"Well, she won't bother you. Send her away to school."

"Fine! Good idea!" replied Reed sarcastically. "But do you realize that that involves expense? I'm a comparatively poor man, just getting a start in my profession, and with a young and socially ambitious wife!"

"But—your wife—er, she's going to—to have money some day, isn't she?"

"Very true. But the grim reaper has a little work to do first. And on occasions like this he's always deucedly deliberate, you know. Meantime, we're skating close to the edge—for New Yorkers."

"Well, we may be able to beat Ketchim. Now, my father and Uncle John—"

"Oh, shoot your father and Uncle John!" snapped Reed impatiently.

The conductor opened the door and bawled a cryptical announcement.

"This is the place," said Reed, starting up and making for the door. "And now you rake your thought for some way to deal with Ketchim. And leave your father and Uncle John entirely out of the conversation!"

Ketchim was just bowing out a caller as the young engineers mounted the steps. "See that fellow!" he exclaimed, after giving them a hearty welcome. "I just sold him a hundred shares of Simiti stock, at five dollars a share—just half of par. Beginning right on the jump, eh?"

"But—" protested Harris, as they entered the spacious parlor, "the company isn't even in existence yet—and hasn't an asset!"

"Oh, that's all right," replied Ketchim easily. "It's coming into existence, and will have the grandest mine in South America! Boys," he went on earnestly, "I've been talking over the 'phone with Mr. Ames, our most influential stockholder, and a very warm friend of mine. I told him about our conversation of yesterday. He says, go right ahead with the new company—that it's a great idea. He's satisfied with his present holding, and will not increase it. Says he wants Molino stockholders to have the opportunity to purchase all the treasury stock, if they want to."

"Decidedly magnanimous," returned Reed. "But—what about the basis of organization of the new company?"

"Leave it as we planned it, he says. He thinks the arrangement and division of stock fine!"

Reed and Harris looked at each other questioningly. It did not seem possible.

"But," went on Ketchim, "have you seen the morning papers? They are full of the revolution in Colombia. The country is torn wide open, and reports say nothing can be done down there until peace is restored—and that may take a year or two. But, meantime, we will go ahead and organize the new company and take over Molino and prepare to begin work just as soon as you fellows can get into that country. Everybody has simply got to wait until then. And so this," going to Carmen and taking her hand, "is the wonderful little girl! Well! well!"

The entrance of Mrs. Ketchim and her troop of children at this juncture interrupted the conversation. "All enthusiastic Simiti stockholders," said Ketchim, waving his hand toward them, after the introductions. "And all going to get rich out of it, too—as well as yourselves, boys. It simply shows how Providence works—one with God is a majority, always."

Carmen glanced up at him wonderingly.

Dinner over, the men were left alone. Carmen had been taken upstairs by the children to the nursery.

"I've got myself slated for the presidency of the new company," said Ketchim, plunging again into the subject nearest his heart; "and I think we'd better put brother James in as vice-president. Perfectly safe," looking at Harris and winking. "He's got to be recognized, you know, since the Ketchim Realty Company act as fiscal agents. Now for directors I've put down Judge Harris, your father—that's to assure you boys that there'll be some one to look after your interests. Then we'll say Reverend Jurges for another. He's got a big congregation and will be able to place a lot of stock. You just ought to see the letter he wrote me about selling stock to his people! You'd never believe he was a good, spiritually-minded clergyman, with an eye single to heavenly riches! Then one of you fellows, say Reed, had better go on the directorate, since Harris will be in Colombia in charge of operations. And—well, Cass, too. He's young and immature, but absolutely square. He'll do all the legal work for his stock interest. We save money that way, see?"

"But what do I do while we are waiting?" asked Harris in some perplexity. "Reed goes to California right away, you know."

"That's all right, old man," Ketchim genially assured him. "The new company will be organized at once—this week, if possible. You go on salary from the moment of its incorporation, and you open your office right here in this building. I'll see that the rent is paid until you go back to Colombia. Everything's arranged, and you turn right in and help Cass with the new company. There'll be plenty to do. You've got to prepare circulars; write boosting letters to stockholders and prospects; follow up leads; and—oh, you'll be busy! But here comes Reverend Coles," looking out of the window as a man came up the steps. "He's interested in some projects I've been exploiting. Just excuse me for a few moments."

He hastened out to greet the visitor and conducted him into a back room. Reed and Harris were left to the contemplation of their own mixed thoughts. Presently Harris, whose eyes had been dilating for some moments, broke out in a hoarse whisper: "Listen! God a'mighty!—he's praying!"

He got up softly and approached the door of the room into which Ketchim had taken his caller. In a few minutes he returned to his chair. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I could see Ketchim through the keyhole, on his knees by the bed, praying with that fellow! Now what the d—!"

Reed held up a warning finger. Through the silence that fell upon them snatches of the prayer being offered in the adjoining room floated to their ears—"O, blessed Saviour, vouchsafe prosperity to our venture, we beseech thee! The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof—we ask thy blessing on these efforts of ours to wrest from the ground the wealth which the Father of lights has deposited there for the benefit of His children—"

Harris snickered aloud. "What's the game?" he whispered.

Reed shook his head in warning. "It may not be a game," he replied. "But if it is, it's an old one, hiding behind the mask of religion. But I'm inclined to believe the man sincere."

"And I'm not!" retorted Harris. "I'd rather deal with his brother. I know James to be an out-and-out rascal—he openly flies the black flag. But this pious fellow—well, he's got me guessing!"

The caller soon departed, and Ketchim again joined the young men. "He's our assistant pastor," he said musingly, as he watched the man go down the walk. "Nice young fellow, waiting for a church. He and some of his friends are interested in a zinc mine we've been floating, down in the Joplin district."

"Got titles?" queried the cynical Harris, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh, yes," Ketchim smiled affably.

"Mine producing?"

"Well, no—not yet. Lots of development work to be done, you know. Always is. And there's a lot of water in this mine."

"And in the stock, too, eh?" pursued the cruel Harris. "Got any ore?"

"We haven't struck the deposit yet, although we expect to soon. But," glancing up at the clock on the mantel, "we'll have to be going over to Sunday school now. And I want that little girl to go with Marjorie. Fellows," the man's face became deeply serious, "I have no doubt you are both church members?"

Reed fidgeted uneasily under Ketchim's searching glance; but Harris frankly met the question. "Nope," he asserted, "we're both rank heathen. And I'm a dyed-in-the-wool atheist."

"Gracious!" cried Ketchim, "how can you say that, when you see the goodness of the Lord on every hand?"

"Reed, I believe," continued the imperturbable Harris, waving a hand toward his friend, "has philosophical leanings—New Thought, Subliminal Consciousness, Power in Silence, and all that. But I've got to be shown."

"But surely you believe in the divinity of the Christ?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, I never gave it much thought," said Harris. "Been pretty busy, you know. Lots of time for that later."

"Ah, that's what so many say," replied Ketchim sadly; "and then comes the awful voice of the Lord, 'This night thy soul shall be required of thee!' Fellows, I want to pray for you; and I want you both to promise me that you will take up seriously the consideration of your souls' welfare. It's too grave a subject for jest," addressing himself solemnly to the grinning Harris.

"All right, old man," laughed Harris. "But don't dig up any Presbyterian tracts for me. I've got a living witness to—well, to something out of the ordinary, in that girl, Carmen, and I'm inclined to believe she's dug nearer to bottom facts than any of you. So when I'm ready to discuss my soul's welfare I'll just consult her, see?"

"That reminds me," said Ketchim, turning abruptly to Reed, "what do you intend to do with the girl?"

"Quien sabe?" Reed answered abstractedly. "Send her to a boarding school, I guess. At least, that's what I told the old man I'd do."

"So you said before," Ketchim returned. "But where?"

"Don't know yet."

"Well, let me make a suggestion. My daughter Marjorie leaves Tuesday for Conway-on-the-Hudson, where she has been attending Madam Elwin's Select School for Girls. Suppose you go with her—I'm too busy, myself—and take Carmen. It's only a few hours' ride by boat down the river. And the school is without equal. This is Marjorie's third year there, and she's simply in love with it."

Reed began to show signs of interest; and Ketchim, noting the effect of his words, went on briskly:

"Now look here, Molino owes its salvation, and the new company its existence, to that girl. Why shouldn't they do something to show their gratitude? I say, it is no more than right that the new company should support her while she is in school."

"By Jove! not a half-bad idea," commented Harris.

"Certainly not," continued Ketchim earnestly. "Now fix up everything with her as regards the transfer of the mine to the new company, and then let her go with Marjorie to the Elwin school. We can, if you like, make some agreement with her to the effect that when the company is on its feet and she is receiving dividends, she shall return what it may advance for her schooling, eh?"

"You'd better accept the suggestion, Reed," put in Harris. "I'll be here, you know, to keep an eye on the girl; and I'll take her and Marjorie down to Conway myself, and attend to getting her located right."

