"Oh, no. Only I would avoid being seen by any one."
"He will not see you. Come right in." And she threw open the door, and flaunted in.
Arthur followed her without hesitation.
Bursts of forced and cheerless laughter, and the shrill sound of rude and flippant talk, smote unpleasantly upon his ear. The room was richly furnished, but without taste or modesty. The tall mirrors were displayed with ostentation, and the paintings, offensive in design, hung conspicuous in showy frames. The numerous gas jets, flashing among glittering crystal pendants, made vice more glaring and heartlessness more terribly apparent. Women, with bold and haggard eyes, with brazen brows, and cheeks from which the roses of virgin shame had been plucked to bloom no more forever—mostly young girls, scourging their youth into old age, and gathering poison at once for soul and body—with sensual indolence reclined upon the rich ottomans, or with fantastic grace whirled through lewd waltzes over the velvet carpets. There was laughter without joy—there was frivolity without merriment—there was the surface of enjoyment and the substance of woe, for beneath those painted cheeks was the pallor of despair and broken health, and beneath those whitened bosoms, half veiled with gaudy silks, were hearts that were aching with remorse, or, yet more unhappy, benumbed and callous with habitual sin.
Yet there, like a crushed pearl upon a heap of garbage, lingers the trace of beauty; and there, surely, though sepulchred in the caverns of vice, dwells something that was once innocence, and not unredeemable. But whence is the friendly word to come, whence the guardian hand that might lift them from the slough. They live accursed by even charity, shunned by philanthropy, and shut from the Christian world like a tribe of lepers whose touch is contagion and whose breath is pestilence. In the glittering halls of fashion, the high-born beauty, with wreaths about her white temples and diamonds upon her chaste bosom, gives her gloved hand for the dance, and forgets that an erring sister, by the touch of those white fingers, might be raised from the grave of her chastity, and clothed anew with the white garments of repentance. But no; the cold world of fashion, that from its cushioned pew has listened with stately devotion to the words of the Redeemer, has taught her that to redeem the fallen is beneath her caste. The bond of sisterhood is broken. The lost one must pursue her hideous destiny, each avenue of escape blocked by the scorn and loathing which denies her the contact of virtue and the counsel of purity. In the broad fields of charity, invaded by cold philosophers, losing themselves in searching unreal and vague philanthropies, none so practical in beneficence as to take her by the hand, saying, "Go, and sin no more."
But whenever the path of benevolence is intricate and doubtful, whenever the work is linked with a riddle whose solving will breed discord and trouble among men, whenever there is a chance to make philanthropy a plea for hate, and bitterness and charity can be made a battle-cry to arouse the spirit of destruction, and spread ruin and desolation over the fair face of the earth, then will the domes of our churches resound with eloquence, then will the journals of the land teem with their mystic theories, then will the mourners of human woe be loud in lamentation, and lift up their mighty voices to cry down an abstract evil. When actual misery appeals to them, they are deaf; when the plain and palpable error stalks before them, they turn aside. They are too busy with the tangles of some philanthropic Gordian knot, to stretch out a helping hand to the sufferer at their sides. They are frenzied with their zeal to build a bridge over a spanless ocean, while the drowning wretch is sinking within their grasp. They scorn the simple charity of the good Samaritan; theirs must be a gigantic and splendid achievement in experimental beneficence, worthy of their philosophic brains. The wrong they would redress must be one that half the world esteems a right; else there would be no room for their arguments, no occasion for their invective, no excuse for their passion. To do good is too simple for their transcendentalism; they must first make evil out of their logic, and then, through blood and wasting flames, drive on the people to destruction, that the imaginary evil may be destroyed. While Charity soars so high among the clouds, she will never stoop to lift the Magdalen from sin.
CHAPTER XIII.
Arthur heaved an involuntary sigh, as he gazed upon those sad wrecks of womanhood, striving to harden their sense of degradation by its impudent display. But an expression of bewildered and sorrowful surprise suddenly overspread his countenance. Seated alone upon a cushioned stool, at the chimney-corner, was a young woman, her elbows resting upon her knees, and her face bent thoughtfully upon her palms. She was apparently lost in thought to all around her. She was thinking—of what? Perhaps of the green fields where she played in childhood; perhaps of her days of innocence; perhaps of the mother at whose feet she had once knelt in prayer. But she was far away, in thought, from that scene of infamy of which she was a part; for, in the glare of the gaslight, a tear struggled through her eyelashes, and glittered like a ray from heaven piercing the glooms of hell.