"I see no cause for alarm," he said. "We have known Max from his boyhood, and although his career has not been entirely exemplary nor his character spotless, for a young man of wealth to-day he is not a bad sort. And as to his fancying Geraldine, I see no reason to object if he should. There's many a girl gets a worse husband than Max will make. With a girl like Geraldine for a wife Max might settle down and make a model husband."
Mrs. Mayhew rarely opposed her husband. She believed that, owing to his position, his contact with men and his conflict with the world, his judgment must be better than hers. She realized in a way that her judgment was a thing of the heart and lacking in that worldly wisdom that her husband possessed. She remembered many times when she had taken his advice against her own convictions and afterwards found that she had not been the loser thereby. Yet, being a fair-minded woman, she sometimes came to a place where another's judgment could not answer for her; where her impulse and desires prompted her to act from the dictates of her own heart.
Geraldine's father had died before the girl was born and her mother had yielded up her life at the birth of her child. Mrs. Mayhew had taken the little one and reared her as her own and loved her as her own. But aside from this love and watchful care there was a feeling of responsibility different from that which a mother feels for her own children; their welfare and happiness she is responsible for as for her own flesh and blood. She was responsible for Geraldine as a child of another birth and branch.
The girl had been loving and affectionate, willful and passionate at times, yet always ready to confess her faults. Mrs. Mayhew had seen her through the unsettled period of adolescence and knew that at the present time she was a true-hearted woman, looking into the future, trusting and unafraid. Had there ever been a time since she held her in her arms, an infant of a day, when she had needed a guiding hand and love and care more than at this present time?
Mrs. Mayhew resolved that, let the consequences be what they might, Geraldine should have some enlightenment as to Max Morrison's real character.
It was a few days before Easter. Outside there raged a storm of rain and sleet such as the Middle West often sees in the early spring. The snow had disappeared, except here and there a dark-hued bank by the roadside or in some well-filled corner. Out in the country the fields and meadows lay bare and brown, awaiting the magic touch of spring--Nature's resurrection.
But within the Mayhew home a warm radiance covered all. The interview took place in Geraldine's room. The room was typical of the girl. An air of purity and daintiness was lent by soft, white draperies; yet everywhere there was a suggestion of ease and restfulness. Conspicuous, but not prominent, a pair of cherubs were enfolded in a shimmering gauze of drapery. A picture of the Virgin with the Christ Child in her arms hung above the mantel and on the wall opposite, the tender, loving face of the Savior. And beneath the Christ face hung the picture of a sweet, calm-eyed woman and a manly, dark-browed man--the parents that the girl had never known.
Mrs. Mayhew was perfectly familiar with the room, but with her mission in mind she was aware that it impressed her in a different manner from its wont. A mind less pure than Geraldine's could not have planned and fashioned it. This quality of mind and heart was apparent in all that the girl did. Suppose she were robbed of this chastity of thought and the evil things in the lives of others thrust upon her vision. Could she ever be just the same girl again? Mrs. Mayhew had eased her mind with like sophistry before, but now she felt that the hand of necessity was upon her.
Geraldine sat before her fire, a piece of needlework in her hands. Mrs. Mayhew drew her chair to the grate and produced her own bit of work. She cast about in her mind for some way to lead up to the subject upon which she wished to speak, but finding none, she broached it abruptly.
"Geraldine, do you know you are very unsophisticated for a girl of your age? That you know very little of the evil there is in the world?"