Reed continued to reflect. He was hardly in a position to refuse such an offer. Besides, he was really leaving her in charge of Harris. "Well," he said at length, "in that case I could leave for California to-morrow night. That matter is pressing hard—all right, I accept the company's offer. It's no more than is due the girl, anyway."

"Good!" replied Ketchim. "I'll make the necessary arrangements at once. And now let's go over to church."

Thus it was that two days later Carmen, still wondering if she was dreaming, was enrolled in the Elwin Select School for Girls, with Marjorie Ketchim for roommate; while Reed, on the Overland Limited, hurrying to the far West, was musing dubiously at frequent intervals on Ketchim's rather conflicting statements, which, until left to this enforced leisure, he had not had time to try to reconcile. At the same time, while Harris was loudly declaiming to the gracious Madam Elwin on the astonishing mental prowess of the girl, Ketchim and Cass sat deeply immersed in the tentative plans for the newly-projected Simiti Development Company.

"Now listen," said Ketchim, who for some minutes had been quietly scanning his youthful lawyer, "Ames knows nothing about the formation of this company, but Harris and Reed are not to know that; and we're going to keep Ames in ignorance of all our plans. With the first sales of stock—and they've already begun—we'll return him his Molino investment. Nezlett wired me this morning that he's sure to sell a big block to the Leveridges, that they're mightily interested, and want to meet Carmen. We'll use the girl for just such purposes. That's one reason why I wanted her handy, so's we could reach her at any time. She makes a star impression; and with her as an advertisement we'll sell a million dollars' worth of stock, and no trouble at all! She's got that honest look that's convincing. And she can tell a story that beats the Arabian Nights! Ames has given me a week to explain, or make good his investment. By that time we'll have the Leveridges sold for twice his investment, and we'll just pay him off and remove him. Meantime, you go over to the bank in the morning and put up the best line of talk you're capable of. I've got sixteen hundred dollars to give 'em on that note; and that'll secure more time, until the sales of stock are enough to pay it all up. Perhaps Uncle Ted will advance me enough to take up the note when he hears about La Libertad. And, say, you see brother James, and shake the club over him until he disgorges that check he got from Miss Leveridge. You can hand him a scare that he won't get over. By George, old man! things have taken a great turn, eh? Why, I can just see Simiti stock sales humping these next few months. Oh, Miss Honeywell," calling to his cashier, "bring me five dollars, please, and charge it to Molino—I mean, to Simiti. Make a new account for that now." Then, again addressing Cass: "Come with me to the football game this afternoon. We can discuss plans there as well as here. Gee whiz, but I feel great!"



CHAPTER 6

Carmen's rapid transition from the eternal solitudes of Guamoco to the whirring activities of New York was like a plunge into the maelstrom, and left her groping blindly in the effort to adapt herself to the changed order. There was little in her former mode of existence that could be transferred to her new environment, and she felt that she was starting life like a new-born babe. For days, even weeks, she moved about dreamily, absorbed, ceaselessly striving to orient herself and to accept easily and naturally the marvels, the sudden accession of material aids, and the wonders of this modern, complex civilization, so common to her associates, but scarcely even dreamed of by her in her former home, despite the preparation which Jose had tried to give her. The Elwin school was small, its student-body seldom numbering more than fifty, and in it Carmen found herself hedged about by restrictions which in a way were beneficial, in that they narrowed her environment and afforded her time for her slow adjustment to it.

But if these restrictions aided her, they also rendered the length of her stay in the school almost calculable. Little by little the girl saw the forces developing which she knew must effect her dismissal; little by little, as Madam Elwin's manner toward her became less gracious, and her schoolmates made fewer efforts to conceal from her the fact that she was not one of them, Carmen prepared for the inevitable. Six months after the girl's enrollment, Madam Elwin terminated her series of disparaging reports to Ketchim by a request that he come at once and remove his charge from the school.

"As I have repeatedly said, Mr. Ketchim, the girl is a paradox. And after these months of disappointing effort to instruct her, I am forced to throw up my hands in despair and send for you." Madam Elwin tapped nervously with a dainty finger upon the desk before her.

"But, if I may be permitted the question, what specific reasons have you, Madam, for—ah, for requesting her removal?" asked the very Reverend Dr. William Jurges, who, having come up to the city to attend a meeting of the directors of the Simiti company, had accepted Ketchim's invitation to first accompany him on his flying trip to Conway-on-the-Hudson, in response to Madam Elwin's peremptory summons.

"Because," replied that worthy personage with a show of exasperation, "I consider her influence upon the young ladies here quite detrimental. Our school, while non-sectarian, is at least Christian. Miss Carmen is not. Where she got her views, I can not imagine. At first she made frequent mention of a Catholic priest, who taught her in her home town, in South America. But of late she has grown very reserved—I might say, sullen, and talks but little. Her views, however, are certainly not Catholic. In her class work she has become impossible. She refuses to accept a large part of our instruction. Her answers to examination questions are wholly in accord with her peculiar views, and hence quite apart from the texts. For that reason she fails to make any grades, excepting in mathematics and the languages. She utterly refuses to accept any religious instruction whatsoever. She would not be called atheistic, for she talks—or used to at first—continually about God. But her God is not the God of the Scriptures, Dr. Jurges. She is a free-thinker, in the strictest sense. And as such, we can not consent to her remaining longer with us."

"Ah—quite so, Madam, quite so," returned the clergyman, in his unconsciously pompous manner. "Doubtless the child's thought became—ah—contaminated ere she was placed in your care. But—ah—I have heard so much from our good friend, Mr. Ketchim, regarding this young girl, that—ah—I should like exceedingly to see and talk with her—if it might be—ah—"

"Madam Elwin will arrange that, I am sure," interposed Ketchim. "Suppose," he suggested, addressing the lady, "we let him talk with her, while I discuss with you our recently acquired mine in South America, and the advisability of an investment with us."

"Certainly," acquiesced Madam Elwin, rising and pressing one of the several buttons in the desk. "Bring Miss Carmen," she directed, to the maid who answered the summons.

"Pardon me," interrupted Dr. Jurges; "but may I go to her? Ah—it would doubtless be less embarrassing for the child."

"Miss Carmen was in the chapel a few moments ago," volunteered the maid.

"Then take the doctor there," returned Madam Elwin, with a gesture of dismissal.

At the head of the stairway the mingled sounds of a human voice and the soft, trembling notes of an organ drifted through the long hall and fell upon the ears of the clergyman.

"Miss Carmen," said the maid, answering his unspoken thought. "She often comes up to the chapel and sings for hours at a time—alone. The chapel is down there," pointing to the end of the hall.

"Then—ah—leave me," said the doctor. "I will proceed alone."

The maid turned willingly and went below, while the man tiptoed to the chapel door. There he stopped and stood listening. The girl was singing in Spanish, and he could not understand the words. But they would have meant nothing to him then. It was the voice upon which they were borne that held him. The song was a weird lament that had come down to the children of Simiti from the hard days of the Conquistadores. It voiced the untold wrongs of the Indian slaves; its sad, unvarying minor echoed their smothered moans under the cruel goad; on the plaintive melody of the repeated chorus their piteous cries were carried to heaven's deaf ears; their dull despair floated up on the wailing tones of the little organ, and then died away, as died the hope of the innocent victims of Spanish lust.

The reverend doctor had never heard a song of that kind before. Nor could he readily associate the voice, which again and again he could not distinguish from the flute-like tones of the organ, with the sordidness and grime of material, fleshly existence. He entered softly and took a seat in the shadow of a pillar. The clear, sweet voice of the young girl flowed over him like celestial balm. Song after song she sang. Some were dreamy bits and snatches in Spanish and English; others were sacred in character. He wondered deeply, as the girl mused over these; yet he knew not that they were her own compositions. Curiosity and uncertainty mastered him at length, and he got softly to his feet and moved away from the pillar, that he might see from what manner of being issued such unbroken harmony. But in his eagerness his foot struck a chair, and the sound echoed loudly through the room.

The music abruptly ceased, and the girl rose and looked over the organ at the intruder.

"I—I beg your pardon," said the clergyman, advancing in some embarrassment. "I was listening to your singing—uninvited, but none the less appreciative. I—"

"Wait, please!" cried the girl, hastily stooping over and fumbling with her shoes. The doctor laughed genially, as he grasped the situation.

"I took them off," she explained hurriedly. "I am not yet accustomed to them. I never wore shoes until I left Simiti." Her face was scarlet, and she tried to cover her confusion with a little laugh.

The doctor stood staring at her, lost in admiration of the shapely figure, the heavy, curling hair, and the wonderfully expressive face. The girl quickly recovered her poise and returned him a frank smile.

"You wish to see me?" she said, after waiting in vain for him to begin.

"Ah—a—yes, certainly—that is, I beg your pardon," stammered the doctor. "I did request permission of Madam Elwin to make your acquaintance. We have heard so much about you. I am Doctor Jurges, an Episcopal clergyman." His sentences issued like blasts from an engine exhaust.

"I am Carmen Ariza," said the girl, extending her hand.

