“No––but I think of it so often. And, as for me, you have turned me inside-out.”
Carmen laughed again merrily. “Well, I think this side wears better, don’t you?”
“It is softer––it may not,” returned the woman gently. “But I have no desire to change back.” She bent and kissed the brown hair. “Mr. Ames and I have been––no, not friends. I had no higher ideals than he, and I played his game with him. Then you came. And at a time when he had involved me heavily financially. The Colombian revolution––his cotton deal––he must have foreseen, he is so uncanny––he must have known that to involve me meant control whenever he might need me! He needs me now, for I stand between him and you.”
“You don’t!” Carmen was on her feet. “God stands between me and every form of evil!” She sat down on the arm of the Beaubien’s chair. “Is it because you will not let him have me that he threatens to ruin you financially?”
“Yes. He couldn’t ruin me in reputation, for––” her voice again faded to a whisper, “I haven’t any.”
“That is not true!” cried the girl, throwing her arms about the woman’s neck. “Your true self is just coming to light! Why, it is beautiful! And I love it so!”
The Beaubien suddenly burst into a flood of tears. The strain of weeks was at last manifesting. “Oh, I have been in the gutter!––he dragged me through the mire!––and I let him! I did it for money, money! I gave my soul for it! I schemed and plotted with him; I ruined and pillaged with him; I murdered reputations and blasted lives with him, that I might get money, dirty, blood-stained money! Oh, Carmen, I didn’t know what I was doing, until you came! And now I’d hang on the cross if I could undo it! But it’s too late! And he has you and me in his clutches, and he is crushing us!” She bent her head and sobbed violently.
Carmen bent over the weeping woman. “Be still, and know that I am God.” The Beaubien raised her head and smiled feebly through her tears.
“He governs all, dearest,” whispered Carmen, as she drew the woman’s head to her breast. “And He is everywhere.”