have told you!”
“Hush! He told me nothing but the truth. To me you are a victim, not a
culprit. And now, tell me, do you feel perfectly strong?”
“Oh, yes.” The little hand swept in agony over her sad, childish face.
“Then you ought to go out for a nice walk. You have no idea how pleasant
it is this morning.”
“I can’t, indeed I can’t! and, oh, why should I?”
“You can and you must, because you must go to work soon.”
Two frightened eyes were raised to hers.
“Yes,” she added, patting the hand she held; “you are a teacher, are you
not?”
“I was,” she replied, the catch in her voice still audible.
“What are you used to teaching?”
“Spanish, and English literature.”
“Spanish--with your blue eyes!” The sudden outburst of surprise sent a
faint April-like beam into Rose’s face.
“Si, Senorita.”
“Then you must teach me. Let me see. Wednesdays,--Wednesday afternoon,
yes?”
Again the frightened eyes appealed to her; but Ruth ignored them.
“And so many of my friends would like to speak Spanish. Will you teach
them too?”
“Oh, Miss Levice, how can I go with such a past?”
“I tell you,” said Ruth, proudly rearing her head, “if I introduce you
as my friend, you are, you must be, presentable.”
The pale lips strove to answer her.
“To-morrow I shall come with a number of names of girls who are ‘dying,’
as they say, to speak Spanish, and then you can go and make arrangements
with them. Will you?”
Thus pushed to the wall, Rose’s tear-filled eyes were her only answer.
Ruth’s own filled in turn.
“Dear little Rose,” she said, her usual sweet voice coming back to her,
“won’t it be lovely to do this? You will feel so much better when you
once get out and are earning your independent, pleasant living again.
And now will you forgive me for having been so harsh?”
“Forgive you!” A red spot glowed on each pallid cheek; she raised her
eyes and said with simple fervor, “I would die for you.”
“No, but you may live for me,” laughed Ruth, rising; “will you promise
me to go out this morning, just for a block or two?”
“I promise you.”
“Well, then, good-by.” She held out her hand meaningly; a little
fluttering one was placed in hers, and Ruth bent and kissed the wistful
mouth. That pure kiss would have wiped out every stain from Rose’s
worshipping soul.
“I shall see you to-morrow surely,” she called back, turning a radiant
face to the lonely little figure in the doorway. She felt deliriously
happy as she ran down the stairs; her eyes shone like stars; a buoyant
joyfulness spoke in her step.
“It is so easy to be happy when one has everything,” she mused. She
forgot to add, “And gives much.” There is so much happiness derived from
a kind action that were it not for the motive, charity might be called
supreme selfishness.