"Ah—quite so, quite so," blustered the doctor, clearing his throat noisily. "Let us be seated. Ah—ah—you have a remarkable voice. It gives evidence of careful cultivation."

"No," returned the girl simply. "It has never had any cultivation. It is natural for me to sing. And my poor organ-playing is what I have picked up myself these six months."

The man regarded her with amazement. "Remarkable!" he murmured.

The girl looked up into his face searchingly. "Why," she asked, "should every one up here think it remarkable when a human mind is clear enough to be a transparency for God?"

Had the roof fallen, the excellent doctor could have been no more startled. He cleared his throat violently again; then fumbled nervously in his pocket and drew out his glasses. These he poised upon the ample arch of his ecclesiastical nose, and through them turned a penetrating glance upon the girl.

"H'm! yes," said he at length; "quite so, quite so! And—ah—Miss Carmen, that brings us to the matter in question—your religious instruction—ah—may I ask from whom you received it?"

"From God," was the immediate and frank reply.

The clergyman started, but quickly recovered his equipoise.

"H'm! yes, quite so, quite so! All real instruction descendeth from above. But—your religious views—I believe they are not considered—ah—quite evangelical, are they? By your present associates, that is."

"No," she replied, with a trace of sadness in her tone. "But," looking up with a queer little smile, "I am not persecuting them for that."

"Oh, no," with a jerky little laugh. "Assuredly not! H'm! I judge the persecution has come from the other side, has it not?"

"We will not speak of that," she said quickly. "They do not understand—that is all."

"H'm! no, quite so—that is—ah—may I ask why you think they do not understand? May not you be in error, instead?"

"If that which I believe is not true," the girl replied evenly, "it will fail under the test of demonstration. Their beliefs have long since failed under such test—and yet they still cling jealously to them, and try to force them upon all who disagree with them. I am a heretic, Doctor."

"H'm—ah—yes, I see. But—it is a quite unfortunate characteristic of mankind to attribute one's views indiscriminately to the Almighty—and—ah—I regret to note that you are not wholly free from this error."

"You do not understand, I think," she quickly returned. "I put every view, every thought, every idea to the test. If good is the result, I know that the thought or idea comes from the source of all good, God. The views I hold are those which I have time and again tested—and some of them have withstood trials which I think you would regard as unusually severe." Her thought had rested momentarily upon her vivid experience in Banco, the dangers which had menaced her in distant Simiti, and the fire through which she had passed in her first hours in Christian America, the land of churches, sects, and creeds.

"H'm!" the worthy doctor mused, regarding the girl first through his spectacles, and then over the tops of them, while his bushy eyebrows moved up and down with such comicality that Carmen could scarcely refrain from laughing. "H'm! quite so. Ah—suppose you relate to me some of the tests to which your views have been subjected."

"No," she returned firmly; "those experiences were only states of consciousness, which are now past and gone forever. Why rehearse them? They were human, and so, unreal. Why go back now and give them the appearance of reality?"

"Unreal! H'm—then you do not regard untoward experience as given us by God for the testing of our faith, I take it."

Carmen turned her head away with a little sigh of weariness. "I think," she said slowly, "I think we had better not talk about these things, Doctor. You are a preacher. Your views are not mine."

"Why—ah," blustered the clergyman, assuming a more paternal air, "we—ah—would not for a moment cause you embarrassment, Miss Carmen! But—in fact, Madam Elwin has—ah—expressed her disapproval of your views—your religious ideals, if I may put it so baldly, and she—that is—the good lady regrets—"

"She wishes to be rid of me, you mean, Doctor?" said the girl, turning and stretching a mental hand to the sinking divine.

"H'm! well, hardly so—ah—so—"

"Doctor," said the girl calmly, "I know it, and I wish to go. I have been waiting only to see the way open. I do not wish to remain longer in an atmosphere where ignorance and false belief stifle all real progress."

The doctor turned another look of astonishment upon her. He had forgotten that he had not been talking with one of his own age. The fact suddenly pressed upon him. "How old are you?" he blurted.

Carmen could not help laughing. But if her clear mental gaze penetrated the ecclesiastical mask and surmounted the theological assumptions of her interlocutor, enabling her to get close to the heart of the man, she did not indicate it further. "I am nearly sixteen," was her only reply.

"Ah," he reflected, "just a child! My dear girl," he continued, laying a hand indulgently upon hers, "I will advise with Madam Elwin, and will endeavor to convince her that—ah—that your spiritual welfare, if I may so put it, requires that you be not turned adrift at this critical, transitorial period of your life. We must all be patient, while we strive to counteract the—ah—the pernicious teaching to which you were exposed before—ah—before becoming enrolled in this excellent school."

Carmen looked at him steadily for a moment before replying. There was something of pity in the expression of her beautiful face, of tender sympathy for those who seek the light, and who must some day find it, but whose progress is as yet hampered by the human mind's unreasoning adherence to the stepping-stones over which it has been passing through the dark waters of ignorance. "Then, Doctor," she said calmly, "you know what I have been taught?"

"Why—ah—yes—that is, vaguely. But—suppose you inform me briefly." He was beginning to be sensible of having passed judgment upon the girl without first according her a hearing.

"Well," she smiled up at him, "I have been taught the very hardest thing in the whole world."

"H'm, indeed! Ah, quite so—and that?"

"To think."

"To—ah—to think!" He again clutched at his mental poise. "Well, yes, quite so! But—ah—is it not the function of all our schools to teach us to think?"

"No," answered the girl decidedly; "not to teach us to think, but to cause us blindly to accept what is ignorantly called 'authority'! I find we are not to reason, and particularly about religious matters, but to accept, to let those 'in authority' think for us. Is it not so? Are you not even now seeking to make me accept your religious views? And why? Because they are true? Oh, no; but because you believe them true—whether they are or not. Have you demonstrated their truth? Do you come to me with proofs? Do your religious views rest upon anything but the human mind's undemonstrated interpretation of the Bible? And yet you can not prove that interpretation true, even though you would force it upon such as I, who may differ from you."

"I—ah—" began the doctor nervously. But Carmen continued without heeding the interruption:

"Only yesterday Professor Bales, of the University, lectured here on 'The Prime Function of Education.' He said it was the development of the individual, and that the chief end of educational work was the promotion of originality. And yet, when I think along original lines—when I depart from stereotyped formulae, and state boldly that I will not accept any religion, be it Presbyterian, Methodist, or Roman Catholic, that makes a God of spirit the creator of a man of flesh, or that makes evil as real as good, and therefore necessarily created and recognized by a God who by very necessity can not know evil—then I am accused of being a heretic, a free-thinker; and the authorities take steps to remove me, lest my influence contaminate the rest of the pupils!"

"H'm—ah—yes, quite so—that is—I think—"

"Do you, a preacher, think?" the girl went on hurriedly. "Or do you only think that you think? Do you still believe with the world that the passing of a stream of human thought, or a series of mental pictures, through your mentality constitutes real thinking? Do you believe that jumping from one human mental concept to another twenty-four hours a day constitutes thinking? Have you yet learned to distinguish between God's thoughts and their opposites, human thoughts? Do you know what Jesus taught? Have you a real, working, demonstrable knowledge of Christianity? Do you heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach the truth that sets men free from the mesmerism of evil? If so, then you are unevangelical, too, and you and I are both heretics, and we'd better—we'd better leave this building at once, for I find that the Inquisition is still alive, even in America!"

She stopped, and caught her breath. Her face was flushed, and her whole body quivered with emotion.

"The Inquisition! Why, my dear young lady, this is a Christian nation!"

"Then," said the girl, "you have still much to learn from the pagan nations that have gone before."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the doctor, again adjusting his glasses that he might see her more clearly. "My dear child, you have been thinking too much, and too seriously."

"No, Doctor," she replied; "but you preachers have not been thinking enough, nor even half seriously. Oh," she went on, while her eyes grew moist, and ever and again her throat filled, "I had expected so much in this great country! And I have found so little—so little that is not wholly material, mechanical, and unreal! I had imagined that, with all your learning and progress, which Padre Jose told me about, you would know God much better than we in the darkened South. But your god is matter, machinery, business, gold, and the unreal things that can be bought with money. Some one wrote, in a recent newspaper, that America's god was 'mud and mammon!' What do I find the girls here in this school talking about but dress, and society, and the unreal, passing pleasures of the physical senses! Do they know God? No—nor want to! Nor do the preachers! There are religious services here every Sunday, and sermons by preachers who come down from the city. Sometimes a Baptist; sometimes a Presbyterian; and sometimes an Episcopalian, or a Methodist. What is the result? Confusion—religious confusion. Each has a different concept of God; yet they all believe Him the creator of a man of flesh and bones, a man who was originally made perfect, but who fell, and was then cursed by the good and perfect God who made him. Oh, what childish views for men to hold and preach! How could a good God create anything that could fall? And if He could, and did, then He knew in advance that the man would fall, and so God becomes responsible, not man. Oh, Doctor, is it possible that you believe such stuff? How can you! how can you! Is it any wonder that, holding such awful views, you preachers have no longer the power to heal the sick? Do you not know that, in order to heal the sick, one must become spiritually-minded? But no one who holds to the puerile material beliefs embraced in your orthodox theology can possibly be spiritual enough to do the works Jesus said we should all do if we followed him—really understood him."

