XI

Three months later, on a rare day in early June, Miss Lucille Wilson

was made Mrs. Clarence Waldo, in the presence of a fashionable company.

Journalistic social tittle-tattle had engendered such lively public

interest that the neighborhood of St. Stephen's was beset by a throng

of sight-seers--chiefly random women--who for two hours previous to the

ceremony occupied the adjacent sidewalks and every spot which would

command a glimpse of the bride and guests. A force of policemen

guarded the church against the incursion of the multitude. Yet perhaps

the patient waiters felt rewarded for their pains, inasmuch as the

heroine of the occasion, after alighting from her carriage, stood for

an instant at the entrance to the canopy before proceeding, as though

she were willing to give the world a brief opportunity to behold her

loveliness and grandeur. For those with pocket cameras there was time

enough for a snap-shot before she was lost to sight.

Within the church were gay silks and nodding bonnet plumes and imposing

formalities. Six maids, each wearing as a memento an exquisite locket

encrusted with diamonds, and six ushers with scarf-pins of a pearl set

in a circle of tiny rubies, escorted the bride to the altar, where the

Rev. Mr. Prentiss and two assistant priests were in attendance. When

the happy pair had been made man and wife a choir of expensive voices

chanted melodiously "O Perfect Love," and the procession streamed down

the aisle on its way to the wedding-breakfast. This was served by a

New York caterer on little tables with all the gorgeous nicety of which

he was capable. Though June is a month when most delicious things are

to be had, an effort had evidently been made to procure delicacies

which were not in season. The effect of a jam of guests elbowing for

their food, as is usual on such occasions, would have lacerated Mrs.

Wilson's sensibilities. Her house was large, so she had been able to

invite her entire social acquaintance without crowding her rooms, and

her instructions had been that there should be numerous deft waiters in

order that each guest might come under the benign influence of personal

supervision. Accordingly everyone was pleased and in good spirits

unless it were the bridegroom, and the doubt in his case was suggested

only by the impassiveness of his countenance at a time when it should

properly have been the mirror of his heart's joy. Perhaps he had not

fully recovered from the farewell dinner given him by his stag friends,

as newspaper women are apt to designate a bachelor's intimates, where

he had seen fit to express his emotion by drinking champagne to the

point when he became musically mellow, a curious and singularly

Anglo-Saxon prelude to the holy rite of matrimony. Nevertheless, he

was dignified if unemotional; and his frock coat, built for the

occasion, his creased trousers, and mouse-colored spats were

irreproachable.

When the hour came for the bride and groom to depart there were so many

sight-seers about the door that the police had to keep the public at

bay in order to afford the happy pair a clear passage to the carriage;

and also to give the blithe young men and women ample scope for the

discharge of the rice and slippers which convention prescribes shall be

hurled at those who set forth on their honeymoon in the blaze of social

distinction. For a moment the fun was furious, and, the contagion

spreading to the spectators, a cheer partly of sympathy, partly of

derision broke forth as the spirited horses, bewildered by the shower

of missiles, bounded away toward the station. Two hatless, exhilarated

youths chased the retreating victims down the street, one of whom

skilfully threw an old shoe so that it remained on the top of the

vehicle. When the young couple entered the special Pullman car

reserved for them the newsboys were already offering papers containing

full accounts of the wedding ceremony, including a list of the guests

and of the presents with their donors, large pictures of the bride and

groom, and diverse cuts reproductive of the salient features of what

one of the scribes designated as the most imposing nuptials in Benham's

social history.

And so they were married. And sorry as she was to lose her daughter,

Mrs. Wilson was thankful to have it all over, and to be able to settle

down once more and unreservedly to the schemes for social regeneration

which had shared with maternal affection the energies of her adult

mind. To a certain extent these interests had been rivals,

unconsciously and involuntarily so, but it has already been intimated

that Lucille was not the kind of girl her mother had intended her to

be, and lacked the sympathies which might have made Mrs. Wilson's

interests virtually one. To give Lucille all which a modern parent

could give and to see her happily married had been her paramount

thought. This was now accomplished. The child had received every

advantage which wealth could supply, and every stimulus which her own

intelligence could suggest. Lucille had not chosen the husband she

would have picked out for her. Still Lucille loved him, and since fate

had so ordained it, and they had become husband and wife, she was

determined to be pleased, and she felt in a measure relieved. The main

responsibility was at an end, and she could now enjoy her daughter's

married state, and was free to give almost undivided thought to her

social responsibilities.

