The limp retreating figure of the woman filled Elizabeth with distress. When, at the door, she saw the woman press to her eyes the sodden handkerchief she had been rolling in her palm during the interview, she ran after her; in the hall outside, away from others, she called; the woman turned and gazed at her suspiciously.
"Here!" said Elizabeth fearfully.
She opened her purse and emptied from it into the woman's hand all the silver it held.
"Where do you live?" she asked, and as the woman gave her the number of the house where she rented a room, Elizabeth realized how inappropriate the word "live" was. Elizabeth returned to the office with a glow in her breast, though she dreaded Mrs. Norton, whom she feared she had affronted by her deed. But Mrs. Norton received her with a smile.
"It seemed hard to you, no doubt," Mrs. Norton said, and Mrs. Rider and the two agents looked up with smiles of their own, as if they were about to shine in Mrs. Norton's justification, "but you'll learn after a while. We must discriminate, you know; we must not pauperize them. When you've been in the work as long as I have,"--she paused with a superior lift of her eyebrows at the use of this word "work,"--"you'll understand better."
Elizabeth felt a sudden indignation which she concealed, because she had her own doubts, after all. The ladies were gathering for the committee meeting and just then Mrs. Russell beckoned her into an inner room.
"The air is better in here," she said.
XV
Every day Elizabeth went to the Organized Charities. The committee on arrangements divided itself into subcommittees, and these, with other committees that were raised, must have meetings, make reports, receive instructions, and consider ways and means. The labor entailed was enormous. The women were exhausted before the first week had ended; the rustling of their skirts as they ran to and fro, their incessant chatter---they all spoke at once--their squealing at each other as their nerves snapped under the strain, filled the rooms with clamor. But all this endless confusion and complication were considered necessary in order to effect an organization. If any one doubted or complained, it was only necessary to speak the word "organization," and criticism was immediately silenced.
It had been discovered very early in the work of this organization that Mrs. Russell's great house would be too small for the bazaar, and it had been a relief to her when a certain Mrs. Spayd offered to place at the disposal of the committee the new mansion her husband had just built on Claybourne Avenue and named with the foreign-sounding name of "Bellemere." Mrs. Spayd privately conveyed the information that the young people might have the ball-room at the top of the house, where the most exclusive, if they desired, could dance, and she commissioned a firm of decorators to transform Bellemere into a bazaar. Mrs. Spayd was to bear the entire expense, and her charity was lauded everywhere, especially in the society columns of the newspapers. The booths were to represent different nations, and it was suddenly found to be desirable to dress as peasants. The women who were to serve in these booths flew to costumers to have typical clothing made. And this occasioned still greater conflict and confusion, for each woman wished to represent that country whose inhabitants were supposed to wear the most picturesque costumes.