“Go!” echoed the woman bitterly. “Where––and how?”
“Why, you said this was a hotel––”
“Hotel! God, it’s hell! And you are in forever!”
Carmen gazed at the excited woman with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Now listen,” said Jude, bracing herself, “I’ve got something to tell you. You have been––good God! I can’t––I can’t! For God’s sake, child, don’t look at me that way! Who are you? Where do you come from?”
“I told you,” replied Carmen quietly.
“Your face looks as if you had come down from the sky. But if you did, and if you believe in a God, you had better pray to Him now!”
“Why––I am not afraid. God is everywhere––right here. I was afraid––a little––at first. But not now. When we stop and just know that we love everybody, and that everybody really loves us, why, we can’t be afraid any more, can we?”
The woman looked up at the child in blank amazement. Love! That warped, twisted word conveyed no meaning to her. And God––it was only a convenient execrative. But––what was it that looked out from that strange girl’s eyes? What was it that held her fascinated there? What was emerging from those unfathomable depths, twining itself about her withered heart and expanding her black, shrunken soul? Whence came that beautiful, white life that she was going to blast? And could she, after all? Then what stayed her now?