"My dear child—you really are quite inconsistent—you—"

"Inconsistent! What a charge for an orthodox preacher to bring! Let us see: You say that the Scriptures teach that God made man in His image and likeness—the image and likeness of spirit. Very well. Spirit, God, is eternal, immortal. Then while He exists can His image fade away, or die? Can or would God cause it to do so? Can or would He destroy His own reflection? And could that image, always being like Him, ever change, or manifest sin, or disease, or evil, unless God first manifested these things? And if God did manifest them, then, perforce, the image would have to do likewise. But, in that case, could God justly punish His image for faithfully reflecting its original? Consistent! Oh, it is you preachers, lacking sufficient spirituality to correctly interpret the Scriptures, who are wildly, childishly, ignorantly inconsistent!"

Carmen rose and faced the clergyman. "I did not mean to condemn you, Doctor," she said earnestly. "I wage no warfare with persons or things. My opposition is directed only against the entrenched human thought that makes men spiritually blind and holds them in the mesmeric chains of evil. I am young, as you reckon years, but I have had much experience in the realm of thought—and it is there that all experience is wrought out before it becomes externalized. I have told you, my teacher was God. He used as a channel a priest, who came years ago to my little home town of Simiti, in far-off Colombia. His life had been wrecked by holding to the belief of evil as a power, real and intelligent. He began to see the light; but he did not overcome fear sufficiently to make his demonstration and break the imaginary bonds which held him. He saw, but he did not prove. He will, some day. And, Doctor, you and everybody else will have to do the same. For, unless Jesus uttered the most malicious falsehoods ever voiced, every human being will have to take every step that he took, make every demonstration that he made, and prove all that he proved, before mortals will cease to consume with disease, perish miserably in accidents, and sink with broken lives into graves that do not afford a gateway to immortal life! My God is infinite, eternal, unchanging mind. The god of the preachers, judging from their sermons preached here, is a human, mental concept, embodying spirit and matter, knowing good and evil, and changing with every caprice of their own unstable mentalities. My religion is the Christianity of the Master, love. Oh, how this poor world needs it, yearns for it! The love that demonstrates the nothingness of evil, and drives it out of human experience! The love that heals the sick, raises the dead, binds up broken hearts! The love that will not quench the religious instincts of children, and falsely educate them to know all manner of evil; but that teaches them to recognize it for what it is, the lie about God, and then shows them how to overcome it, even as Jesus did. My God is truth. Is truth real? Ah, yes, you say. But error is the opposite of truth. Then can error, evil, be real? No, not if you will be consistent. Again, God is infinite. But God is spirit. Then all is spirit and spirit's manifestation—is it not true? What, then, becomes of the evil that men hug to their bosoms, even while it gnaws into their hearts? It is the opposite of good, of mind, of truth, God. And the opposite of truth is supposition. Is it not so? And the supposition is—where? In your mentality. And you can put it out whenever you are willing to drop your ceremonials and your theories, and will open your mentality to truth, which will make you free, even as the Master said. That is my religion, Doctor. Those are the religious views which you have been sent by Madam Elwin to investigate. Am I a heretic? Or unevangelical?"

She waited a few moments for the doctor to reply. Then, as he remained silent, she went up to him and held out her hand.

"You do not care to talk with me longer, I think," she said. "Perhaps we may meet again. But, as regards Madam Elwin's wishes, you may tell her that I shall leave the school."

"Have you—have you been fitting yourself for any—ah—particular work—ah—for your support, that is?" inquired the doctor gravely, as he took the proffered hand. He had been swept off his feet by the girl's conversation, and he had not the temerity to combat her views.

"Yes," replied Carmen. "I have been working daily to gain a better understanding of the teachings of Jesus, and through them, of God. My single aim has been to acquire 'that mind which was in Christ Jesus.' And I have no other business than to reflect it to my fellow-men in a life of service. That is my Father's business, and I am working with Him. My mission in this world is to manifest God. I am going out now to do that, and to show what love will do. God will use me, and He will supply my every need. And now, good-bye."

She turned abruptly from him and went to the organ. Soon the same song which he had heard as he entered the room rose again through the stillness. A strong emotion seemed to possess him. He started toward the girl; checked himself; and stood hesitating. Then his lips set, and he turned and walked slowly from the room.

In the hall two women were approaching, and as they drew near he recognized one of them.

"Why," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, holding out both hands, "my dear Mrs. Hawley-Crowles! It is not so long since we met at the Weston's. But what, may I ask, brings you here?"

"This is my sister, Mrs. Charles Reed, Doctor Jurges. We have come to, make a duty call on Mr. Reed's protegee, the little South American savage, you know. Madam Elwin said she was up here with you?"

"Ah, yes, quite so—er, in the chapel, I believe," said the clergyman, his face becoming suddenly grave. "I would return with you, but my time is—ah—so limited." He bowed low, with his hand in the breast of his long frock coat, and passed on down the hall.

As the women approached the door of the chapel through which came Carmen's low singing they turned and looked at each other inquiringly. Then they quietly entered the doorway and stood listening. Carmen, concealed behind the organ, did not see them.

The song stopped, and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles went quickly to the organ. Bending over it, she gazed down into the face of the startled girl. "My goodness!" she exclaimed. "Get up and let me see what sort of a looking creature you are."

Carmen rose, and Mrs. Reed came forward and gave her a tempered greeting. Then Mrs. Hawley-Crowles fell back and stared at the girl from head to foot. "You know," she said to her sister, "this is the first glimpse I've had of your husband's discovery. I was out of the city when he brought her to my house, you remember. But," turning again to Carmen, "sing that song over, dear, please—the one you were singing just now."

Carmen seated herself again at the organ, and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles drew her sister to the rear of the room. "It will sound better back here," she explained.

After the lapse of a few minutes she turned to Mrs. Reed. "Belle," she said, nodding her head sententiously, "you had a pearl, and you threw it away. That girl there is our social fortune! Her voice, and her face—why, with our ward—this beautiful, gifted, South American owner of a famous mine—as a lever, we can force the Beaubien to bring the Ames to our terms! She goes back with us to-night! You've been blind!"

Meantime, the dainty Madam Elwin and the amiable Doctor Jurges in the office below had reached a conclusion. "A young lady of—ah—invincible will," the doctor had observed; "and already—ah—decidedly mature, despite her tender years. Should she—ah—assume leadership over the pupils of your school, my dear Madam Elwin, the result might be disquieting. There can be no question as to her religious views, as I have said. But, what astonishes me is—ah—that this strange cult should have its devotees even in the wilds of tropical America! Astonishing—and so unfortunate! The girl is utterly—ah—unevangelical, Madam; and the advisability of removing her from the school can not be questioned. Do you not agree with me, Mr. Ketchim?"

"By all means," asserted the latter gentleman with great seriousness, while his eyes dwelt tenderly upon Madam Elwin's written order for a hundred shares of Simiti stock which he held in his hand.

"Very well, then," said the lady with a determined nod of her head; "I shall request Mrs. Reed to take her to-day." Then, with a proper sense of what it meant to have the moral support of such an eminent divine as Doctor Jurges, she rang for her maid and bade her summon Mrs. Reed and the girl.

Thus it was that Carmen was again shifted a space on the checkerboard of life, and slept that night once more under the spacious roof of the wealthy relict of the late James Hawley-Crowles, on Riverside Drive.



CHAPTER 7

As has been said, Carmen's six months in the Elwin school had been a period of slow adjustment to the changed order. She had brought into this new world a charm of unsophistication, an ingenuous naivete, such as only an untrammeled spirit nourished in an elemental civilization like that of primitive Simiti could develop. Added to this was the zest and eagerness stimulated by the thought that she had come as a message-bearer to a people with a great need. Her first emotion had been that of astonishment that the dwellers in the great States were not so different, after all, from those of her own unprogressive country. Her next was one of sad disillusionment, as the fact slowly dawned upon her trusting thought that the busy denizens of her new environment took no interest whatsoever in her message. And then her joy and brilliant hopefulness had chilled, and she awoke to find her strange views a barrier between herself and her associates. She had brought to the America of the North a spirit so deeply religious as to know naught else than her God and His ceaseless manifestation. She had come utterly free of dogma or creed, and happily ignorant of decaying formularies and religious caste. Her Christianity was her demonstrable interpretation of the Master's words; and her fresh, ebulliant spirit soared unhampered in the warm atmosphere of love for mankind. Her concept of the Christ stirred no thought within her of intolerance toward those who might hold differing views; nor did it raise interposing barriers within her own mind, nor evoke those baser sentiments which have so sadly warped the souls of men into instruments of deadly hatred and crushing tyranny. Her spiritual vision, undimmed and world-embracing, saw the advent of that day when all mankind would obey the commands of Jesus, and do the works which he did, even to the complete spiritualization and dematerializing of all human thought. And her burning desire was to hasten the coming of that glad hour.

