Carmen Ariza Part 128

The man started slightly. This innocent girl little knew that one of the instigators of that b.l.o.o.d.y revolution sat there beside her. Then a new thought flashed into his brain. "What is the full name of this priest?" he suddenly asked.

"Jose--Jose de Rincon," she whispered reverently.

Jose de Rincon--of Simiti--whom Wenceslas had made the scapegoat of the revolution! Why, yes, that was the man! And who, according to a recent report from Wenceslas, had been arrested and--

"A--a--where did you say this--this Jose was, little girl?" he asked gently.

"In Simiti," she replied. "He is working out his problem."

His eyes s.h.i.+fted quickly from hers. But he could not hold them away.

"His problem?"

"Yes. You know, he never was a priest at heart. But, though he saw the truth, in part, he was not able to prove it enough to set himself free; and so when I came away he stayed behind to work out his problem. And he will work it all out," she mused abstractedly, looking off into the distance; "he will work it all out and come--to me. I am--I am working with him, now--and for him. And--" her voice dropped to a whisper, "I love him, oh, so much!"

Ames's steely eyes narrowed. His mouth opened; then shut again with a sharp snap. That beautiful creature now belonged to him, and to none other! Were there other claimants, he would crush them without mercy!

As for this apostate priest, Jose--humph! if he still lived he should rot the rest of his days in the reeking dungeons of San Fernando!

Carmen looked up. "When he comes to me," she said softly, "we are going to give ourselves to the whole world."

Ames appeared not to hear.

"And--perhaps--perhaps, by that time, you will be--be--"

"Well?" snapped the man, irritated by the return of her thought to himself.

"Different," finished the girl gently.

"Humph! Different, eh?"

"Yes. Perhaps by that time you will--you will love everybody," she murmured. "Perhaps you won't go on piling up big mountains of money that you can't use, and that you won't let anybody else use."

Ames frowned upon her. "Yes?" he said ironically.

"You will know then that Jesus founded his great empire on love. Your empire, you know, is human business. But you will find that such empires crumble and fall. And yours will, like all the rest."

"Say," he exclaimed, turning full upon her and seeming to bear her down by his tremendous personality, "you young and inexperienced reformers might learn a few things, too, if your prejudices could be surmounted. Has it ever occurred to you that we men of business think not so much about acc.u.mulating money as about achieving success? Do you suppose you could understand that money-making is but a side issue with us?"

"Achieving success!" she echoed, looking wonderingly at him.

"Well--are you--a success?"

He started to reply. Then he checked himself. A flush stole across his face. Then his eyes narrowed.

"Yes," the girl went on, as if in quiet soliloquy, "I suppose you are--a tremendous worldly success. And this Ball--it is a splendid success, too. Thousands of dollars will be raised for the poor. And then, next year, the same thing will have to be done again. Your charities cost you hundreds of millions every year up here. And, meantime, you rich men will go right on making more money at the expense of your fellow-men--and you will give a little of it to the poor when the next Charity Ball comes around. It's like a circle, isn't it?" she said, smiling queerly up at him. "It has no end, you know."

Ames had now decided to swallow his annoyance and meet the girl with the lance of frivolity. "Yes, I guess that's so," he began. "But of course you will admit that the world is slowly getting better, and that world-progress must of necessity be gradual. We can't reform all in a minute, can we?"

She shook her head. "I don't know how fast you might reform if you really, sincerely tried. But I think it would be very fast. And if you, a great, big, powerful man, with the most wonderful opportunities in the world, should really try to be a success, why--well, I'm sure you'd make very rapid progress, and help others like you by setting such a great example. For you are a wonderful man--you really are."

Ames looked at her long and quizzically. What did the girl mean? Then he took her hand, this time without resistance.

"Tell me, little girl--although I know there can be no doubt of it--are you a success?"

She raised her luminous eyes to his. "Yes," she replied simply.

He let fall her hand in astonishment. "Well!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "would you mind telling me just why?"

She smiled up at him, and her sweet trustfulness drew his sagging heartstrings suddenly taut.

"Because," she said simply, "I strive every moment to 'acquire that mind which was in Christ Jesus.'"

Silence fell upon them. From amus.e.m.e.nt to wonder, to irritation, to anger, then to astonishment, and a final approximation to something akin to reverent awe had been the swift course of the man's emotions as he sat in this secluded nook beside this strange girl. The poisoned arrows of his worldly thought had broken one by one against the s.h.i.+eld of her protecting faith. His badinage had returned to confound himself. The desire to possess had utterly fled before the conviction that such thought was as wildly impossible as iniquitous.

Then he suddenly became conscious that the little body beside him had drawn closer--that it was pressing against him--that a little hand had stolen gently into his--and that a soft voice, soft as the summer winds that sigh among the roses, was floating to his ears.

"To be really great is to be like that wonderful man, Jesus. It is to know that through him the great Christ-principle worked and did those things which the world will not accept, because it thinks them miracles. It is to know that G.o.d is love, and to act that knowledge.

It is to know that love is the Christ-principle, and that it will destroy every error, every discord, everything that is unlike itself.

It is to yield your present false sense of happiness and good to the true sense of G.o.d as infinite good. It is to bring every thought into captivity to this Christ-principle, love. It is to stop looking at evil as a reality. It is to let go your hold on it, and let it fade away before the wonderful truth that G.o.d is everywhere, and that there isn't anything apart from Him. Won't you try it? You will have to, some day. I have tried it. I know it's true. I've proved it."

How long they sat in the quiet that followed, neither knew. Then the man suffered himself to be led silently back to the ball room again.

And when he had recovered and restored his worldly self, the bright little image was no longer at his side.

"Stand here, Jude, an' when they begins to come out to their gasoline carts grab anything ye can, an' git. I'll work over by the door."

The s.h.i.+vering woman crept closer to the curb, and the man slouched back against the wall close to the exit from which the revelers would soon emerge. A distant clock over a jeweler's window chimed the hour of four. A moment later the door opened, and a lackey came out and loudly called the number of the Hawley-Crowles car. That ecstatically happy woman, with Carmen and the obsequious young Duke of Altern, appeared behind him in the flood of light.

As the big car drew softly up, the wretched creature whom the man had called Jude darted from behind it and plunged full at Carmen. But the girl had seen her coming, and she met her with outstretched arm. The glare from the open door fell full upon them.

"Jude!"

"G.o.d!" cried the woman. "It's the little kid!"

She turned to flee. Carmen held her. With a quick movement the girl tore the string of pearls from her neck and thrust it into Jude's hand. The latter turned swiftly and darted into the blackness of the street. Then Carmen hurriedly entered the car, followed by her stupefied companions. It had all been done in a moment of time.

"Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, when she had recovered her composure sufficiently to speak. "What does this mean? What did you do?"

But Carmen replied not. And the Duke of Altern rubbed his weak eyes and tried hard to think.

CHAPTER 16

Before Mrs. Hawley-Crowles sought her bed that morning the east was red with the winter sun. "The loss of the pearls is bad enough," she exclaimed in conclusion, glowering over the young girl who sat before her, "for I paid a good three thousand for the string! But, in addition, to scandalize me before the world--oh, how could you? And this unspeakable Jude--and that awful house--heavens, girl! Who would believe your story if it should get out?" The worried woman's face was bathed in cold perspiration.