"But--she saved me from--from that place," protested the hara.s.sed Carmen. "She was poor and cold--I could see that. Why should I have things that I don"t need when others are starving?"
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles shook her weary head in despair. Her sister, Mrs.
Reed, who had sat fixing the girl with her cold eyes throughout the stormy interview following their return from the ball, now offered a suggestion. "The thing to do is to telephone immediately to all the newspapers, and say that her beads were stolen last night."
"But they weren"t stolen," a.s.serted the girl. "I gave them to her--"
"Go to your room!" commanded Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, at the limit of her endurance. "And never, under any circ.u.mstances, speak of this affair to any one--never!"
The social crown, which had rested none too securely upon the gilded wig of the dynamic Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, had been given a jolt that set it tottering.
It was very clear to Mrs. J. Wilton Ames after the Charity Ball that she was engaged in a warfare to the death, and with the most relentless of enemies. Nothing short of the miraculous could now dethrone the detested Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her beautiful, mysterious ward. She dolefully acknowledged to herself and to the sulking Kathleen that she had been asleep, that she had let her foot slip, and that her own husband"s conduct in leading the grand march with Carmen bade fair to give the _coup de grace_ to a social prestige which for many weeks had been decidedly on the wane.
"Mamma, we"ll have to think up some new stunts," said the dejected Kathleen over the teacups the noon following the ball. "Why, they"ve even broken into the front page of the newspapers with a fake jewelry theft! Look, they pretend that the little minx was robbed of her string of pearls last night on leaving the hall. I call that pretty cheap notoriety!"
Mrs. Ames"s lip curled in disdain as she read the news item. "An Inca princess, indeed! n.o.body knows who she is, nor what! Why doesn"t somebody take the trouble to investigate her? They"d probably find her an outcast."
"Couldn"t papa look her up?" suggested Kathleen.
Mrs. Ames did not reply. She had no wish to discuss her husband, after the affair of the previous evening. And, even in disregard of that, she would not have gone to him with the matter. For she and her consort, though living under the same roof, nevertheless saw each other but seldom. At times they met in the household elevator; and for the sake of appearances they managed to dine together with Kathleen in a strained, unnatural way two or three times a week, at which times no mention was ever made of the son who had been driven from the parental roof. There were no exchanges of confidences or affection, and Mrs.
Ames knew but little of the working of his mentality. She was wholly under the dominance of her masterful husband, merely an accessory to his mode of existence. He used her, as he did countless others, to b.u.t.tress a certain side of his very complex life. As for a.s.sistance in determining Carmen"s status, there was none to be obtained from him, strongly attracted by the young girl as he had already shown himself to be. Indeed, she might be grateful if the attachment did not lead to far unhappier consequences!
"Larry Beers said yesterday that he had something new," she replied irrelevantly to Kathleen"s question. "He has in tow a Persian dervish, who sticks knives through his mouth, and drinks melted lead, and bites red-hot pokers, and a lot of such things. Larry says he"s the most wonderful he"s ever seen, and I"m going to have him and a real Hindu _swami_ for next Wednesday evening."
New York"s conspicuous set indeed would have languished often but for the social buffoonery of the clever Larry Beers, who devised new diversions and stimulating mental condiments for the jaded brains of that gilded cult. His table ballets, his bizarre parlor circuses, his cunningly devised fads in which he set forth his own inimitable antics, won him the motley and the cap and bells of this tinseled court, and forced him well out into the glare of publicity, which was what he so much desired.
And by that much it made him as dangerous as any stupid anarchist who toils by candle-light over his crude bombs. For by it he taught the great ma.s.s of citizenship who still retained their simple ideals of reason and respect that there existed a social caste, worshipers of the golden calf, to whom the simple, humdrum virtues were quite unendurable, and who, utterly devoid of conscience, would quaff champagne and dance on the raw, quivering hearts of their fellow-men with glee, if thereby their jaded appet.i.tes for novelty and entertainment might be for the moment appeased.
And so Larry Beers brought his _swami_ and dervish to the Ames mansion, and caused his hostess to be well advertised in the newspapers the following day. And he caused the eyes of Carmen to bulge, and her thought to swell with wonder, as she gazed. And he caused the bepowdered nose of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to stand a bit closer to the perpendicular, while she sat devising schemes to cast a shade over this clumsy entertainment.
The chief result was that, a week later, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, still running true to form, retorted with a superb imitation of the French _Bal de l"Opera_, once so notable under the Empire. The Beaubien had furnished the inspiring idea--and the hard cash.
"I wonder why I do it?" that woman had meditated. "Why do I continue to lend her money and take her notes? I wanted to ruin her, at first.
I don"t--I don"t seem to feel that way now. Is it because of Carmen?
Or is it because I hate that Ames woman so? I wonder if I do still hate her? At any rate I"m glad to see Carmen oust the proud hussy from her place. It"s worth all I"ve spent, even if I burn the notes I hold against Jim Crowles"s widow."
And often after that, when at night the Beaubien had sought her bed, she would lie for hours in the dim light meditating, wondering. "It"s Carmen!" she would always conclude. "It"s Carmen. She"s making me over again. I"m not the same woman I was when she came into my life. Oh, G.o.d bless her--if there is a G.o.d!"