The conviction that, despite its tremendous needs, humanity was steadily rejecting, even in this great land of opportunity and progress, the remedy for its consuming ills, came to her slowly. And with it a damping of her ardor, and a dulling of the fine edge of her enthusiasm. She grew quiet as the days passed, and drew away from her companions into her thought. With her increasing sense of isolation came at length a great longing to leave these inhospitable shores, and return to her native environment and the sympathy and tender solicitude of her beloved Rosendo and Padre Jose. But, alas! that was at present impossible. Indeed, she could not be certain now of their whereabouts. A great war was raging in Colombia, and she knew not what fate had befallen her loved ones. To her many letters directed to Simiti there had come back no reply. Even Harris, who had written again and again to both Rosendo and Jose, had received no word from them in return. Corroding fear began to assail the girl; soul-longing and heart-sickness seized upon her; her happy smile faded; and her bright, bubbling conversation ceased.

Then one day, standing alone in her room, she turned squarely upon the foul brood of evil suggestions crowding upon her and, as if they were fell spirits from the nether world, bade them begone. "Listen!" she cried aloud. "I know you for what you are—nothing! You seemed to use Padre Jose, but you can't use me! God is everywhere—right here! He is my life; and you, evil thoughts, can't make me think He isn't! I am His image and likeness; I am His witness; and I will not witness to His opposite, evil! My life is filled with harmony; and you, evil thoughts, can't reverse that fact! God has brought me here, else I would not have come, for He is the cause of all that is. It is for me to stand and see His glory. No! no!" as she paced about the room and seemed to ward off the assaults of an invisible enemy, "there is no power apart from Him! On that I stand!"

Then, in the lull of battle, "Father divine, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And now I lay my all upon the altar of love, and throw myself upon Thy thought."

From that day, despite continued attacks from error—despite, too, the veiled slights and covert insinuations of her schoolmates, to whom the girl's odd views and utter refusal to share their accustomed conversation, their interest in mundane affairs, their social aspirations and worldly ambitions, at length made her quite unwelcome—Carmen steadily, and without heed of diverting gesture, brought into captivity every thought to the obedience of her Christ-principle, and threw off for all time the dark cloud of pessimism which human belief and the mesmerism of events had drawn over her joyous spirit.

Mrs. Reed had not been near her since her enrollment in the school; but Ketchim had visited her often—not, however, alone, but always with one or more prospective purchasers of Simiti stock in tow whom he sought to influence favorably through Carmen's interesting conversation about her native land. Harris came every Sunday, and the girl welcomed the great, blundering fellow as the coming of the day. At times he would obtain Madam Elwin's permission to take the girl up to the city on a little sight-seeing expedition, and then he would abandon himself completely to the enjoyment of her naive wonder and the numberless and often piquant questions stimulated by it. He was the only one now with whom she felt any degree of freedom, and in his presence her restraint vanished and her airy gaiety again welled forth with all its wonted fervor. Once, shortly after Carmen had been enrolled, Harris took her to a concert by the New York Symphony Orchestra. But in the midst of the program, after sitting in silent rapture, the girl suddenly burst into tears and begged to be taken out. "I couldn't stand it!" she sobbed as, outside the door, she hid her tear-stained face in his coat; "I just couldn't! It was heavenly! Oh, it was God that we heard—it was God!" And the astonished fellow respected this sudden outburst of pent-up emotion as he led her, silent and absorbed, back to the school.

With the throwing of the girl upon her own thought came a rapid expansion of both mind and body into maturity, and the young lady who left the Elwin school that bright spring afternoon under the protection of the self-sufficient Mrs. Hawley-Crowles was very far from being the inquisitive, unabashed little girl who had so greatly shocked the good Sister Superior by her heretical views some six months before. The sophistication engendered by her intercourse with the pupils and instructors in the school had transformed the eager, trusting little maid, who could see only good into a mature woman, who, though her trust remained unshaken, nevertheless had a better understanding of the seeming power "that lusteth against the spirit," and whose idea of her mission had been deepened into a grave sense of responsibility. She saw now, as never before, the awful unreality of the human sense of life; but she likewise understood, as never previously, its seeming reality in the human consciousness, and its terrible mesmeric power over those materialistic minds into which the light of spirituality had as yet scarcely penetrated. Her thought had begun to shape a definite purpose; she was still to be a message-bearer, but the message must be set forth in her life conduct. The futility of promiscuous verbal delivery of the message to whomsoever might cross her path had been made patent. Jesus taught—and then proved. She must do likewise, and let her deeds attest the truth of her words. And from the day that she bade the suggestions of fear and evil leave her, she had consecrated herself anew to a searching study of the Master's life and words, if happily she might acquire "that mind" which he so wondrously expressed.

But the assumption of an attitude of quiet demonstration was by no means sudden. There were times when she could not restrain the impulse to challenge the beliefs so authoritatively set forth by the preachers and lecturers whom Madam Elwin invited to address her pupils, and who, unlike Jesus, first taught, and then relegated their proofs to a life beyond the grave. Once, shortly after entering the school, forgetful of all but the error being preached, she had risen in the midst of an eloquent sermon by the eminent Darius Borwell, a Presbyterian divine of considerable repute, and asked him why it was that, as he seemed to set forth, God had changed His mind after creating spiritual man, and had created a man of dust. She had later repented her scandalous conduct in sackcloth and ashes; but it did not prevent her from abruptly leaving the chapel on a subsequent Sunday when another divine, this time a complaisant Methodist, quite satisfied with his theories of endless future rewards and fiery punishments, dwelt at length upon the traditional idea that the sorrows of the world are God-sent for mankind's chastisement and discipline.

Then she gradually learned to be less defiant of the conventions and beliefs of the day, and determined quietly to rise superior to them. But her experience with the preachers wrought within her a strong determination henceforth to listen to no religious propaganda whatsoever, to give no further heed to current theological beliefs, and to enter no church edifice, regardless of the tenets of the sect worshiping within its precincts. The wisdom of this decision she left for the future to determine.

"Oh," she cried, "my only mission is to manifest the divine, not to waste time listening to the theories of ignorant preachers, who fail utterly to prove the truth of their teachings! Oh, how the world needs love—just love! And I am going to love it with the selfless love that comes from God, and destroys error and the false beliefs that become externalized in the human consciousness as sickness, failure, old age, and death! Love, love, love—it is mankind's greatest need! Why, if the preachers only knew, the very heart and soul of Christianity is love! It is love that casts out fear; and fear is at the bottom of all sickness, for fear leads to belief in other gods than the one Father of Christ Jesus! Christianity is aflame with love! Oh, God—take me out into the world, and let me show it what love can do!"

And the divine ear heard the call of this beautiful disciple of the Christ—aye, had heard it long before the solicitous, fluttering little Madam Elwin decided that the strange girl's unevangelical views were inimical to the best interests of her very select school. The social ambitions of the wealthy Mrs. Hawley-Crowles threw wide the portals of the world to Carmen, and she entered, wide-eyed and wondering. Nor did she return until the deepest recesses of the human mind had revealed to her their abysmal hideousness, their ghastly emptiness of reality, and their woeful mesmeric deception.



CHAPTER 8

Mrs. James Hawley-Crowles, more keenly perceptive than her sister, had seized upon Carmen with avidity bred of hope long deferred. The scourge of years of fruitless social striving had rendered her desperate, and she would have staged a ballet on her dining table, with her own ample self as premiere danseuse, did the attraction but promise recognition from the blase members of fashionable New York's ultra-conservative set. From childhood she had looked eagerly forward through the years with an eye single to such recognition as life's desideratum. To this end she had bartered both youth and beauty with calculated precision for the Hawley-Crowles money bags; only to weep floods of angry tears when the bargain left her social status unchanged, and herself tied to a decrepit old rounder, whose tarnished name wholly neutralized the purchasing power of his ill-gotten gold. Fortunately for the reputations of them both, her husband had the good sense to depart this life ere the divorce proceedings which she had long had in contemplation were instituted; whereupon the stricken widow had him carefully incinerated and his ashes tenderly deposited in a chaste urn in a mausoleum which her architect had taken oath cost more than the showy Ames vault by many thousands. The period of decorous mourning past, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles blithely doffed her weeds and threw herself again into the terrific competition for social standing, determined this time that it should be a warfare to the death.

And so it bade fair to prove to her, when the eminent nerve specialist, Dr. Bascom Ross, giving a scant half hour to the consideration of her case, at the modest charge of one hundred dollars, warned her to declare a truce and flee to the Alps for unalloyed rest. She complied, and had returned with restored health and determination just as her sister came up from South America, bringing the odd little "savage" whom Reed had discovered in the wilds of Guamoco. A prolonged week-end at Newport, the last of the summer season, accounted for her absence from the city when Reed brought Carmen to her house, where he and his wife were making their temporary abode. Six months later, in her swift appraisal of the girl in the Elwin school, to whom she had never before given a thought, she seemed to see a light.

