"I would not!" he replied harshly. Then he repented his tone. "If I had known you were out there," he said more gently, "I"d have sent out and had you dragged in. I--I have wanted something this morning; and now I am sure it was--"
"Yes," she interrupted, taking the words out of his mouth, "you wanted _me_. I knew you would. You see, it"s just absolutely impossible to oppose anybody who loves you. You know, that"s the very method Jesus gave for overcoming our enemies--to love them, just love them to pieces, until we find that we haven"t any enemies at all any more.
Isn"t it simple? My! Well, that"s the way I"ve been doing with you--just loving you."
The man"s brows knotted, and his lips tightened. Was this girl ridiculing him? Or was there aught but the deepest sincerity expressed in the face from which he could not take his eyes? Impossible! And yet, did ever human being talk so strangely, so weirdly, as she?
He bent a little closer to her. "Did you say that you loved me?" he asked. "I thought you looked upon me as a human monster." After all, there was a note of pathos in the question. Carmen laid her hand upon his.
"It"s the _real_ you that I love," she answered gently. "The monster is only human thought--the thought that has seemed to mesmerize you.
But you are going to throw off the mesmerism, aren"t you? I"ll help you," she added brightly. "You"re going to put off the "old man"
completely--and you"re going to begin by opening yourself and letting in a little love for those poor people down at Avon, aren"t you? Yes, you are!"
At the mention of the people of Avon his face became stern and dark.
And yet she spoke of them alone. She had not mentioned the Beaubien, Miss Wall, the Express, nor herself. He noted this, and wondered.
"You see, you don"t understand, Mr. Ames. You"ll be, oh, so surprised some day when you learn a little about the laws of thought--even the way human thought operates! For you can"t possibly do another person an injury without that injury flying back and striking you. It"s a regular boomerang! You may not feel the effects of its return right away--but it does return, and the effects acc.u.mulate. And then, some day, when you least expect it, comes the crash! But, when you love a person, why, that comes back to you too; and it never comes alone. It just brings loads of good with it. It helps you, and everybody. Oh, Mr. Ames," she cried, suddenly rising and seizing both his hands, "you"ve just _got_ to love those people down there! You can"t help it, even if you think you can, for hate is not real--it"s an awful delusion!"
It was not so much an appeal which the girl made as an affirmation of things true and yet to come. The mighty _Thou shalt not!_ which Moses laid upon his people, when transfused by the omnipotent love of the Christ was transformed from a clanking chain into a silken cord. The restriction became a prophecy; for when thou hast yielded self to the benign influence of the Christ-principle, then, indeed, thou shalt not desire to break the law of G.o.d.
Carmen returned to her chair, and sat eagerly expectant. Ames groped within his thought for a reply. And then his mental grasp closed upon the words of Hood.
"They are very bitter against me--they hate me!" he retorted lamely.
"Ah, yes," she said quickly. "They reflect in kind your thought of them. Your boomerangs of greed, of exploitation, of utter indifference which you have hurled at them, have returned upon you in hatred. Do you know that hatred is a fearful poison? And do you know that another"s hatred resting upon you is deadly, unless you know how to meet and neutralize it with love? For love is the neutralizing alkaloid."
"Love is--weakness," he said in a low tone. "That kind, at least."
"Love weakness! Oh! Why, there is no such mighty power in the whole universe as love! It is omnipotent! It is hatred that is weak!"
Ames made a little gesture of contempt. "We argue from different standpoints," he said. "I am a plain, matter-of-fact, cold-blooded business man. There is no love in business!"
"And that," she replied in a voice tinged with sadness, "is why business is such chaos; why there is so much failure, so much anxiety, fear, loss, and unhappiness in the business world. Mr. Ames, you haven"t the slightest conception of real business, have you?"
She sat for a moment in thought. Then, brightly, "I am in business, Mr. Ames--?"
"Humph! I am forced to agree with you there! The business of attempting to annihilate me!"
"I am in the business of reflecting good to you, and to all mankind,"
she gently corrected.
"Then suppose you manifest your love for me by refraining from meddling further in my affairs. Suppose from now on you let me alone."
"Why--I am not meddling with you, Mr. Ames!"
