Destiny, busy as she had been with the affairs of Rose Légère, had
not neglected the usually serene residence of Mrs. Ferdinand Wapping
Chamberlin. For ten hours the invalid herself had been fretful.
This had reacted upon the gentle nature of Mistress Madelaine, who
had in turn made the nurse to suffer, and the nurse, in her own
phrase, had "taken it out on" Lena Johnson, the Swedish cook.
"An' it's all ban because that son of another husband ban comin'
home," said the naturally good-tempered Lena, in an effort to pass
along the general discontent to Violet.
"What of that?" Violet asked. "Is he home so seldom that we've got
to get the whole house ready for him?"
It appeared from Lena's answer that the young man was home far more
frequently than his mother's finances could well afford. When he
honored the Chamberlin roof with his presence, he generally managed
to secure all the money within reach and to devote that money to
sociological researches that kept him out until the lesser hours of
the morning. These stubborn pursuits were, it seemed, highly
disapproved of by both his mother and his sister, yet both his mother
and his sister hated his father, the divorced husband of the
remarried Mrs. Chamberlin; and as the son and brother constantly
threatened that any interference would result in a transfer of his
affectionate borrowings to the bank-account of his sire, both women
were, during his intermittent residence with them, torn between their
improbation of his pursuits and their fear that he would desert the
maternal house for the paternal club.
"What's his name?" asked Violet, as she lent a hand at the
preparation of dinner.
"Philip," answered Lena, "an' it ought to be Hungry Haakon."
And yet, when the prodigal reached the house that evening and,
admitting himself with his own latchkey, hurried into the library
where his mother and sister, the former on the couch and the latter
seated beside it, were awaiting the announcement that dinner was
served, he would not have appeared, to any stranger that could see
him, a much worse young man than most young men.
"Hello!" he cried, kissing both women lightly on the cheek. "Sister
more of a lure for susceptible hearts than ever!"
"Much chance _I_ have!" murmured black-eyed Madelaine, brushing aside
a careful blonde curl disordered by his onslaught.
"And the _Mutter_ getting better every day," pursued the unabashed
youth.
"Your mother," said Mrs. Chamberlin, her heavy brows rising almost to
the level of her lace cap, "will never be herself again, and you well
know it."
"Poof! A lean horse for a long race, _Mutter_."
Mrs. Chamberlin waved a thin hand in dismissal of all discussion.
"If you mean to dress for dinner," she said, "you had better begin,
Philip."
"No use. I have an engagement for to-night in circles where evening
clothes are rarely considered quite proper, and I washed up at the
club."
"Oh, then you stopped there before coming to your home?"
"It was on my way."
"And you of course saw that terrible man?"
This being the term in which Mrs. Chamberlin habitually referred to
the husband that had been so wicked as to permit her, after her
elopement with Chamberlin, to institute and win a suit for divorce,
her son merely nodded.
"But what's the use of bothering about that?" he demanded. "It was
on the way, I tell you. Cheer up: one may smile and smile and be a
woman still."
But his hearers, by way of response to this advice, sighed audibly.
"I don't think it was very considerate of you, Philip," vouchsafed
the younger. "You must remember that when you got that last check
from mother----"
"Madelaine!" cautioned Mrs. Chamberlin.
"I don't care, dear. Philip, you must remember that when you got
that last check from mother, it was on your distinct promise that you
would not see your father again for a year."
"And don't you remember," retorted Philip, "that I afterwards, upon
reflection, distinctly withdrew that distinct promise as utterly and
in essence unfilial? A woman can always remember more things than a
man has forgotten, and forget whatever she doesn't want to remember.
If it had been an honest woman instead of an honest man that Diogenes
was looking for, he'd have had to throw away his lantern and hire a
portable lighthouse."
But he kissed the girl as he said this, and pressed his mother's hand.
"The trouble with you two," he declared, "is that you don't get about
enough. Seclusion makes you serious."
"I wish," said Mrs. Chamberlin, "that you had brought me back the
news that you had grown more like us."
"More serious? Still harping on your son, dear! No, I'm sorry to
disappoint you, but I've about given up all hope of marrying money,
and marrying anything else is an impossibility. I must be getting on
in years. You know how it is: as we grow older we become more
particular and less desirable--when we're old enough to have learned
properly to play the game of love, we're too old to play it."
"You're a mere boy," observed Madelaine, with a toss of her blonde
curls.
"And you talk like one," said Mrs. Chamberlin, smiling in spite of
herself.
"I'd never think of accepting anybody so young as you are," the girl
added.
