I
When Miss Georgie McEnders had finished an elaborately simple toilet of gray and black, she divested herself completely of rings, bangles, brooches- everything to suggest that she stood in friendly relation with fortune. For Georgie was going to read a paper upon "The Dignity of Labor" before the Woman’s Reform Club; and if she was blessed with an abundance of wealth, she possessed a no less amount of good taste.
Before entering the neat victoria that stood at her father’s too-sumptuous door- and that was her special property- she turned to give certain directions to the coachman. First upon the list from which she read was inscribed: "Look up Mademoiselle Salambre."
"James," said Georgie, flushing a pretty pink, as she always did with the slightest effort of speech, "we want to look up a person named Mademoiselle Salambre, in the southern part of town, on Arsenal street," indicating a certain number and locality. Then she seated herself in the carriage, and as it drove away proceeded to study her engagement list further and to knit her pretty brows in deep and complex thought.
"Two o’clock- look up M. Salambre," said the list. "Three-thirty- read paper before Woman’s Ref. Club. Four-thirty-" and here followed cabalistic abbreviations which meant: "Join committee of ladies to investigate moral condition of St. Louis factory-girls. Six o’clock- dine with papa. Eight o’clock- hear Henry George’s lecture on Single Tax.
So far, Mademoiselle Salambre was only a name to Georgie McEnders, one of several submitted to her at her own request by her furnishers, Push and Prodem, an enterprising firm charged with the construction of Miss McEnder’s very elaborate trousseau. Georgie liked to know the people who worked for her, as far as she could.
She was a charming young woman of twenty-five, thought almost too white-souled for a creature of flesh and blood. She possessed ample wealth and time to squander, and a burning desire to do good- to elevate the human race, and start the world over again on a comfortable footing for everybody.
When Georgie had pushed open the very high gate of a very small yard she stood confronting a robust German woman, who, with dress tucked carefully between her knees, was in the act of noisily "reddin" the bricks.
"Does M’selle Salambre live here?" Georgie’s tall, slim figure was very erect. Her face suggested a sweet peach blossom, and she held a severely simple lorgnon up to her short-sighted blue eyes.
"Ya! ya! aber oop stairs" cried the woman brusquely and impatiently. But Georgie did not mind. She was used to greetings that lacked the ring of cordiality.
When she had ascended the stairs that led to an upper porch she knocked at the first door that presented itself, and was told to enter by Mlle. Salambre herself.
The woman sat at an opposite window, bending over a bundle of misty white goods that lay in a fluffy heap in her lap. She was not young. She might have been thirty, or she might have been forty. There were lines about her round, piquante face that denoted close acquaintance with struggles, hardships and all manner of unkind experiences.
Georgie had heard a whisper here and there touching the private character of Mlle. Salambre which had determined her to go in person and make the acquaintance of the woman and her surroundings; which latter were poor and simple enough, and not too neat. There was a little child at play upon the floor.
Mlle. Salambre had not expected so unlooked-for an apparition as Miss McEnders, and seeing the girl standing there in the door she removed the eye-glasses that had assisted her in the delicate work, and stood up also.
"Mlle. Salambre, I suppose?" said Georgie, with a courteous inclination.
"Ah! Mees McEndairs! What an agree’ble surprise! Will you be so kind to take a chair." Mademoiselle had lived many years in the city, in various capacities, which brought her in touch with the fashionable set. There were few people in polite society whom Mademoiselle did not know- by sight, at least; and their private histories were as familiar to her as her own.
"You ’ave come to see your the work?" the woman went on with a smile that quite brightened her face. "It is a pleasure to handle such fine, such delicate quality of goods, Mees," and she went and laid several pieces of her handiwork upon the table beside Georgie, at the same time indicating such details as she hoped would call forth her visitor’s approval.
There was something about the woman and her surroundings, and the atmosphere of the place, that affected the girl unpleasantly. She shrank instinctively, drawing her invisible mantle of chastity closely about her. Mademoiselle saw that her visitor’s attention was divided between the lingerie and the child upon the floor, who was engaged in battering a doll’s unyielding head against the unyielding floor.
"The child of my neighbor downstairs," said Mademoiselle, with a wave of the hand which expressed volumes of unutterable ennui. But at that instant the little one, with instinctive mistrust, and in seeming defiance of the repudiation, climbed to her feet and went rolling and toddling towards her mother, clasping the woman about the knees, and calling her by the endearing title which was her own small right.
A spasm of annoyance passed over Mademoiselle’s face, but still she called the child2"Chene," 4 as she grasped its arm to keep it from falling. Miss McEnders turned every shade of carmine.
"Why did you tell me an untruth?" she asked, looking indignantly into the woman’s lowered face. "Why do you call yourself ’Mademoiselle’ if this child is yours?"
"For the reason that it is more easy to obtain employment. For reasons that you would not understand," she continued, with a shrug of the shoulders that expressed some defiance and a sudden disregard for consequences. "Life is not all2coleur de rose, 4 Mees McEndairs; you do not know what life is, you!" And drawing a handkerchief from an apron pocket she mopped an imaginary tear from the corner of her eye, and blew her nose till it glowed again.
Georgie could hardly recall the words or actions with which she quitted Mademoiselle’s presence. As much as she wanted to, it had been impossible to stand and read the woman a moral lecture. She had simply thrown what disapproval she could into her hasty leave-taking, and that was all for the moment. But as she drove away, a more practical form of rebuke suggested itself to her not too nimble intelligence- one that she promised herself to act upon as soon as her home was. reached.
When she was alone in her room, during an interval between her many engagements, she then attended to the affair of Mlle. Salambre.
Georgie believed in discipline. She hated unrighteousness. When it pleased God to place the lash in her hand she did not hesitate to apply it. Here was this Mlle. Salambre living in her sin. Not as one who is young and blinded by the glamour of pleasure, but with cool and deliberate intention. Since she chose to transgress, she ought to suffer, and be made to feel that her ways were iniquitous and invited rebuke. It lay in Georgie’s power to mete out a small dose of that chastisement which the woman deserved, and she was glad that the opportunity was hers.
She seated herself forthwith at her writing table, and penned the following note to her furnishers:
"MESSRS. PUSH & PRODEM.
$"Gentlemen 4- Please withdraw from Mademoiselle Salambre all work of mine, and return same to me at once- finished or unfinished.
Yours truly,
GEORGIE McENDERS"