"It does look like a desperate chance, I admit," she said, when recounting her plans to her sister a day or so later. "But I've played every other card in my hand; and now this girl is going to be either a trump or a joker. All we need is a word from the Beaubien, and the following week will see an invitation at our door from Mrs. J. Wilton Ames. The trick is to reach the Beaubien. That I calculate to do through Carmen. And I'm going to introduce the girl as an Inca princess. Why not? It will make a tremendous hit."

Mrs. Reed was not less ambitious than her sister, but hitherto she had lacked the one essential to social success, money. In addition, she had committed the egregious blunder of marrying for love. And now that the honeymoon had become a memory, and she faced again her growing ambition, with a struggling husband who had neither name nor wealth to aid her, she had found her own modest income of ten thousand a year, which she had inherited from her mother, only an aggravation. True, in time her wandering father would pass away; and there was no doubt that his vast property would fall to his daughters, his only living kin. But at present, in view of his aggressively good health and disregard for his relatives, her only recourse was to attach herself to her wealthy, sharp-witted sister, and hope to be towed safely into the social swim, should that scheming lady ultimately achieve her high ambition.

Just why Mrs. Hawley-Crowles should have seen in Carmen a means of reaching a woman of the stamp of the Beaubien, and through her the leader of the most exclusive social set in the metropolis, is difficult to say. But thus does the human mind often seek to further its own dubious aims through guileless innocence and trust. Perhaps Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had likewise a slight trace of that clairvoyance of wisdom which so characterized the girl. But with this difference, that she knew not why she was led to adopt certain means; while Carmen, penetrating externals, consciously sought to turn those who would employ her into channels for the expression of her own dominant thought. Be that as it may, the Beaubien was now the stone before the door of their hope, and Carmen the lever by which these calculating women intended it should be moved.

"The Beaubien, my dear," explained Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to her inquisitive sister, whose life had been lived almost entirely away from New York, "is J. Wilton Ames's very particular friend, of long standing. As I told you, I have recently been going through my late unpleasant husband's effects, and have unearthed letters and memoranda which throw floods of light upon Jim's early indiscretions and his association with both the Beaubien and Ames. Jim once told me, in a burst of alcoholic confidence, that she had saved him from J. Wilton's clutches in the dim past, and for that he owed her endless gratitude, as well as for never permitting him to darken her door again. Now I have never met the Beaubien. Few women have. But I dare say she knows all about us. However, the point that concerns us now is this: she has a hold on Ames, and, unless rumor is wide of the truth, when she hints to him that his wife's dinner list or yachting party seems incomplete without such or such a name, why, the list is immediately revised."

The position which the Beaubien held was, if Madam On-dit was not to be wholly discredited, to say the least, unique. It was not as social dictator that she posed, for in a great cosmopolitan city where polite society is infinitely complex in its make-up such a position can scarcely be said to exist. It was rather as an influence that she was felt, an influence never seen, but powerful, subtle, and wholly inexplicable, working now through this channel, now through that, and effecting changes in the social complexion of conservative New York that were utterly in defiance of the most rigid convention. Particularly was her power felt in the narrow circle over which Mrs. J. Wilton Ames presided, by reason of her own and her husband's aristocratic descent, and the latter's bursting coffers and supremacy in the realm of finance.

Only for her sagacity, the great influence of the woman would have been short-lived. But, whatever else might be said of her, the Beaubien was wise, with a discretion that was positively uncanny. Tall, voluptuous, yet graceful as a fawn; black, wavy, abundant hair; eyes whose dark, liquid depths held unfathomable mysteries; gracious, affable, yet keen as a razor blade; tender, even sentimental on occasions, with an infinite capacity for either love or hate, this many-sided woman, whose brilliant flashes of wit kept the savant or roue at her table in an uproar, could, if occasion required, found an orphanage or drop a bichloride tablet in the glass of her rival with the same measure of calculating precision and disdain of the future. It was said of her that she might have laid down her life for the man she loved. It is probable that she never met with one worth the sacrifice.

While yet in short dresses she had fled from her boarding school, near a fashionable resort in the New Hampshire hills, with a French Colonel, Gaspard de Beaubien, a man twice her age. With him she had spent eight increasingly miserable years in Paris. Then, her withered romance carefully entombed in the secret places of her heart, she secured a divorce from the roistering colonel, together with a small settlement, and set sail for New York to hunt for larger and more valuable game.

With abundant charms and sang-froid for her capital, she rented an expensive apartment in a fashionable quarter of the city, and then settled down to business. Whether she would have fallen upon bad days or not will never be known, for the first haul of her widespread net landed a fish of supreme quality, J. Wilton Ames. On the plea of financial necessity, she had gone boldly to his office with the deed to a parcel of worthless land out on the moist sands of the New Jersey shore, which the unscrupulous Gaspard de Beaubien had settled upon her when she severed the tie which bound them, and which, after weeks of careful research, she discovered adjoined a tract owned by Ames. Pushing aside office boy, clerk, and guard, she reached the inner sanctum of the astonished financier himself and offered to sell at a ruinous figure. A few well-timed tears, an expression of angelic innocence on her beautiful face, a despairing gesture or two with her lovely arms, coupled with the audacity which she had shown in forcing an entrance into his office, effected the man's capitulation. She was then in her twenty-fourth year.

The result was that she cast her net no more, but devoted herself thenceforth with tender consecration to her important catch. In time Ames brought a friend, the rollicking James Hawley-Crowles, to call upon the charming Beaubien. In time, too, as was perfectly natural, a rivalry sprang up between the men, which the beautiful creature watered so tenderly that the investments which she was enabled to make under the direction of these powerful rivals flourished like Jack's beanstalk, and she was soon able to leave her small apartment and take a suite but a few blocks from the Ames mansion.

At length the strain between Ames and Hawley-Crowles reached the breaking point; and then the former decided that the woman's bewitching smiles should thenceforth be his alone. He forthwith drew the seldom sober Hawley-Crowles into certain business deals, with the gentle connivance of the suave Beaubien herself, and at length sold the man out short and presented a claim on every dollar he possessed. Hawley-Crowles awoke from his blissful dream sober and trimmed. But then the Beaubien experienced one of her rare and inexplicable revulsions of the ethical sense, and a compromise had to be effected, whereby the Hawley-Crowles fortune was saved, though the man should see the Beaubien no more.

By this time her beauty was blooming in its utmost profusion, and her prowess had been fairly tried. She took a large house, furnished it like unto a palace, and proceeded to throw her gauntlet in the face of the impregnable social caste. There she drew about her a circle of bon-vivants, artists, litterateurs, politicians, and men of finance—with never a woman in the group. Yet in her new home she established a social code as rigid as the Median law, and woe to him within her gates who thereafter, with or without intent, passed the bounds of respectful decorum. His name was heard no more on her rosy lips.

Her dinners were Lucullan in their magnificence; and over the rare wines and imperial cigars which she furnished, her guests passed many a tip and prognostication anent the market, which she in turn quietly transmitted to her brokers. She came to understand the game thoroughly, and, while it was her heyday of glorious splendor, she played hard. She had bartered every priceless gift of nature for gold—and she made sure that the measure she received in return was full. Her gaze was ever upon the approaching day when those charms would be but bitter memories; and it was her grim intention that when it came silken ease should compensate for their loss.

Ten years passed, and the Beaubien's reign continued with undimmed splendor. In the meantime, the wife of J. Wilton Ames had reached the zenith of her ambitions and was the acknowledged leader in New York's most fashionable social circle. These two women never met. But, though the Beaubien had never sought the entree to formal society, preferring to hold her own court, at which no women attended, she exercised a certain control over it through her influence upon the man Ames. What Mrs. Ames knew of the long-continued relations between her husband and this woman was never divulged. And doubtless she was wholly satisfied that his wealth and power afforded her the position which her heart had craved; and, that secure, she was willing to leave him to his own methods of obtaining diversion. But rumor was persistent, maliciously so; and rumor declared that the list of this envied society dame was not drawn up without the approval of her husband and the woman with whom his leisure hours were invariably spent. Hence the hope of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, whose doting mate had once fawned in the perfumed wake of the luxurious Beaubien.

Carmen, whose wishes had not been consulted, had voiced no objection whatever to returning to the Hawley-Crowles home. Indeed, she secretly rejoiced that an opportunity had been so easily afforded for escape from the stifling atmosphere of the Elwin school, and for entrance into the great world of people and affairs, where she believed the soil prepared for the seed she would plant. That dire surprises awaited her, of which she could not even dream, did not enter her calculations. Secure in her quenchless faith, she gladly accepted the proffered shelter of the Hawley-Crowles mansion, and the protection of its worldly, scheming inmates.