Accordingly on the days which followed the wedding Mrs. Wilson shut

herself up in her study, and with the aid of her private secretary

proceeded to dispose of her accumulated correspondence, and to put her

personal affairs to rights. June was the fag end of the social year.

Many of those who had been energetic in social enterprises since the

autumn were now a little jaded and on the eve of departure for the

country, the Lakes, the Atlantic coast or Europe, in search of that

respite from the full pressure of modern life which all who can afford

it in our large cities now endeavor to procure for themselves.

Nevertheless it was the best time to look the field over and to sow the

seeds of new undertakings by broaching them to those whose support she

desired by a short note of suggestion which could be mulled over during

the summer. It was not the season to extract definite promises from

allies or to enlist new recruits, but essentially that for exploiting

ideas which might bear fruit later when the brains and sensibilities of

Benham's best element had been rested and refreshed. Mrs. Wilson had

numerous charities, clubs in furtherance of knowledge and classes

promoting hygienic or æsthetic development to be pondered. For some of

these--the struggling annual charities--methods like a fair or

theatricals must be devised in order to raise fresh annual funds. The

progressive courses of the past winter, such as the practical talks to

young mothers, with live babies as object-lessons, and lectures on the

relaxation of the muscles, must be superseded by others no less

instructive and alluring. Then again new blood must be introduced into

the various coteries which worked for the regeneration and

enlightenment of the poor to make good the losses caused by matrimony

or fickleness, and new schemes originated for retaining the attention

of the meritorious persons to be benefited. In this last connection

the idea of a course which should emphasize the importance to every

woman of learning something on which she could fall back for

self-support, suggested by Mrs. Stuart's plight, now recurred to her as

timely. And besides these public interests there were the--perhaps

more absorbing because more flattering--numerous personal demands on

her sympathies and time made by other women--women largely of her own,

but of every walk. Here it seemed to her was her most precious

vineyard, for here the opportunity was given for soul to compass soul

in an affinity which blessed both the giver and the receiver of

spiritual benefits. Sometimes the need which sought her was that of

the sinful woman, eager to rehabilitate herself. Sometimes that of the

friendless, aspiring student seeking recognition or guidance; but

oftener than any that of the blossoming maid or wife of her own class

whose yearning nature, reaching out to hers as the flower to the sun

and breeze, received the mysterious quickening which is the essence of

the higher life, and gave to her in return a love which was like sexual

passion in its ardor, but savoring only of the spirit. If she were

thus able by the unconscious gifts or grace which were in her to

relieve the necessities and attune the aspirations of these choice--and

it seemed to her that often the neediest were the choicest--natures,

was it strange that she should cherish and even cultivate this

involuntary power? Mrs. Wilson's theory in regard to this personal

influence was that it was the grateful product of her allegiance to,

and passion for, beauty so far as she could lay claim to any merit in

the matter. She accepted it as a heaven-sent and heaven-kissing gift

which was to be rejoiced in and administered as a trust. Since her

talent had turned out to be that of a leader to point the way by virtue

of sympathetic intelligence--or, to quote her own mental simile, the

electric medium which opened to eager, groping souls the realm of

spirit--was not the mission the most congenial which could have been

offered her, and in the direct line of her tastes and ambitions?

Consequently her private correspondence with those who sought counsel

and inspiration in return for adoring fealty was a labor of care as

well as of love. Just the right words must be written, and the

individual personal touch imparted to each message of criticism,

revelation, homely advice, or mere greeting. To be true to beauty and

to maintain her individuality by the free outpouring of herself from

day to day in felicitous speech of tongue and pen was her glowing task.

In the pursuance of it she had acquired mannerisms which were now a

part of herself. Her phrases of endearment, her chirography, her

note-paper, her method of signing herself, had severally a distinction

or peculiarity of their own. All this was now a second nature; but at

the outset she had been conscious of it, and, though never challenged,

she had once written in vindication in one of her heart-to-heart

missives that the mysterious forces of the universe through which God

talks with man wear not the garb of conforming plainness, but have each

its special exquisiteness; witness the moon-bathed summer night, the

mountain peak at sunrise, the lightening glare among the forest pines,

the lordly ocean in its many moods. She had a memory for birthdays and

anniversaries. In the hour of bereavement her unique words of

consolation were the first to arrive. She was prodigal of flowers, and

her proselytes, knowing her affection for the rose and the lily, were

apt to transform her study into a bower on the slightest excuse. She

never wrote without flowers within her range of vision. In the evening

of one of these days following her daughter's wedding, Mrs. Wilson was

interrupted in her correspondence by the entrance of her maid with the

bewildering news that a baby had been left on the doorsteps, and that a

woman, presumably its mother, had, in the act of stealing away after

ringing the bell, run into the arms of one of the servants, and was now

a prisoner below stairs. The maid was agitated. Should they send for

a policeman, or what was to be done? The course to adopt had not been

clear to those in authority in the kitchen, and the solution had been

left to the mistress whose eleemosynary tendencies had to be taken into

account.

