Constance sniffed, but a little jocularity was not going to deter her from the luxury of confession.
"Money should only be regarded," she went on, "as a sacred trust, and a means of enriching one's life. And as for Society—that is a bore! Dances, theatres, dinners and luncheons. Chaperons tagging around after you, suggesting by their mere presence that, unless you're watched, you'll do something desperate in the wild desire to break the monotony. Well, I drank deep of that life," Constance looked dreamily over the stretch of meadow and pine-edged woods, all dazzling with a shimmer of icy snow, "before I took to——"
"Crime?" Jock suggested. "It would seem that that was the natural sequence to such a career."
"Jock Filmer—I took to philanthropy."
"As bad as that?" Jock roared with laughter.
"I only tell you this to explain my present position." Constance drew her fur-clad shoulders up. "I became a Settlement worker; but," confidently, "that was worse than Society. It was Society with another setting. 'Thanks be!' as Auntie says, I have a sense of humour and a remnant of Scotch canniness. It made me laugh—when it didn't make me ashamed—to put on a sort of livery—plain frock, you know, and go down to the Settlement in the most businesslike way to 'do' for those poor people. It cost an awful lot to run our Settlement, about two-thirds of all the money. One-third went to the poor. We had plenty of fun down there. All slummy outside and lovely things inside, you know. It was like making believe. You see," she paused impressively, "when you have a Mission like Settlement work, you don't have to have a chaperon."
"Ten to one, they're needed, though." Jock was keenly interested. "Cutting loose from familiar ties and acting up sort of detached that way, must have a queer effect upon some."
"Well, I just got enough of it. Why, one Christmas, we at the Settlement House had a tree and gifts that cost hundreds of dollars. We had a big dance. Evening dress and all the rest. Young men and women who, had they been in their own homes, would have been under some one's watchful eye, were having a jolly, good fling down there that Christmas Eve, I can tell you.
"Right in the middle of the evening, a call came from a family in a tenement around the corner. I knew all about them—or I thought I did—so I went. I just flung a cloak about me and ran off alone. Somehow I did not want any one with me."
Constance's eyes grew dim, and her under lip quivered.