Philip pulled her pink ear.
"That's right, Queen Mab," he agreed; "wait till a man is large and
round and settled. And when you do marry, marry for keeps: a little
marriage is a dangerous thing, eh, _Mutter_?"
"Philip!"
What more she would have said to this criticism of her own estate,
Mrs. Chamberlin's son was not just then to hear, for a Japanese gong
interrupted her with the melodious announcement of dinner, and the
son snatched his protesting mother in his arms and, with Madelaine
following, bore her into the brightly lighted dining-room.
He looked at the shining silver and gleaming linen and glass and
china, and he saw the pale liquid that filled one of the glasses at
his own accustomed place.
"Good!" he cried. "I hope Lena's hand has not forgotten its cunning.
Stolen waters are sweet, but the best cocktail is a dry one."
And then, with his living burden still in his strong arms, he looked
across the table and into the eyes of the new servant.
The new servant, from the shadow, returned that gaze. She saw before
her, in the person of her employer's son, Philip Beekman, the
black-haired, gray-eyed young waster that had once promised her help
in the house of Rose Légère. On her part, Violet could have no
doubt, and it was only with the utmost exercise of self-control that
she continued her duties. But for Philip certainty was not
immediately obtainable. He saw many girls in the surroundings in
which he had first seen Violet, and her he would probably long since
have forgotten had it not been for the appeal that she had made to
his surface emotions. Nevertheless, the walls of his own home did
not, in this case, form a setting that made for easy identification,
and, besides, though this woman had recovered some degree of her
health, the best of her looks would never return. Beauty is the
quality most remembered by such men as Philip Beekman, and beauty
lost is the best disguise against them. Philip, therefore, quietly
deposited his mother in her chair, and continued his easy raillery
until the soup had been served and the little family had been left,
for a time, alone.
"New maid?" he then casually inquired.
"Yes," said Mrs. Chamberlin, "and actually a fairly competent one."
"What's her name?"
"Bella."
"Any more?"
"Really, I don't recall her family name, Philip. What possible
difference can it make?"
"I suppose," said Madelaine, "that he thinks her pallor interesting."
"Nonsense, Madelaine!"
"Her last name is Nimick, Philip."
"Oh!" said Philip, inwardly reflecting that, in the nature of things,
a name could not much signify. "I was merely attracted by the fact
that she didn't precisely resemble a servant. Have you never noticed
how all men look as if they belonged to the class below their own,
and all women to the class above? It seems as if a man could never
rise above his environment, and as if a woman could never descend to
hers."
He did not again refer to the subject, but the subject was, during
all the meal, keenly conscious that his gray eyes were covertly
watching her. She moved about the room with increasing difficulty.
Her hand shook as she brought the salad-bowl, and she spilled some of
his coffee on the cloth.
As soon as Lena had left the kitchen and gone upstairs, Beekman came
into the pantry. His manner, neither that which she had once known
nor that which she had more lately observed, was quick and
threatening; his frank face was flushed with anger.
"Your name is Violet," he said in a voice that, though low, shook
under the restraint that he put upon it.
She was standing beneath a gas-jet, a little column of dishes in her
hand. The cruel light showed the havoc that had been wrought upon
her, but it also showed the marks that no years or change could alter.
"Yes," she said, her own voice scarce a whisper.
"Did you----" he bit his lip. "Did you come here to scare me?" he
demanded.
She put down the dishes.
"What do you mean, Mr. Beekman?"
"Because I haven't any money, you know."
"Mr. Beekman!"
She put her hand before her face, and he saw that he had been wrong.
"I beg your pardon," he sulkily said. "In the circumstances, it
wasn't an unnatural supposition, though my mother thoroughly
understands my manner of life; but I see now that I shouldn't have
said it."
He paused, and then, because he hated to be in the wrong, he hunted
about for another excuse for attack, and, finding one, became more
angry than before.
"Only how dared you," he asked, "how did you dare to come into this
house?"
Violet bowed her russet head.
"I didn't know it was yours," she said.
"You didn't know?"
"How could I? Lena didn't happen to say nothin' about you before
to-day, an' your mother has a different name."
"Don't talk of my mother!" he commanded.
Had Violet known all the truth of her mistress, it would probably
have flashed over even the servant's dull brain that the difference
between a woman beaten into slavery and a woman that married the man
who, during her first marriage, had been her lover, was a difference
not of kind, but of degree, and of a degree decidedly in the ethical
favor of the former. However, she held her tongue.
It was the best shield she could have chosen. Through silence few
fits of anger are strong enough to reach, and the quick temper of
Beekman began slowly to spend itself.