An infant, a waif of destiny, left on her doorsteps at dead of night!

There was only one thing to do, to see the baby, and to talk to the

mother, and for this purpose Mrs. Wilson had both brought before her in

the ante-room where she had received Constance Stuart. Rumor flies

fast, and by this time a burly, belted policeman had arrived on the

scene and stood towering in the background behind the quartette of

servants, the butler, the second-man, who had apprehended the woman, a

housemaid who had taken the custody of the child, and Mrs. Wilson's own

maid. Mrs. Wilson surveyed the group for an instant with the air of a

photographer in search of a correct setting. Then, with a smile of

divination, she said, authoritatively, "Now, Mary, give the child to

its mother, and when I need anyone, I will ring. You, too, Mr.

Officer, please wait outside. I am sure that this woman will tell me

her story more freely if we are alone. And, James, bring some tea--the

regular tea-service."

[Illustration: "I am sure that this woman will tell me her story"]

As the servants took their departure, Mrs. Wilson looked again at the

woman, whom she had already perceived to be young and good looking.

She stood holding her baby securely but not tenderly, with a

half-defiant, half-bewildered air, as of a cat at bay in strange

surroundings. But though her mien expressed a feline dismay, Mrs.

Wilson perceived that she was no desperate creature of the slums. Nor

was she flauntily dressed like the courtesan of tradition. Her

attire--a neat straw sailor hat, a well-fitting dark blue serge skirt

and serge jacket over a white shirt, and decent boots indicated some

social aptness; and her features, especially her clever and sensitive,

though somewhat hard, mouth gave the challenge of intelligence. It was

a smart face, one which suggested quick-wittedness and the habit of

self-reliance, if not self-satisfaction, to the detriment of sentiment

and delicacy. She appeared to Mrs. Wilson to be about twenty-three,

and slightly shorter than Mrs. Stuart, with a sturdier, less flexible

figure. Her hair was light brown, and her complexion fair, but she had

roving dark eyes which gave a touch of picturesqueness to what might be

called the matter-of-fact modernness of her aspect. They were curious

eyes, almost Italian in their hue and calibre, yet in repose coldly

scrutinizing and impassive. Mrs. Wilson appreciated with a sense of

relief that here was no case of sodden ignorance and degradation; for

though in such instances the remedy was more obvious, she preferred to

be brought in contact with natures which drew upon her intellectual

faculties. She believed herself modern in her sympathies, and in her

capacity as a philanthropic worker was partial to the problems with

which modern conditions and modern thought confront struggling human

nature.

"Won't you sit down? And perhaps you would like to lay your baby on

the sofa while we talk and I make you some tea."

The girl, who was prepared probably for a sterner method, yielded,

after a quiver of uncertainty, to the fascination of this gracious

appeal; pausing for a brief instant to examine the tiny face peering

from the folds of the knit shawl in which the child was wrapped, but

with a gaze scientific rather than maternal, as though she were seeking

to trace a likeness or some law of heredity. Then she sat down and

raised her eyes to meet her entertainer's with a glance bordering on

irony, and which seemed to ask, "Well, what are you going to do about

it?" Mrs. Wilson noticed that her hands, which lay in her lap, lightly

crossed, with the palms down, were long and efficient-looking, and that

she wore no wedding-ring.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Mrs. Wilson resumed, with disarming gentleness.

"A girl." With a contraction of her mouth which began in a bitter

smile and ended against her will in a gulp, she added, "I didn't intend

to have it. I didn't want to have it. I suppose you've guessed I'm

not a married woman."

"Yes, I guessed that. I see, too, that you are in trouble, and my sole

object in detaining you here to-night is to give you all the aid in my

power. I'm not seeking to judge or to lecture you, but to help you."

The girl regarded her with a matter-of-fact stare, then said, bluntly,

"I'd have been all right now if your servant hadn't nabbed me."

"You mean if you had succeeded in abandoning your child?"

"Yes. I was earning my living before, and I could go on. I guess I

could have got back my old place."

"But-- Do you mind telling me why you wished to abandon your baby?"

"That's why. I've just told you. To make a fresh start."

"I see. And it was chance, I suppose, that you left it on my

door-steps rather than elsewhere?"