"No?" He opened a drawer of the desk and took out several copies of the Express. "I am to consider that this is not strictly meddling, eh?" he continued, as he laid the papers before her.
"No, not at all," she promptly replied. "That"s uncovering evil, so"s it can be destroyed. All that evil, calling itself you and your business, has got to come to the surface--has got to come up to the light, so that it can be--"
"Ah! I see. Then I, the monster, must be exposed, eh? And afterward destroyed. A very pretty little idea! And the mines and mills which I own--"
"You own nothing, Mr. Ames, except by consent of the people whom you oppress. They will wake up some day; and then state and national ownership of public utilities will come, forced by such as you."
"And that desideratum will result in making everybody honest, I suppose?"
"No," she answered gravely. "We must go deeper than that. All our present troubles, whether domestic, business, civic, or social, come from a total misapprehension of the nature of G.o.d--a misunderstanding of what is really _good_. We have _all_ got to prove Him. And we are very foolish to lose any more time setting about it, don"t you think so?
"You see," she went on, while he sat studying her, "those poor people down at Avon don"t know any more about what is the real good than you do. And that"s why their thoughts and yours center upon the false pleasures of this ephemeral existence called life--this existence of the so-called physical senses--and why you both become the tools of vice, disease, and misfortune. They build up such men as you, and then you turn about and crush them. And in the end you are both what the Bible says--poor, deluded fools."
"Well, I"ll be--"
"Oh, don"t swear!" she pleaded, again seizing his hand and laughing up into his face. But then her smile vanished.
"It"s time you started to prove G.o.d," she said earnestly. "Won"t you begin now--to-day? Haven"t you yet learned that evil is the very stupidest, dullest, most uninteresting thing in the world? It is, really. Won"t you turn from your material endeavors now, and take time to learn to really live? You"ve got plenty of time, you know, for you aren"t obliged to work for a living."
She was leaning close to him, and her breath touched his cheek. Her soft little hand lay upon his own. And her great, dark eyes looked into his with a light which he knew, despite his perverted thought, came from the unquenchable flame of her selfless love.
Again that unfamiliar sentiment--nay, rather, that sentiment long dormant--stirred within him. Again his worldly concepts, long entrenched, instantly rose to meet and overthrow it. He had not yet learned to a.n.a.lyze the thoughts which crept so silently into his ever-open mentality. To all alike he gave free access. And to those which savored of things earthy he still gave the power to build, with himself as a willing tool.
"You will--help me--to live?" he said. He thought her the most gloriously beautiful object he had ever known, as she sat there before him, so simply gowned, and yet clothed with that which all the gold of Ophir could not have bought.
"Yes, gladly--oh, so gladly!" Her eyes sparkled with a rush of tears.
"Don"t you think," he said gently, drawing his chair a little closer to her, "that we have quite misunderstood each other? I am sure we have."
"Perhaps so," she answered thoughtfully. "But," with a happy smile again lighting her features, "we can understand each other now, can"t we?"
"Of course we can! And hasn"t the time come for us to work together, instead of continuing to oppose each other?"
"Yes! yes, indeed!" she cried eagerly.
"I--I have been thinking so ever since I returned yesterday from Washington. I am--I--"
"We need each other, don"t we?" the artless girl exclaimed, as she beamed upon him.
"I am positive of it!" he said with suggestive emphasis. "I can help you--more than you realize--and I want to. I--I"ve been sorry for you, little girl, mighty sorry, ever since that story got abroad about--"
"Oh, never mind that!" she interrupted happily. "We are living in the present, you know."
"True--and in the future. But things haven"t been right for you. And I want to see them straightened out. And you and I can do it, little one. Madam Beaubien hasn"t been treated right, either. And--"
"There!" she laughed, holding up a warning finger. "We"re going to forget that in the good we"re going to do, aren"t we?"
"Yes, that"s so. And you are going to get a square deal. Now, I"ve got a plan to make everything right. I want to see you in the place that belongs to you. I want to see you happy, and surrounded by all that is rightfully yours. And if you will join me, we will bring that all about. I told you this once before, you may remember."
He stopped and awaited the effect of his words upon the girl.
"But, Mr. Ames," she replied, her eyes shining with a great hope, "don"t think about me! It"s the people at Avon that I want to help."