Part 19

Equally without concern, and knowing his cause was won, counsel for the defense, a suave little personage, played his rôle as the cues came to him: retained his suavity through an opening statement flatly denying that of his learned young friend; pretended to drop a little of the suavity through a series of cutting cross-examinations that left nothing of the policeman's vague testimony; and gave an excellent imitation of throwing away all the rest of the suavity when, in an impassioned speech, quite up to that of his learned young friend, he declared that he would call no witness (which he did not dare to do), because the Commonwealth had wholly failed to make out its case (which was quite true), and because a respectable lady, the daughter of a mother, had been outraged by ruffianly officers, her humble home ruthlessly wrecked, and her livelihood endangered (which was absolutely false).

So, at last, without any pretense at concern whatever, the bottle-nosed personage on the bench ceased drawing pigs on his blotter, and, sharing the common knowledge of the fate of the case, gravely instructed the unwashed jury that if they thought two and two were four they should so find, whereas if, on the other hand, they believed four to be the sum of one and one plus one and one they were to perform their sworn duty and so report. And the unwashed jury, without leaving the court-room, declared Rose Légère an innocent woman.

The innocent woman, still the pleasantly stout lady of the brewery advertisement, shook gratefully the soft paw of her forensic defender.

"Thank God that's over," said she, with quite as much feeling and quite as much reason as many others of us return praise to Heaven for benefits that originate a good deal nearer earth.

The suave defender smiled.

"Yes," he said, "thank God--and pay _me_."

"You'll get a check in the morning," Rose replied, "an' I haven't a grudge against nobody, though I do think that other lawyer might 'a' got less gay with his tongue."

"He was only doing his duty, Mrs. Légère. It's the law, you know."

"What if it is? I didn't make it. What I don't like to see is the way you people'll go back on your friends because somethin' or other's the law."

She gathered her silk skirts free of contamination by the low crowd in the court-room, and made her way to a waiting taxicab outside.

"I think," she said, as that vehicle began to pump through the streets, "I'll pay a little call on Mr. Wesley Dyker."

She found him, somewhat surprised beneath his drooping lids, at his office, and he immediately agreed to see her alone.

"Now then," she said pleasantly, seating herself unasked before his desk and leaning easily back in her chair, "what I want to know is: Am I goin' to be let alone?"

Dyker stroked his crisp mustache. He wanted to gain time.

"You were acquitted, then?" he asked.

"Looks like it, don't it? See here, Wes, I know where all my trouble come from, an' I can pretty well guess how it come; but I'm willin' to ferget it if you are. Are you?"

Dyker's slow eyes were raised to hers, then lowered.

"Yes," he said.

"All right. Now you'll need me an' I'll lend a hand, but I've got to know first off if I'm not goin' to be interfered with."

"You had better see O'Malley about that."

"No, I hadn't. You went to see him first; go to him again."

"I----" Dyker twirled a pencil between his white fingers. "I shan't be sorry if I do?"

"You will not."

"I may count on that, may I?"

Rose squared herself in her chair.

"Got a talkin'-machine around here?" she inquired.

"Why, no."

"Because I'd like to have some soft music while I tell you the story of my life--see?"

"I don't believe you have to tell that."

"Yes, I do. I want you to know just what I am; then you'll see whether you can depend on me. I was brought up decent--that's the truth. I had my church an' Sunday-school like you had, an' perhaps more. The other sort of school I had to quit early, because my old man wasn't paid enough to keep me on, an' I had to go to work myself. I was under the age; but I swore I wasn't, so that was all right, an' after I'd tramped over the whole town, I got a job filin' letters an' addressin' circulars in a young broker's office. I was mighty little, but I was mighty good lookin'. I thought he took me for what I could do, but I found out he took me for my looks."

She spoke quite without emotion, and Dyker, in spite of himself, was interested.

"It cost that broker a lot to live," she continued; "so much that he couldn't afford to get married. When he'd got through with me, after a few years, an' the baby was dead in the hospital, my people were so damned respectable that I didn't dare go home to them. Wall Street had been plungin'; nobody'd buy stocks; I couldn't get a job there. Times was hard and I couldn't find a place anywhere else. It was up to me to starve to death, go into a home an' be marked for life, or get real money the best way I could."

She paused, and Wesley found himself interjecting an urging "Well?"

"Well, I got the money. My broker put me up in a flat. He stole the cash to do it, an' when the fly-cops got next, he blew out his brains. I was still high and dry, so I got a couple of girls to help me. Then I met Mike O'Malley's brother--the one that's dead now--an' he squared things for me so's I could open up the place you knew. He owned my joint an' was right an' regular. He saw to it I wasn't bothered, an' we paid for protection an' furnished an address when his brother needed one for voters. I never had no trouble 'till O'Malley's brother was dead an' you queered me with Mike himself."

"And is that all?"

"Yes, that's all. It's about what you'd learn from any other woman in my line of work. But I'll tell you one thing: I got my girls however I could--a lot of 'em because your friends brought 'em, an' everyone that was brought that way I paid for, fair an' square an' good an' heavy; I had to keep the women down because expenses was so high; but no man was ever cheated in my place, an' no man was ever robbed with my knowledge. I may have bad habits of my own, even for my sort of a life; but I always treat my customers on the level, an' I always see that my girls treat 'em on the level, too."

"What about the hangers-on?" asked Wesley.

"You mean about Angel? Well, I played double because I didn't know who was goin' to be on top, an' in this business you've always got to be on the winnin' side. Now you are on top an' there can't be no question. I'm in this line because I've got to live; I couldn't do nothin' else; an' I'm goin' to keep on in it as long as I live. You see now that I've always been on the level in one way; you see that I haven't no reason now not to be on the level in the other way.--Will you go an' fix it with O'Malley?"

He did fix it. He fixed it that afternoon, and he fixed it so firmly that, within ten days, Rose, with her former minions gathered from the corners where she had hidden them, was living and prospering in the house that Riley had raided.

Impartial Justice had been satisfied.

XX

THE SANCTITY OF THE HOME

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."