Part 30 (2/2)

Much later, the wronged and tortured human creature of whom he had surmised evil, and on whom he had bestowed at best only a little cynical admiration, crept home with steps that faltered, burdened with a heaviness of heart and a weariness of body which could be measured only by the pitiful eye of Him who carries the world's sins and sorrows.

The rescued horse munched his oats in stolid tranquillity, the woman raised to heaven her eyes, beneath which were dark, dark lines, and murmured, ”O G.o.d, how long?”

CHAPTER XXIX

THE BEAt.i.tUDES OF OPIUM

At least once each week Roger took Belle to some evening entertainment, selecting places that, while innocent, were in keeping with their years--full of color, life, and interest. The young girl improved at once, as the result of this moderate gratification of a craving that was as proper as it was natural. The sense of being restricted and arbitrarily shut away from the pleasures belonging to her youth no longer worked like a subtle and evil ferment in her mind. The repressed and unhappy are in tenfold more danger from temptation than those who feel they are having their share of life's good.

The stream that cannot flow in the suns.h.i.+ne seeks a subterranean channel, and in like manner when circ.u.mstances, or the inconsiderate will of others, impose unrelenting restraint upon the exuberant spirit of youth, it usually finds some hidden outlet which cannot bear the light. Until Roger came, circ.u.mstances had restricted Belle within such a narrow and colorless life, and she was growing very discontented with her lot--a dangerous tendency. Through all this long ordeal her mother and Mildred had retained her sympathy, for she knew that they were not to blame, and that they were right in protesting against all acquaintances and amus.e.m.e.nts which involved danger. Now that she and Roger occasionally had a merry time together, and a confidential chat on Sunday, she accepted her long days of toil without complaint.

The wholesome and tonic influence of a few hours of positive and unalloyed enjoyment in a busy or burdened life is properly estimated by a very few. Mult.i.tudes would preach better, live better, do more work and die much later, could they find some innocent recreation to which they could often give themselves up with something of the wholehearted abandon of a child.

Belle now had pleasures to look forward to, or some bright scene to live over again, and, were it not for her sympathy for her sister and anxiety on her father's behalf, her brow would have been serene.

To Mildred, however, the days were growing darker and the way more th.o.r.n.y. She was gaining only in the power of endurance; she was unconsciously developing the trait that bade fair to become the keynote of her life--fidelity. It was her absolute loyalty to her long-cherished love that prevented her from accepting invitations to go with Belle and Roger. Through all disguises she saw that the latter was a lover and not a friend, and while she had learned to respect him much more, she shrank from him none the less. True, therefore, to her womanly instincts, and pathetically patient with a life full of pain and weariness, she faltered on toward a future that seemed to promise less and less. Roger did not need to be told by Belle of Mildred's burdened life, although the young girl did speak of it often with sad and indignant emphasis. ”Beautiful Millie, who would grace the finest house in the city,” she said, ”is as much out of place in this life as if a gazelle were made to do the work of a cart-horse. It's just killing her.”

”It's not the work that's harming her so much as the accursed brutality which permits more cruelty to white women than was ever inflicted on black slaves. If the shopkeepers owned these girls who serve their counters they would provide them seats instantly, on the same principle that some of your Southern people, who had no humanity, cared well for their human property; but these fellows know that when a girl breaks down they can take their pick from twenty applicants the next morning. If I could scalp a few of these woman-murderers, I'd sleep better to-night. Oh, Belle, Belle, ii you knew how it hurts me to see such advantage taken of Miss Mildred!

I sometimes walk the streets for hours chafing and raging about it, and yet any expression of my sympathy would only add to her distress. You must never speak to her of me, Belle, except in a casual way, when you cannot help it, for only as I keep aloof, even from her thoughts, can she tolerate me at all.”

”Be patient, Roger. Millie is unlike many girls, and wants only one lover. Now I'd like half a dozen, more or less, generally more.

