To no one could the attraction which had drawn Carmen and the Beaubien together seem stranger, more inexplicable, than to that lone woman herself. Yet it existed, irresistible. And both acknowledged it, nor would have had it otherwise. To Carmen, the Beaubien was a sympathetic confidante and a wise counselor. The girl knew nothing of the woman’s past or present life. She tried to see in her only the reality which she sought in every individual––the reality which she felt that Jesus must have seen clearly back of every frail mortal concept of humanity. And in doing this, who knows?––she may have transformed the sordid, soiled woman of the world into 130 something more than a broken semblance of the image of God. To the Beaubien, this rare child, the symbol of love, of purity, had become a divine talisman, touching a dead soul into a sense of life before unknown. If Carmen leaned upon her, she, on the other hand, bent daily closer to the beautiful girl; opened her slowly warming heart daily wider to her; twined her lonely arms daily closer about the radiant creature who had come so unexpectedly into her empty, sinful life.
“But, mother dear”––the Beaubien had long since begged Carmen always to address her thus when they were sharing alone these hours of confidence––“they will not listen to my message! They laugh and jest about real things!”
“True, dearie. And yet you tell me that the Bible says wise men laughed at the great teacher, Jesus.”
“Oh, yes! And his message––oh, mother dearest, his message would have helped them so, if they had only accepted it! It would have changed their lives, healed their diseases, and saved them from death. And my message”––her lip quivered––“my message is only his––it is the message of love. But they won’t let me tell it.”
“Then, sweet, live it. They can not prevent that, can they?”
“I do live it. But––I am so out of place among them. They scoff at real things. They mock all that is noble. Their talk is so coarse, so low and degraded. They have no culture. They worship money. They don’t know what miserable failures they all are. And Mrs. Hawley-Crowles––”
The Beaubien’s jaw set. “The social cormorant!” she muttered.
“––she will not let me speak of God in her house. She told me to keep my views to myself and never voice them to her friends. And she says I must marry either a millionaire or a foreign noble.”
“Humph! And become a snobbish expatriate! Marry a decadent count, and then shake the dust of this democratic country from your feet forever! Go to London or Paris or Vienna, and wear tiaras and coronets, and speak of disgraceful, boorish America in hushed whispers! The empty-headed fool! She forgets that the tarnished name she bears was dragged up out of the ruck of the impecunious by me when I received Jim Crowles into my house! And that I gave him what little gloss he was able to take on!”
“Mother dear––I would leave them––only, they need love, oh, so much!”