"No," she repeated a dozen times. "I could not do that. Preposterous! Preposterous!"
But she hardly heard the urgings. She was looking away beyond the room at the vision of a little girl who had died many years ago—the only thing which had not been worldly in all her life. And this little daughter of hers had had eyes very much like Yetta's. Yes. Very much like. In fact they were almost exactly the same. And just when the women were giving up hope she suddenly spoke decisively.
"Yes. I'll do it. My secretary is outside in the motor. Call her in."
"Jane," she said when that very businesslike and faded young woman appeared, "two things. One, a list of all the women who met that little working-girl at my house. Two, telephone all the city editors. I want to give out a statement, a personal statement. My house, to-night. Morning papers. You can use the telephone in the front office. That will do."
Yetta and Mrs. Van Cleave divided the first column the next morning. In the two and three cent papers Yetta got most of the space, in the one cent papers the proportions were reversed. But Yetta's story, more or less diluted with descriptions of Mrs. Van Cleave's drawing-room and gown and diamond tiara—she had given the newspaper men a few minutes as she was leaving for the Opera—was read by almost everybody in Greater New York. Yetta was invariably described as little, in several cases as only thirteen. Pick-Axe was ordinarily spoken of as an ex-prize-fighter—a libel on the profession, which can at least boast of physical courage.
Among others who read the story was the Commissioner of Correction. He called up the warden of the workhouse.
"That jackass, Cornett, has stirred up hell down at Essex Market. Seen the papers? Well, there'll be fifteen hundred reporters bothering you this morning, trying to interview this Rayefsky girl. Don't let them. But they'll get at her when she comes out; she'll be telling her impressions of prison life to everybody. Give her some snap. Feed her. Damn her soul, don't give her no chance to kick. See?"
It was about nine o'clock when this message crossed the wire. A few minutes later the warden entered the women's wing of the workhouse. There were about fifty prisoners on their knees, scrubbing the stone floor.
"Yetta Rayefsky."
She got up in surprise and came towards him, wondering what new thing they were going to do to her.