She's too infatuated with that weakling, Vinton Arnold, to care for any one else. And to think he hasn't sent her one rea.s.suring word since last summer! There isn't enough of him to cast a shadow.

Catch me moping after such a dim outline of a man! But it's just like Millie. If he'd only vanish into thin air she might give him up, and perhaps he has.”

”No, he's in Europe, and has been there ever since he left the hotel at Forestville. I learned the fact the other day. He's living in luxury and idleness, while the girl who loves him is earning her bread in a way that's infernal in its cruelty.”

”How did you find that out?” Belle asked quickly.

”It was in no mean or underhand way, and no knowledge of my inquiries will ever reach him. I thought she'd like to know, however, and you can tell her, but give her no hint of the source of your information.”

”Who told you?” was Mildred's prompt response to Belle's news that night, while a sudden bloom in her pale face showed how deeply the tidings interested her.

”No matter how I learned the fact,” replied Belle a little brusquely; ”it's true. He wouldn't lift his little finger to keep you from starving.”

”You wrong him,” cried Mildred pa.s.sionately; ”and I don't wish you ever to speak of him again. I know who told you: it was Roger Atwood, and I wish he would leave me and my affairs alone. He is singularly stupid and ill-bred to meddle in such a matter.”

”He has not meddled,” retorted Belle indignantly, and wholly off her guard; ”he thought you might like to know the truth, and he learned it in a way that left no trace. When you are in the streets you are always looking for Mr. Arnold (it's a pity he wasn't doing a little looking, too), and now your mind can be at ease. He isn't sick or dead; he's entirely safe and having a good time, faring sumptuously every day, while you are dying by inches for little more than bread and a nook in a tenement-house. I don't care what you say, I detest such a man.”

Mildred's overtaxed nerves gave way at Belle's harsh and prosaic words, and throwing herself on her couch she sobbed so bitterly that the inconsiderate child, in deep compunction, coaxed and pleaded with her not ”to take it so hard,” and ended by crying in sympathy, almost as heartily as Mildred herself. The latter was completely disarmed of her anger by Belle's feelings, and, indeed, as she came to think it all over, it did not seem so like desertion on Arnold's part, since he might have written from Europe and the letter have failed to reach her. That he should have been in New York all this time and have made no effort to find her would seem heartless indeed. At any rate, with her rare fidelity and faith, she would believe nothing against him without absolute proof.

But of Roger Atwood she thought resentfully, ”He reads my very thoughts. He has seen me looking for Vinton half-unconsciously when in the streets. He keeps himself in the background, and no doubt thinks himself very distant and considerate; but I can scarcely turn in any direction but I see his shadow, or meet with some indication that he is watching and waiting.”

There was more truth in her words than she half suspected. His duties required that he should be down town very early in the morning, but he was usually released in the afternoon, for his uncle tacitly humored his desire for study. Scarcely an evening elapsed that the young man did not pa.s.s and repa.s.s the shop in which Mildred was employed, for through the lighted windows he could see the object of his thoughts un.o.bserved, and not infrequently he followed her as she wearily returned homeward, and his heart ached with the impotent desire to lighten the burdens of her life. He feared that she would never accept of his watchful care or thank him for it; but love is its own reward, and impels to action that does not well stand the test of the world's prosaic judgment. Beyond this brief and furtive gratification of his pa.s.sion, he lost no time in sighing or sentiment, but bent his mind to his tasks with such well-directed and persistent energy that the commission merchant occasionally nodded significantly; for, in accordance with his habit, he took counsel of no one except himself.

It was Roger's hope that, eventually, Mildred, for her own sake, could be persuaded to accompany Belle on some of their pursuits of evening recreation, and he suggested that the latter should persistently try to induce her to go, saying that her health and success in the future required more change and cheerfulness; but Mildred always said ”No,” with a quiet emphasis which admitted of no argument.

<script>