"You're Mrs. Randolph Wilson, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I had read about you in the newspapers, and all about the wedding, and

that you were tremendously rich. When my child was born I hoped she'd

die; but, as she didn't, I made up my mind that the best thing I could

do was to let you look after her. But the luck was against me a second

time. I was caught again." She laughed as though her only concern was

to let fate perceive that she had some sense of humor.

Mrs. Wilson frowned involuntarily. Yet, though her taste was offended

her curiosity was whetted.

"But wasn't your--wasn't he man enough to look after you and provide

for the child?"

"I didn't tell him. He doesn't know. It wasn't his fault. That

is"--she paused for a moment, but her expression suggested solicitude

lest the naked truth should be disconcerting rather than shame--"I took

the chance. Neither of us intended to be married. He travels mostly,

and is here only two or three times a year. What would he do with a

baby anyway?"

The entrance of the butler with the tea things was opportune. It gave

Mrs. Wilson time to think. Her experience of women of this class had

been considerable. If not invariably penitent, they had always shown

shame or humble-mindedness. Here was a new specimen, degenerate and

appalling, but interesting to the imagination.

While the servant set the glittering, dainty silver service on the

table at his mistress's side the girl watched her and him with obvious

curiosity and a mixture of disdain and fascination. Now and again her

roving eyes took in the exquisite surroundings, then reverted to the

face of her would-be benefactress as to a magnet. It seemed to be the

triumph of a desire not to appear worse than she really was which made

her speak when they were alone, and Mrs. Wilson, still in search of

inspiration, was busy with the tea-caddy.

"I wasn't going to let her out of my sight until I knew she was safe."

She nervously compressed the back of one of her hands with the long

fingers of the other in the apparent effort to justify her course, a

consideration to which she was evidently not accustomed. "Wouldn't she

have had a better home at the expense of the State than any I could

have given her? And there was the chance you might take a fancy to her

and adopt her. She's less homely than the average new-born young one.

You see I thought everything over, lady. And next to its dying that

seemed to me the best chance it had for happiness in a best possible

world."

"Ah, but you mustn't talk like that. It's hard, I know, egregiously

hard. But you mustn't be bitter," said Mrs. Wilson, with mandatory

kindness.

The girl smiled in a superior fashion; it was almost a sneer. Her

desire to justify herself had been an involuntary expression. Now

vanity intervened, vanity and the pride of smouldering opinion. "I'm

not bitter; I'm only telling you the plain truth. I'm ignorant, I dare

say, compared to you; but I'm not so ignorant as you think. I've

thought for myself some; and--and all I say is that this isn't any too

good a world for a girl like me anyway, and when a girl like me goes

wrong, as you call it, and has a kid, instead of crying her eyes out

the sensible thing for her to do is to find someone to look after it

for her."

"Which only proves, my child, that such a thing ought never to happen

to her."

"No--not if she has luck."

There was a brief pause; then with an impulsive glide Mrs. Wilson swept

across the room and transferred a cup of tea to the hands of this

wanderer from the fold of grace and ethics. The girl, taken off her

guard, tried to rise to receive it, and looked at her with the

half-fascinated expression of a bird struggling against the fowler.

Sitting down beside her, Mrs. Wilson took one of her hands and said,

"Do you not understand, my dear, that society must insist for its own

preservation that a woman shouldn't go wrong? The whole safety of the

family is based on that. That's the reason the world has to seem a

little cruel to those of our sex who sin against purity. Children must

know who their fathers are." She had these precepts in their modern

guise at the tip of her tongue; she hastened to add, benignly, "But

though the world in self-defence turns a cold shoulder on the unchaste

woman, for her who seeks forgiveness and a fresh start there are

helping hands and loving words which offer forbearance and counsel and

friendship."

"But supposing I'm not seeking forgiveness? That's the trouble, lady.

If only now I were a shame-faced, contrite sinner down in the dust at

the foot of the cross asking permission to lead a new life, how much

simpler it would be for both of us!"

Mrs. Wilson gasped. The coolness of the sacrilege disturbed her

intellectual poise. The girl might have been speaking of an invitation

to dinner instead of the redemption of her soul so casual was her

regret. "That is where you belong; that is where you must come in

order to find grace and peace," she said, in an intense whisper.

"I've shocked you."

"Yes, you've shocked me. But that doesn't matter. You don't realize

what you're saying. The important thing is to save you from yourself,

to cleanse the windows of your soul so that the blessed light of truth

may enter."

