A Speckled Bird Part 13

"Does not justify a man of your position in taking a 'department store saleswoman' to drive on Sunday through public places."

"Perhaps you are right. Then I shall efface myself promptly, and you and Leighton can keep the carriage as long as you like."

"Such favors I accept from no man."

"Not even to help your sick boy?"

She put her hand on the child's s.h.i.+ning curls, and a world of tenderness glorified her velvet eyes.

"Not even for my very own baby could I incur such an obligation."

"Smell them, mother--like spice! Don't they make you think of the carnation garden in San Francisco, where Uncle Dane used to carry us?"

"How long ago was that, Leighton?" asked Mr. Herriott, watching the woman's face.

"Oh, it was when I was a little chap and wore frocks."

"Were you born in San Francisco?"

"No. He was born in ---- Territory."

"Mrs. Dane, can you tell me what became of the artist Belmont?"

"Why do you ask me that question?"

"In order to get an answer. He painted your face for his 'Aurora,' and the picture was photographed."

"Yes; I needed money, and Mr. Dane permitted him to come to our house for the sittings. That was my first and last experience as a model."

"I have met you before."

She straightened herself, and answered defiantly:

"Probably I have sold you gloves, or socks, or handkerchiefs--certainly not the right to meddle with my personal affairs."

"I went with a San Francisco friend to see a night school for women, which his mother had established. You were there."

"Yes, I was there two winters. Now, sir, have you a police badge hidden inside your coat? Are you playing reporter--disguised as a benevolent gentleman--hunting up the details of last night's meeting and riot at Newark? You know, of course, that I made a speech there?"

"Indeed? I had imagined you sat up all night with your sick boy."

"There is a strike on down there, and I spoke against arbitrating labor grievances, and against the ghastly sham of getting the rights of the poor from a picked judge and a packed jury. Bombs and boycott make the best mill for grinding out justice to starving, over-worked men and women."

"How long have you been an 'anarchist,' or perhaps you prefer the term 'socialist'?"

"From the day I was sixteen years old, and learned how rich men trample and betray and despise and insult the ignorant, helpless poor."

"It must have been a terribly cruel grievance that transformed into a fury one who was intended for a loving, gentle woman."

She laughed, and her beautiful teeth took hold of the glowing under lip.

"Grievance? We all have one--we are simply born to suffer, as to breathe--but the unendurable the unpardonable comes from the grasping, murderous, fiendish selfishness of rich men. You have been so kind to my boy, I have tried hard to believe genuine benevolence--what you are pleased to call 'Christian philanthropy'--inspired your visits to him during my absence, but you are all alike--you gilded society sultans--and you come here with some cowardly design carefully smothered under flowers, fruit, and candy. So, Leighton, make the most of to-day, for we will see no more of your Mr. Herriott."

"Madam, I shall be as frank as you have shown yourself. There is one woman in this world whose wishes rule me absolutely, and because she requested me to see your child now and then, I have come several times, until my sympathetic interest equals hers. With your career in New York I am acquainted. For your radical views and utterances I have neither respect nor toleration, yet, if you will permit me to explain, there are reasons that lead me to believe I can do you a very great service."

"I am not in need of service from any man. Your formula has not even the ring of originality; I have heard such sickening reiterations of it from false, bearded lips."

"That you have been a cruelly wronged woman I feel a.s.sured, but I am equally certain that your worst enemy was no man--was one of your own s.e.x. For your own sake, will you answer two questions?"

"For my own sake, I distinctly refuse to be catechised by impertinent strangers."

"Oh, mother; please mother! He has been so good to me, how could he mean harm to you? Don't worry her, Mr. Herriott. She can't abide men; they fret her, and she hates them--unless they are starved and ragged. Please let her alone, and look at my doves. They come for the crumbs on the window sill. See! Here is a new one, pure white. Mother, scatter some bread on the sheet and they will come in."

She sprinkled some sc.r.a.ps of cake close to his pillow, and, after a little coy skirmis.h.i.+ng, the pigeons fluttered in to the feast; but just then a spell of coughing shook the fragile form on the cot, and with a flash and whirr the flock vanished. Mrs. Dane lifted the boy and fanned him, wiping away the moisture that beaded his cl.u.s.tering curls, and Mr.

Herriott piled the pillows and cus.h.i.+ons behind his shaking shoulders.

When the paroxysm ended, and Leighton lay wan and spent, the visitor leaned over him.

"I should like to do several things for you, but your mother will not permit me. Miss Kent wishes you to know she remembers you with interest, and hopes to hear you sing again. The stranger who preached at St.

Hyacinth's has not forgotten the poem he promised you, and will bring it soon. I saw him last night. Now, I must say good-bye for to-day. Don't try to speak, I understand everything."

Silently Mrs. Dane followed him to the door. Across the threshold, he turned and lowered his voice.

"A sea voyage is the only thing that will prolong his life. With your consent, it can be arranged at once."

She shook her head.

"Madam, I find I must revise my ideals of maternal devotion. You punish your innocent child for the sins of those who blighted your youth? You harangue a rabble in favor of 'justice' and deny it to a dying boy."

She caught her breath, leaned against the wall, and covered her face with her hands. When he saw it again the color had ebbed, the lovely eyes were darkened by unshed tears, and the lips were beyond her control.

"My baby--my fatherless little one! Ever since he was born I have struggled so hard to keep his mother's name clean--his mother's name, all he had--clean and beyond reproach! Do you suppose that now, at the last, I would put myself under obligation to a rich man? We may die paupers, he and I, but when we go to the Potter's Field--the only undisputed land labor can claim--we go free, honest, and unblemished, and if there was a G.o.d, I could hold up my baby and demand why He had cursed us both in our innocence."

"I am sorry that the circ.u.mstances coloring your life have destroyed every vestige of confidence in man's honor, yet I have no alternative but to accept your decision, and I wish you good morning."

He lifted his hat, and had gone half way down the stairs, when she followed and touched his sleeve.

"I did not thank you for much goodness to my child, but I do want to say I am not ungrateful; only I have had so little to be thankful for, I don't quite know how to phrase grat.i.tude. The world has been so hard to me I am suspicious of every rich man in your social circle. You see, my face has handicapped me always----"

She set her teeth and struck one palm resentfully against her cheek, and the pa.s.sionate, pent-up cry of years of suffering broke through the next words.

"Yes, my face has been my curse, and it was the steel trap that snapped chains on me when I was only a child. Kindness to my Leighton is the one thing that touches what is left of my heart; and how do you suppose I can bear now to listen to his sobbing yonder, because he thinks I have rudely driven you away? Oh, my pretty baby! My own beautiful little one!

Cast out, with only his girl-mother to fight for him against this cruel world! And now if I lose him, if my all is taken away from me----"

She wrung her hands, and the blanched face was upturned as if challenging her G.o.d.

"Madam, I understand fully, and I intend to help your boy; but be sure I shall visit him when you are absent. Tell him I shall come, with your consent, while he is alone; and some day I think you will trust me, even despite the fact that I happen to have money. Good-bye."

He held out his hand, but she seemed not to see it, and as she turned and walked wearily up the steps he went down to his carriage.