In silent, wide-eyed wonder, in the days that followed, the girl strove to accustom herself to the luxury of her surroundings, and to the undreamed of marvels which made for physical comfort and well-being. Each installment of the ample allowance which Mrs. Hawley-Crowles settled upon her seemed a fortune—enough, she thought, to buy the whole town of Simiti! Her gowns seemed woven on fairy looms, and often she would sit for hours, holding them in her lap and reveling in their richness. Then, when at length she could bring herself to don the robes and peep timidly into the great pier glasses, she would burst into startled exclamations and hide her face in her hands, lest the gorgeous splendor of the beautiful reflection overpower her.

"Oh," she would exclaim, "it can't be that the girl reflected there ever lived and dressed as I did in Simiti! I wonder, oh, I wonder if Padre Jose knew that these things were in the world!"

And then, as she leaned back in her chair and gave herself into the hands of the admiring French maid, she would close her eyes and dream that the fairy-stories which the patient Jose had told her again and again in her distant home town had come true, and that she had been transformed into a beautiful princess, who would some day go in search of the sleeping priest and wake him from his mesmeric dream.

Then would come the inevitable thought of the little newsboy of Cartagena, to whom she had long since begun to send monetary contributions—and of her unanswered letters—of the war devastating her native land—of rudely severed ties, and unimaginable changes—and she would start from her musing and brush away the gathering tears, and try to realize that her present situation and environment were but means to an end, opportunities which her God had given her to do His work, with no thought of herself.

A few days after Carmen had been installed in her new home, during which she had left the house only for her diurnal ride in the big limousine, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles announced her readiness to fire the first gun in the attack upon the Beaubien. "My dear," she said to her sister, as they sat alone in the luxurious sun-parlor, "my washerwoman dropped a remark the other day which gave me something to build on. Her two babies are in the General Orphan Asylum, up on Twenty-third street. Well, it happens that this institution is the Beaubien's sole charity—in fact, it is her particular hobby. I presume that she feels she is now a middle-aged woman, and that the time is not far distant when she will have to close up her earthly accounts and hand them over to the heavenly auditor. Anyway, this last year or two she has suddenly become philanthropic, and when the General Orphan Asylum was building she gave some fifty thousand dollars for a cottage in her name. What's more, the trustees of the Asylum accepted it without the wink of an eyelash. Funny, isn't it?

"But here's the point: some rich old fellow has willed the institution a fund whose income every year is used to buy clothing for the kiddies; and they have a sort of celebration on the day the duds are given out, and the public is invited to inspect the place and the inmates, and eat a bit, and look around generally. Well, my washerwoman tells me that the Beaubien always attends these annual celebrations. The next one, I learn, comes in about a month. I propose that we attend; take Carmen; ask permission for her to sing to the children, and thereby attract the attention of the gorgeous Beaubien, who will be sure to speak to the girl, who is herself an orphan, and, ten to one, want to see more of her. The rest is easy. I'll have a word to say regarding our immense debt of gratitude to her for saving Jim's fortune years ago when he was entangled in her net—and, well, if that scheme doesn't work, I have other strings to my bow."

But it did work, and with an ease that exceeded the most sanguine hopes of its projector. On the day that the General Orphan Asylum threw wide its doors to the public, the Hawley-Crowles limousine rubbed noses with the big French car of the Beaubien in the street without; while within the building the Beaubien held the hand of the beautiful girl whose voluntary singing had spread a veil of silence over the awed spectators in the great assembly room, and, looking earnestly down into the big, trusting, brown eyes, said: "My dear child, I want to know you." Then, turning to the eager, itching Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, "I shall send my car for her to-morrow afternoon, with your permission."

With her permission! Heavens! Mrs. Hawley-Crowles wildly hugged her sister and the girl all the way home—then went to bed that night with tears of apprehension in her washed-out eyes, lest she had shown herself too eager in granting the Beaubien's request. But her fears were turned to exultation when the Beaubien car drew up at her door the following day at three, and the courteous French chauffeur announced his errand. A few moments later, while the car glided purring over the smooth asphalt, Carmen, robed like a princess, lay back in the cushions and dreamed of the poor priest in the dead little town so far away.



CHAPTER 9

"Sing it again, dear. I know you are tired, but I want to hear that song just once more. Somehow it seems to bring up thoughts of—of things that might have been." The Beaubien's voice sank to a whisper as she finished.

Carmen laughed happily and prepared to repeat the weird lament which had so fascinated the Reverend Doctor Jurges a few days before.

"I—I don't know why that song affects me so," mused the Beaubien, when the girl had finished and returned to the seat beside her. Then, abruptly: "I wish you could play the pipe-organ out in the hall. I put twelve thousand dollars into it, and I can't even play five-finger exercises on it."

"Twelve thousand dollars!" exclaimed Carmen, drawing a long breath, while her eyes dilated.

The woman laughed. "Would that buy your beloved Simiti?" she asked. "Well, you poor, unsophisticated girl, suppose we just go down there and buy the whole town. It would at least give me an interest in life. Do you think I could stand the heat there? But tell me more about it. How did you live, and what did you do? And who is this Jose? And are you really descended from the old Incas?"

They were alone in the darkened music room, and the soft-stepping, liveried butler had just set the tea table before them, At one end of the long room a cheery fire snapped and crackled in the huge fireplace, tempering the sharpness of the early spring day and casting a ruddy glow upon the tapestried walls and polished floor in front, where dozed the Beaubien's two "babies," Japanese and Pekingese spaniels of registered pedigree and fabulous value. Among the heavy beams of the lofty ceiling grotesque shadows danced and flickered, while over the costly rugs and rare skins on the floor below subdued lights played in animated pantomime. Behind the magnificent grand piano a beautifully wrought harp reflected a golden radiance into the room. Everything in the woman's environment was softened into the same degree of voluptuousness which characterized her and the life of sybaritic ease which she affected.

From the moment Carmen entered the house she had been charmed, fascinated, overpowered by the display of exhaustless wealth and the rich taste exhibited in its harmonious manifestation. The Hawley-Crowles home had seemed to her the epitome of material elegance and comfort, far exceeding the most fantastic concepts of her childish imagination, when she had listened enraptured to Padre Jose's compelling stories of the great world beyond Simiti. But the gorgeous web of this social spider made even the Hawley-Crowles mansion suffer in comparison.

"And yet," said the amused Beaubien, when Carmen could no longer restrain her wonder and admiration, "this is but a shed beside the new Ames house, going up on Fifth Avenue. I presume he will put not less than ten millions into it before it is finished."

"Ten millions! In just a house!" Carmen dared not attempt to grasp the complex significance of such an expenditure.

"Why, is that such a huge amount, child?" asked the Beaubien, as accustomed to think in eight figures as in two. "But, I forget that you are from the jungle. Yet, who would imagine it?" she mused, gazing with undisguised admiration at the beautiful, animated girl before her.

Silence then fell upon them both. Carmen was struggling with the deluge of new impressions; and the woman fastened her eyes upon her as if she would have them bore deep into the soul of whose rarity she was becoming slowly aware. What thoughts coursed through the mind of the Beaubien as she sat studying the girl through the tempered light, we may not know. What she saw in Carmen that attracted her, she herself might not have told. Had she, too, this ultra-mondaine, this creature of gold and tinsel, felt the spell of the girl's great innocence and purity of thought, her righteousness? Or did she see in her something that she herself might once have been—something that all her gold, and all the wealth of Ormus or of Ind could never buy?

"What have you got," she suddenly, almost rudely, exclaimed, "that I haven't?" And then the banality of the question struck her, and she laughed harshly.

"Why," said Carmen, looking up quickly and beaming upon the woman, "you have everything! Oh, what more could you wish?"

"You," returned the woman quickly, though she knew not why she said it. And yet, memory was busy uncovering those bitter days when, in the first agony of marital disappointment, she had, with hot, streaming tears, implored heaven to give her a child. But the gift had been denied; and her heart had shrunk and grown heavily calloused.

Then she spoke more gently, and there was that in her voice which stirred the girl's quick sympathy. "Yes, you have youth, and beauty. They are mine no longer. But I could part with them, gladly, if only there were anything left."

Carmen instantly rose and went swiftly to her. Forgetful of caste, decorum, convention, everything but the boundless love which she felt for all mankind, she put her arms about the worldly woman's neck and kissed her.

For a moment the Beaubien sat in speechless surprise. It was the only manifestation of selfless love that had ever come into her sordid experience. Was it possible that this was spontaneous? that it was an act of real sympathy, and not a clever ruse to win her from behind the mask of affection? Her own kisses, she knew, were bestowed only for favors. Alas! they drew not many now, although time was when a single one might win a brooch or a string of pearls.

The girl herself quickly met the woman's groping thought. "I'm in the world to show what love will do," she murmured; "and I love you." Had she not thus solved every problem from earliest childhood?

The Beaubien melted. Not even a heart of stone could withstand the solvent power of such love. Her head dropped upon her breast, and she wept.

"Don't cry," said Carmen, tenderly caressing the bepowdered cheek. "Why, we are all God's children; we all have one another; you have me, and I have you; and God means us all to be happy."