The girl regarded her curiously, nervously abashed at the impetuous

kindness of this proselytism. "That's what I meant by saying I'd

thought some. If it's church doctrine you mean, you'd only be

disappointed. It may help people like you. But for the working

people--well, some of us who use our wits don't think much of it."

Though Mrs. Wilson looked profoundly grieved, the spiritual melancholy

emanating from her willowy figure and mobile countenance was charged

with resolution as well as pity.

"It isn't merely church doctrine that you lack. You lack the spirit of

Christian civilization. Your entire point of view is distorted. You

are blind, child, utterly blind to the eternal verities."

The girl's dark eyes grew luminous in response to this indictment, but

a deprecating smile trembled on her lip in protest at her own

susceptibility.

"What is it you want me to do?" she said at last.

"To begin with, I wish you to support your child as a woman should.

You brought it into the world, and you owe to the helpless little thing

a mother's love and care. Will you tell me your name?"

"Loretta Davis."

"And what has been your employment?"

"They don't know. I don't want them to know. I gave them as an excuse

that I was tired of the place."

"I'm not asking your employer's name. What kind of work was it?"

"I was assistant cashier in a drug store."

"And before that?"

"I answered the bell for a doctor."

"I see. I don't wish to pry into your affairs; but do you belong here?

Are your parents living?"

"I don't mind telling. There's not much to tell. My father and mother

are dead. I was born about a hundred miles from here and attended the

public school. I had my living to make, so I came to Benham about two

years ago. I had acquaintances, and was crazy to go into a store. But

a girl who came from the same town as I was going to be married, and

got me her place to look after the doctor's bell and tidy up. He was a

dentist. He lost his health and had to go to Colorado for his lungs,

and then I went to the drug store. That's all there is to tell,

lady--that is, except one thing, which doesn't count much now."

"You might as well tell me that also."

"Oh, well, I'd been thinking of training to be a nurse when I got into

trouble. I'd got used to doctors and medicine, and they told me I had

the sort of hands for it." She exhibited her strong, flexible fingers.

"If I had got rid of my baby, I was going to apply to a hospital. So

you see I've got some ambition, lady. I wanted to be of some use. I'm

not altogether bad."

"No, no, I'm sure you're not. I understand perfectly. And the baby

shan't stand in the way of your making the most of yourself. I will

arrange all that." Mrs. Wilson spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She felt

that she had discovered the secret of, if not the excuse for, the

girl's callousness. Unwelcome maternity had interrupted the free play

of her individuality at the moment when she was formulating a career,

and as a modern woman herself, Mrs. Wilson understood the bitterness of

the disappointment. It gave her a cue to Loretta's perversion, so that

she no longer felt out of touch with her. She refrained from the

obvious temptation of pointing out that a nurse's best usefulness would

be to guard her tender child, and broached instead the project which

swiftly suggested itself the moment she felt that she had fathomed the

cause of the culprit's waywardness.

"I know just the home for you; a little tenement in the Lincoln

Chambers. The rooms are savory, convenient, and attractive, and on the

opposite side of your entry lives an earnest, interesting spirit, a

woman whose husband has deserted her, left her with two children to

provide for. She will be glad to befriend you, and you will like her.

I happen to know that the tenement is vacant, and it is the very place

for you."

Loretta had listened with sphinx-like attention. When Mrs. Wilson

paused her eyes began to make another tour of her surroundings, and at

the close of her remark ignored the theme of conversation.

"I never was inside a multi-millionaire's house before. That's what

you are, ain't it?"

The query was queer, but not to be evaded. "I'm a rich woman

certainly, which makes it all the easier for me to help you." If this

savored of a pauperizing line, which was contrary to Mrs. Wilson's

philanthropic principles, she felt that she must not at all hazards let

the girl slip through her fingers.

"If I'm willing that you should."

"Of course. But you are, I'm sure you are. You're going to trust me

and to put yourself into my hands."

The confidence and charm of this fervor suddenly met with their reward.

Loretta had held back from genuine scruples, such as they were.

Instinctive independence and a preconceived distrust of fine ladies had

kept her muscles stiff and her face set, though she felt thrilled by a

strange and delicious music. No one could have guessed that it was

only the habit of awkwardness which restrained her from falling on her

knees in an ecstasy of self-abasement, not from an access of shame, but

as a tribute to the woman whose personality had captivated her against

her will.

"You seem to take a heap of interest in me, don't you?" The words by

themselves suggested chiefly surprise, but the sign of her surrender

showed itself in her eyes. They were lit suddenly with an intensity

which overspread her countenance, bathing its matter-of-fact smartness

in the soft light of emotion. "I'm willing to do whatever you like,"

she said.