Carmen Ariza Part 140

"H'm! yes. Well, I thank you very much. You think this Diego might have been your father? That is, you can't say positively that he wasn't?"

"I can't say positively, no. But now I must go. You can come up to the house and talk about South America, if you want to."

She nodded pleasantly, and the car moved away. The innocent, ingenuous girl was soon to learn what modern news-gathering and dissemination means in this great Republic. But she rode on, happy in the thought that she and the Beaubien were formulating plans to save Mrs.

Hawley-Crowles.

"We'll arrange it somehow," said the Beaubien, looking up from her papers when Carmen entered. "Go, dearie, and play the organ while I finish this. Then I will return home with you to have a talk with Mrs.

Hawley-Crowles."

For hours the happy girl lingered at the beloved organ. The Beaubien at her desk below stopped often to listen. And often she would hastily brush away the tears, and plunge again into her papers. "I suppose I should have told Mrs. Hawley-Crowles," she said. "But I couldn't give her any hope. And even now it's very uncertain. Ames _will_ yield!

I'll force him to! He knows I can expose him! And yet," she reflected sadly, "who would believe _me_?" The morning papers lay still unread upon her table.

Late in the afternoon the Beaubien with Carmen entered her car and directed the chauffeur to drive to the Hawley-Crowles home. As they entered a main thoroughfare they heard the newsboys excitedly crying extras.

"Horrible suicide! Double extra! Big mining scandal! Society woman blows out brains! Double extra!"

Of a sudden a vague, unformed presentiment of impending evil came to the girl. She half rose, and clutched the Beaubien's hand. Then there flitted through her mind like a beam of light the words of the psalmist: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." She sank back against the Beaubien's shoulder and closed her eyes.

The car rolled on. Presently the chauffeur turned and said something through the speaking tube.

"What!" cried the Beaubien, springing from the seat. "Merciful heaven!

Stop and get a paper at once!" The chauffeur complied.

A loud cry escaped her as she took the sheet and glanced at the startling headlines. Mrs. James Hawley-Crowles, financially ruined, and hurled to disgrace from the pinnacle of social leaders.h.i.+p by the awful exposure of the parentage of her ward, had been found in her bedroom, dead, with a revolver clasped in her cold hand.

CARMEN ARIZA

BOOK 4

Watchman, what of the night?

The watchman said, The morning cometh.

--_Isaiah._

CARMEN ARIZA

CHAPTER 1

The chill winds of another autumn swirled through the masonry-lined canons of the metropolis and sighed among the stark trees of its deserted parks. They caught up the tinted leaves that dropped from quivering branches and tossed them high, as Fate wantons with human hopes before she blows her icy breath upon them. They shrieked among the naked spars of the _Cossack_, drifting with her restless master far out upon the white-capped waves. They moaned in low-toned agony among the marble pillars of the Crowles mausoleum, where lay in pitying sleep the misguided woman whose G.o.ds of gold and tinsel had betrayed her.

On the outskirts of the Bronx, in a newly opened suburb, a slender girl, with books and papers under her arm, walked slowly against the sharp wind, holding her hat with her free hand, and talking rapidly to a young man who accompanied her. Toward them came an old negro, leaning upon a cane. As he stepped humbly aside to make room, the girl looked up. Then, without stopping, she slipped a few coins into his coat pocket as she pa.s.sed.

The negro stood in dumb amazement. He was poor--his clothes were thin and worn--but he was not a beggar--he had asked nothing. The girl turned and threw back a smile to him. Then of a sudden there came into the old man's wrinkled, care-lined face such a look, such a comprehension of that love which knows neither Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor Barbarian, as would have caused even the Rabbis, at the cost of defilement, to pause and seek its heavenly meaning.

A few blocks farther on the strong wind sternly disputed the girl's right to proceed, and she turned with a merry laugh to her companion.

But as she stood, the wind fell, leaving a heap of dead leaves about her feet. Glancing down, something caught her eye. She stooped and took up a two-dollar bill.

Her companion threw her a wondering look; but the girl made no comment. In silence they went on, until a few minutes more of brisk walking brought them to a newly built, stucco-coated bungalow. Running rapidly up the steps, the girl threw wide the door and called, "Mother dear!"

The Beaubien rose from her sewing to receive the hearty embrace.

"Well, dearie?" she said, devouring the sparkling creature with eager eyes. "What luck?"

"We're registered! Lewis begins his law course at once, and I may take what I wish. And Mr. Hitt's coming to call to-night and bring a friend, a Mr. Haynerd, an editor. What's Jude got for supper? My! I'm starved."

The Beaubien drew the girl to her and kissed her again and again. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the man with a bantering twinkle in her eyes and said, "Don't you wish you could do that? But you can't."

"Yes he can, too, mother," a.s.serted the girl.

Father Waite sighed. "I'm afraid it wouldn't look well," he said.

"And, besides, I don't dare lose my heart to her."

With a final squeeze the girl tore herself from the Beaubien's reluctant arms and hurried to the little kitchen. "What is it to-night, Jude?" she demanded, catching the domestic in a vigorous embrace.

"Hist!" said Jude, holding up a finger. "It's a secret. I'm afraid you'd tell him."

"Not a word--I promise."

"Well, then, liver and bacon, with floating island," she whispered, very mysteriously.

"Oh, goody!" cried Carmen. "He just loves them both!"

Returning to the little parlor, Carmen encountered the fixed gaze of both the Beaubien and Father Waite. "Well?" she demanded, stopping and looking from one to the other.

"What about that two dollars?" said the Beaubien, in a tone of mock severity.

"Oh," laughed the girl, running to the woman and seating herself in the waiting lap, "he told, didn't he? Can't I ever trust you with a secret?" in a tone of rebuke, turning to the man.

"Surely," he replied, laughing; "and I should not have divulged this had I not seen in the incident something more than mere chance--something meant for us all."

Then he became serious. "I--I think I have seen the working of a stupendous mental law--am I not right?" addressing the girl. "You saw a need, and met it, unsolicited. You found your own in another's good."

The girl smiled at the Beaubien without replying. "What about it, dearie?" the latter asked tenderly.

"She need not answer," said Father Waite, "for we know. She but cast her bread upon the unfathomable ocean of love, and it returned to her, wondrously enriched."

"If you are going to talk about me, I shall not stay," declared Carmen, rising. "I'm going out to help Jude." And she departed for the kitchen, but not without leaving a smile for each of them as she went.

And they understood.