The mock _Bal de l"Opera_ was a magnificent _fete_. All the members of the smart set were present, and many appeared in costumes representing flowers, birds, and vegetables. Carmen went as a white rose; and her great natural beauty, set off by an exquisite costume, made her the fairest flower of the whole garden. The Duke of Altern, costumed as a long carrot, fawned in her wake throughout the evening. The tubbily girthy Gannette, dressed to represent a cabbage, opposed her every step as he bobbed before her, showering his viscous compliments upon the graceful creature. Kathleen Ames appeared as a bluebird; and she would have picked the fair white rose to pieces if she could, so wildly jealous did she become at the sight of Carmen"s further triumph.
About midnight, when the revelry was at its height, a door at the end of the hall swung open, and a strong searchlight was turned full upon it. The orchestra burst into the wailing dead march from _Saul_, and out through the glare of light stalked the giant form of J. Wilton Ames, gowned in dead black to represent a King Vulture, and with a blood-red fez surmounting his cruel mask. As he stepped out upon the platform which had been constructed to represent the famous bridge in "_Sumurun_," and strode toward the main floor, a murmur involuntarily rose from the a.s.semblage. It was a murmur of awe, of horror, of fear.
The "_monstrum horrendum_" of Poe was descending upon them in the garb which alone could fully typify the character of the man! When he reached the end of the bridge the huge creature stopped and distended his enormous sable wings.
"Good G.o.d!" cried Gannette, as he thought of his tremendous financial obligations to Ames.
Carmen shuddered and turned away from the awful spectacle. "I want to go," she said to the petrified Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who had known nothing of this feature of the program.
Straight to the trembling, white-clad girl the great, black vulture stalked. The revelers fell away from him on either side as he approached. Carmen turned again and watched him come. Her face was ashen. "G.o.d is everywhere," she murmured.
Then her anxious look faded. A light came into her eyes, and a smile wreathed her mouth. And when Ames reached her and extended his huge, black wings again, she walked straight into them with a look of joy upon her beautiful face. Then the wings closed and completely hid the fair, white form from the gaping crowd.
For a few moments dead silence reigned throughout the hall. Then the orchestra crashed, the vulture"s wings slowly opened, and the girl, who would have gone to the stake with the same incomprehensible smile, stepped out. The black monster turned and strode silently, ominously, back to the end of the hall, crossed the bridge, and disappeared through the door which opened at his approach.
"I"m going home!" said the shaken Gannette to his perspiring wife.
"That looks bad to me! That girl"s done for; and Ames has taken this way to publicly announce the fact! My G.o.d!"
There was another astonished watcher in the audience that evening. It was the eminent Monsignor Lafelle, recently back from Europe by way of the West Indies. And after the episode just related, he approached Carmen and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles.
"A very clever, if startling, performance," he commented; "and with two superb actors, Mr. Ames and our little friend here," bowing over Carmen"s hand.
"I am _so_ glad you could accept our invitation, Monsignor. But, dear me! I haven"t got my breath yet," panted the steaming Mrs.
Hawley-Crowles. "Do take us, Monsignor, to the refectory. I feel faint."
A few moments later, over their iced drinks, Lafelle was relating vivid incidents of his recent travels, and odd bits of news from Cartagena. "No, Miss Carmen," he said, in reply to her anxious inquiries, "I did not meet the persons you have mentioned. And as for getting up the Magdalena river, it would have been quite impossible.
Dismiss from your mind all thought of going down there now. Cartagena is tense with apprehension. The inland country is seething. And the little town of Simiti which you mention, I doubt not it is quite shut off from the world by the war."
Carmen turned aside that he might not see the tears which welled into her eyes.
"Your entertainment, Madam," continued Lafelle, addressing the now recovered Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, "is superb, as have been all of your social projects this winter, I learn. The thought which you expressed to me some months ago regarding Catholic activity in social matters certainly was well founded. I perceive that our Protestant rivals have all but retired from the field."
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles swelled with pride. Carmen regarded the churchman with wonder.
"And have you not found a sense of peace, of satisfaction and comfort, since you united with the true Church?" Lafelle went on. "Are you not at last at rest?"
"Quite so," sighed the lady, though the sigh was scarcely one of unalloyed relief.
Lafelle turned to Carmen. "And our little friend here--can she still remain an alien, now that she has some knowledge of her indebtedness to the Church?"
Carmen looked blank. "My indebtedness to the Church!" she repeated.
"Why--"
It was now Lafelle"s turn to sigh, as he directed himself again to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. "She does not see, Madam, that it was by the ladder of Holy Church that she mounted to her present enviable social height."
"But--what--what do you mean?" stammered the bewildered girl.
"May I not come and explain it to her?" said Lafelle. Then he suddenly thought of his last conversation with the Beaubien. But he shrugged his shoulders, and a defiant look sat upon his features.
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles dared not refuse the request. She knew she was now too deeply enmeshed for resistance, and that Lafelle"s control over her was complete--unless she dared to face social and financial ruin.
And under that thought she paled and grew faint, for it raised the curtain upon chaos and black night.
"Would it be convenient for me to call to-morrow afternoon?" continued the churchman.
"Certainly," murmured Mrs. Hawley-Crowles in a scarcely audible voice.
"By the way," Lafelle said, suddenly turning the conversation, "how, may I ask, is our friend, Madam Beaubien?"
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles again trembled slightly. "I--I have not seen her much of late, Monsignor," she said feebly.