"I don't see how you could come into any decent house," he grumbled,
"no matter whether you knew whose it was or not."
Still Violet did not answer.
"I suppose you didn't think about that, though," Philip pursued.
Violet was as yet too stunned at all adequately to feel. With a
shaking finger she drew invisible arabesques upon the shelf beside
her.
"How did you get away from Rose's, anyhow?" he asked.
Slowly she raised her head. Slowly she fixed him with her tired blue
eyes. And slowly, still drawing arabesques now unregarded, she
answered:
"Does that make much difference, Mr. Beekman?"
"Wasn't I interested?" he blustered.
"Because, you see," she concluded, "however it was, it wasn't by none
of the help you promised."
The thrust just pierced his armor of convention.
"Oh, well," he said, "what could I do? I wanted to help--you know
that--but what could I do?"
"Nothin'!" Her eyes clouded as if they looked at something which,
though clear to sight, passed all explaining. "Nothin', I suppose."
The words lent him courage.
"And I can't do anything now," he went on, his anger cold, but his
determination unchanged. "I'm sorry for you--on my word of honor, I
am sorry for you with my whole heart, Violet--but you can't stay
here--you must see that you can't stay in this house another night."
Her eyes were still on his.
"I know you think that," she replied, as if puzzled and seeking a
solution. "An' I know what you think goes.--But, myself, I can't see
why not."
"But, Violet, just consider!" he cried, his hands outstretched.
"You wanted me to get away an' get a decent job," she dully answered.
"Not here."
"What's the difference? What's the difference whether it's here or
somewheres else? I can't see."
"But here all the time I should know."
"Don't you know, wherever you are, about lots of others that don't
get away? An' does that hurt you? Wouldn't you know about me
wherever you are, about me wherever I went? An' would that hurt me?"
"You don't understand!"
He seemed to charge her with her admitted incomprehension as if it
were a crime.
"No, I don't," she repeated.
"Can't you see that if you were somewhere else, it would be
different?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't."
"Not if you were where nobody knew about you?"
"No, I don't see that, Mr. Beekman. I haven't got any disease to
give people."
"I wasn't thinking that."
"Well, you wouldn't tell on me to the people I went to if I went
somewheres else?"
"Certainly I wouldn't."
"An' you don't think I'd steal, do you?"
"Of course not."
"Nor--nor get anybody who was kind to me into the sort of a hell I
worked so hard to get myself out of?"
"How could I think it? What are you driving at, Violet?"
"This: that if all them things is the way you say, I'm fit for any
job I'm able to do--an' I'm able to do this one."
"Not in this house."
"What's the difference where?" Her voice was still low, and her
words still came slowly; but she was, however imperfectly and
painfully, beginning to think--which is a very dangerous thing in any
exploited individual. "What's the difference where?" she asked.
"What you know don't make me no worse, an' what I know don't make me
no better. The truth's the truth. What's happened's happened. I
used to be a girl in Rose's house, no matter if I was now workin' in
your house an' you do know what I used to be. Wherever I am, I'm
what I am; your knowin' it don't help or hinder; an' if I'm fit for
next door I'm fit for here."
Philip Beekman passed his long fingers through his black hair. It
was the gesture she had seen him employ on that remembered night at
Rose's, but now it had a new significance. The young man was as much
the creature of his surroundings as Violet was the creation of hers.
He could no more appreciate her point of view than she could
comprehend his. It was as if they spoke different tongues. Beekman
was powerless to argue further, and when a man reaches that
condition, he takes a firm stand upon authority.
"All right," he said; "we won't waste words. The hard fact is that
you've got to go. I'm sorry, but you've got to go and go now."
She bowed her head; she had finished.
He wished she would answer; he wished she would fly into a rage; but
as she remained dumb, he continued:
"I suppose your hat and jacket are in the kitchen. You can drop me a
card telling me where to send your trunk. I'll explain this to
your--to my mother somehow. I'll do whatever I can for you--outside."
A slow shake of her russet head was her reply.
"I'll give you a recommendation."
"I won't need none, Mr. Beekman."
"I--I think I've got fifty dollars somewhere in my clothes."
"I was paid my wages only this mornin'."
He looked at her in gray-eyed amazement.
"But I say," he began, "you aren't going to--you don't mean you
won't----"
She did not answer. She moved slowly and quietly away. She went to
the kitchen, got her shabby beaver hat and her long coat.
Philip, in the pantry, remained as she had left him, erect, eyes and
mouth wide.
A moment later he heard the area door open and close.