Quite true. And if Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and Carmen so desired, the Beaubien would advance them whatever they might need on that security alone. Or, she would take the personal notes of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles––“For, you know, my dear,” she said sweetly, “when your father passes away you are going to be very well off, indeed, and I can afford to discount that inevitable event somewhat, can I not?” And she not only could, but did.
Then Mrs. Hawley-Crowles soared into the empyrean, and 121 this self-absorbed woman, who never in her life had earned the equivalent of a single day’s food, launched the sweet, white-souled girl of the tropics upon the oozy waters of New York society with such éclat that the Sunday newspapers devoted a whole page, profusely illustrated, to the gorgeous event and dilated with much extravagance of expression upon the charms of the little Inca princess, and upon the very important and gratifying fact that the three hundred fashionable guests present displayed jewels to the value of not less than ten million dollars.
The function took the form of a musicale, in which Carmen’s rich voice was first made known to the beau monde. The girl instantly swept her auditors from their feet. The splendid pipe-organ, which Mrs. Hawley-Crowles had hurriedly installed for the occasion, became a thing inspired under her deft touch. It seemed in that garish display of worldliness to voice her soul’s purity, its wonder, its astonishment, its lament over the vacuities of this highest type of human society, its ominous threats of thundered denunciation on the day when her tongue should be loosed and the present mesmeric spell broken––for she was under a spell, even that of this new world of tinsel and material veneer.
The decrepit old Mrs. Gannette wept on Carmen’s shoulder, and went home vowing that she would be a better woman and cut out her night-cap of Scotch-and-soda. Others crowded about the girl and showered their fulsome praise upon her. But not so Mrs. Ames and her daughter Kathleen. They stared at the lovely débutante with wonder and chagrin written legibly upon their bepowdered visages. And before the close of the function Kathleen had become so angrily jealous that she was grossly rude to Carmen when she bade her good night. For her own feeble light had been drowned in the powerful radiance of the girl from Simití. And from that moment the assassination of the character of the little Inca princess was decreed.
But, what with incessant striving to adapt herself to her environment, that she might search its farthest nook and angle; what with ceaseless efforts to check her almost momentary impulse to cry out against the vulgar display of modernity and the vicious inequity of privilege which she saw on every hand; what with her purity of thought; her rare ideals and selfless motives; her boundless love for humanity; and her passionate desire to so live her “message” that all the world might see and light their lamps at the torch of her burning love for God and her fellow-men, Carmen found her days a paradox, in that they were literally full of emptiness. After her début, event 122 followed event in the social life of the now thoroughly gay metropolis, and the poor child found herself hustled home from one function, only to change her attire and hurry again, weary of spirit, into the waiting car, to be whisked off to another equally vapid. It seemed to the bewildered girl that she would never learn what was de rigueur; what conventions must be observed at one social event, but amended at another. Her tight gowns and limb-hampering skirts typified the soul-limitation of her tinsel, environment; her high-heeled shoes were exquisite torture; and her corsets, which her French maid drew until the poor girl gasped for air, seemed to her the cruellest device ever fashioned by the vacuous, enslaved human mind. Frequently she changed her clothing completely three and four times a day to meet her social demands. Night became day; and she had to learn to sleep until noon. She found no time for study; none even for reading. And conversation, such as was indulged under the Hawley-Crowles roof, was confined to insipid society happenings, with frequent sprinklings of racy items anent divorce, scandal, murder, or the debauch of manhood. From this she drew more and more aloof and became daily quieter.
It was seldom, too, that she could escape from the jaded circle of society revelers long enough to spend a quiet hour with the Beaubien. But when she could, she would open the reservoirs of her soul and give full vent to her pent-up emotions. “Oh,” she would often exclaim, as she sat at the feet of the Beaubien in the quiet of the darkened music room, and gazed into the crackling fire, “how can they––how can they!”
Then the Beaubien would pat her soft, glowing cheek and murmur, “Wait, dearie, wait.” And the tired girl would sigh and close her eyes and dream of the quiet of little Simití and of the dear ones there from whom she now heard no word, and yet whom she might not seek, because of the war which raged about her lowly birthplace.
The gay season was hardly a month advanced when Mrs. Ames angrily admitted to herself that her own crown was in gravest danger. The South American girl––and because of her, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her blasé sister––had completely captured New York’s conspicuous circle. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles apparently did not lack for funds, but entertained with a display of reckless disregard for expense, and a carelessness of critical comment, that stirred the city to its depths and aroused expressions of wonder and admiration on every hand. The newspapers were full of her and her charming ward. Surely, if the girl’s social prestige continued to soar, the Ames family soon would be relegated to the social “has-beens.” And Mrs. 123 Ames and her haughty daughter held many a serious conference over their dubious prospects.
Ames himself chuckled. Night after night, when the Beaubien’s dinner guests had dispersed, he would linger to discuss the social war now in full progress, and to exchange with her witty comments on the successes of the combatants. One night he announced, “Lafelle is in England; and when he returns he is coming by way of the West Indies. I shall cable him to stop for a week at Cartagena, to see Wenceslas on a little matter of business for me.”
The Beaubien smiled her comprehension. “Mrs. Hawley-Crowles has become nicely enmeshed in his net,” she returned. “The altar to friend Jim is a beauty. Also, I hear that she is going to finance Ketchim’s mining company in Colombia.”