The Beaubien looked up, wondering. Her variegated life included no such tender experience as this. She had long since ceased to shed aught but tears of anger. But now—

She clutched the girl to her and kissed her eagerly; then gently motioned her back to her chair. "Don't mind it," she smiled, with swimming eyes, and a shade of embarrassment. "I don't know of anything that would help me as much as a good cry. If I could have had a daughter like you, I should—but never mind now." She tried to laugh, as she wiped her eyes.

Then an idea seemed to flash through her jaded brain, and she became suddenly animated. "Why—listen," she said; "don't you want to learn the pipe-organ? Will you come here and take lessons? I will pay for them; I will engage the best teacher in New York; and you shall take two or three a week, and use the big organ out in the hall. Will you?"

Carmen's heart gave a great leap. "Oh!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing. "But I must ask Mrs. Reed, you know."

"I'll do it myself," returned the woman with growing enthusiasm. "William," she directed, when the butler responded to her summons, "get Mrs. Hawley-Crowles on the wire at once. But who is coming, I wonder?" glancing through the window at an automobile that had drawn up at her door. "Humph!" a look of vexation mantling her face, "the Right Reverend Monsignor Lafelle. Well," turning to Carmen, "I suppose I'll have to send you home now, dear. But tell Mrs. Hawley-Crowles that I shall call for you to-morrow afternoon, and that I shall speak to her at that time about your music lessons. William, take Monsignor into the morning room, and then tell Henri to bring the car to the porte-cochere for Miss Carmen. Good-bye, dear," kissing the bright, upturned face of the waiting girl. "I wish I could—but, well, don't forget that I'm coming for you to-morrow."

That afternoon Mrs. Hawley-Crowles directed her French tailor to cable to Paris for advance styles. Twenty-four hours later she hastened with outstretched arms to greet the Beaubien, waiting in the reception room. Oh, yes, they had heard often of each other; and now were so pleased to meet! New York was such a whirlpool, and it was so difficult to form desirable friendships. Yes, the Beaubien had known the late-lamented Hawley-Crowles; but, dear! dear! that was years and years ago, before he had married, and when they were both young and foolish. And—

"My dear Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, chance enabled him and me to be mutually helpful at a time when I was in sore need of a friend; and the debt of gratitude is not yours to me, but mine to your kind husband."

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles could have hugged her on the spot. What cared she that her husband's always unsavory name had been linked with this woman's? She had married the roistering blade for his bank account only. Any other male whose wealth ran into seven figures would have done as well, or better.

And Carmen? Bless you, no! To be sure, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles gratefully accepted the use of the organ and the Beaubien mansion for the girl; but she herself insisted upon bearing the expense of the lessons. Carmen had wonderful musical talent. Together, she and the Beaubien, they would foster and develop it. Moreover, though of course this must follow later, she intended to give the girl every social advantage befitting her beauty, her talents, and her station.

And then, when the Beaubien, who knew to a second just how long to stay, had departed, taking Carmen with her, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles turned to her sister with her face flushed with anger. "Did you see that?" she exclaimed, while hot tears suffused her eyes. "The hussy went away actually laughing at me! What do you suppose she's got up her sleeve? But, let me tell you, she'll not fool me! I'll slap that arrogant Ames woman yet; and then, when I've done that, I'll give the Beaubien something to think about besides the way she did up poor old Jim!"

* * * * *

There was now but one cloud that cast its dark shadow across the full splendor of Carmen's happiness, the silence that shrouded Simiti. But Harris was preparing to return to Colombia, and his trip promised a solution of the mystery of her unanswered letters. For weeks Carmen had struggled to teach him Spanish, with but small measure of success. The gift of tongues was not his. "You'll have to go back with me and act as interpreter," he said one day, when they were alone in the Hawley-Crowles parlor. Then a curious light came into his eyes, and he blurted, "Will you?"

But the girl turned the question aside with a laugh, though she knew not from what depths it had sprung. Harris shrugged his broad shoulders and sighed. He had not a hundred dollars to his name.

Yet he had prospects, not the least of which was the interest he shared with Reed in La Libertad. For, despite the disturbed state of affairs in Colombia, Simiti stock had sold rapidly, under the sedulous care of Ketchim and his loyal aids, and a sufficient fund had been accumulated to warrant the inauguration of development work on the mine. A few years hence Harris should be rich from that source alone.

Reed was still in California, although the alluring literature which Ketchim was scattering broadcast bore his name as consulting engineer to the Simiti Development Company. His wife had continued her temporary abode in the Hawley-Crowles mansion, while awaiting with what fortitude she could command the passing of her still vigorous father, and the results of her defiant sister's assaults upon the Ames set.

Carmen's days were crowded full. The wonderful organ in the Beaubien mansion had cast a spell of enchantment over her soul, and daily she sat before it, uncovering new marvels and losing herself deeper and deeper in its infinite mysteries. Her progress was commensurate with her consecration, and brought exclamations of astonishment to the lips of her now devoted Beaubien. Hour after hour the latter would sit in the twilight of the great hall, with her eyes fastened upon the absorbed girl, and her leaden soul slowly, painfully struggling to lift itself above the murk and dross in which it had lain buried for long, meaningless years. They now talked but little, this strange woman and the equally strange girl. Their communion was no longer of the lips. It was the silent yearning of a dry, desolate heart, striving to open itself to the love which the girl was sending far and wide in the quenchless hope that it might meet just such a need. For Carmen dwelt in the spirit, and she instinctively accepted her splendid material environment as the gift, not of man, but of the great divine Mind, which had led her into this new world that she might be a channel for the expression of its love to the erring children of mortals.

She came and went quietly, and yet with as much confidence as if the house belonged to her. At first the Beaubien smiled indulgently. And then her smile became a laugh of eager joy as she daily greeted her radiant visitor, whose entrance into the great, dark house was always followed by a flood of sunshine, and whose departure marked the setting in of night to the heart-hungry woman. In the first days of their association the Beaubien could turn easily from the beautiful girl to the group of cold, scheming men of the world who filled her evenings and sat about her board. But as days melted into weeks, she became dimly conscious of an effort attaching to the transition; and the hour at length arrived when she fully realized that she was facing the most momentous decision that had ever been evolved by her worldly mode of living. But that was a matter of slow development through many months.

Meantime, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles trod the clouds. A week after Carmen began the study of the organ she boldly ventured to accompany her one day to the Beaubien citadel. She was graciously received, and departed with the Beaubien's promise to return the call. Thereupon she set about revising her own social list, and dropped several names which she now felt could serve her no longer. Her week-end at Newport, just prior to her visit to the Elwin school, had marked the close of the gay season in the city, and New York had entered fully upon its summer siesta. Even the theaters and concert halls were closed, and the metropolis was nodding its weary head dully and sinking into somnolence. It was exactly what Mrs. Hawley-Crowles desired. The summer interim would give her time to further her plans and prepare the girl for her social debut in the early winter. "And Milady Ames will be mentioned in the papers next day as assisting at the function—the cat!" she muttered savagely, as she laid aside her revised list of social desirables.

But in preparing Carmen that summer for her subsequent entry into polite society Mrs. Hawley-Crowles soon realized that she had assumed a task of generous proportions. In the first place, despite all efforts, the girl could not be brought to a proper sense of money values. Her eyes were ever gaping in astonishment at what Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her sister regarded as the most moderate of expenditures, and it was only when the Beaubien herself mildly hinted to them that ingenuousness was one of the girl's greatest social assets, that they learned to smile indulgently at her wonder, even while inwardly pitying her dense ignorance and lack of sophistication.

A second source of trial to her guardians was her delicate sense of honor; and it was this that one day nearly sufficed to wreck their standing with the fashionable Mrs. Gannette of Riverside Drive, a pompous, bepowdered, curled and scented dame, anaemic of mind, but tremendously aristocratic, and of scarcely inferior social dignity to that of the envied Mrs. Ames. For, when Mrs. Gannette moved into the neighborhood where dwelt the ambitious Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, the latter was taken by a mutual acquaintance to call upon her, and was immediately received into the worldly old lady's good graces. And it so happened that, after the gay season had closed that summer, Mrs. Gannette invited Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her sister to an informal afternoon of bridge, and especially requested that they bring their young ward, whose beauty and wonderful story were, through the discreet maneuvers of her guardians, beginning to be talked about. For some weeks previously Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had been inducting Carmen into the mysteries of the game; but with indifferent success, for the girl's thoughts invariably were elsewhere engaged. On this particular afternoon Carmen was lost in contemplation of the gorgeous dress, the lavish display of jewelry, and the general inanity of conversation; and her score was pitiably low. The following morning, to her great astonishment, she received a bill from the practical Mrs. Gannette for ten dollars to cover her losses at the game. For a long time the bewildered girl mused over it. Then she called the chauffeur and despatched him to the Gannette mansion with the money necessary to meet the gambling debt, and three dollars additional to pay for the refreshments she had eaten, accompanying it with a polite little note of explanation.