"No," I said, "she isn't, and beside, for the pain that tortures her it is too late now for money to help. Only it may relieve her somewhat to feel sure that she can get what he needs to eat and wear and to keep him warm and allow her to be free from the necessity of outside work. I am glad you left the money. But—but—Barker, do you think she will use it, coming that way and from a stranger?"
He looked up forlornly. "No, I don't," he said; "and yet she may. I will hope so; but if she does, what then? The terrible question will still remain just where it was. That is no way to solve it; we can't bail out the ocean with a thimble. And what an infamous imposition all this talk is of 'resignation' to such as she; for her terrible calm, as she talked to me, had no hint of resignation in it. She is simply, calmly, quietly desperate now—and she is one of many." He groaned aloud.
"Will you take me there the next time you go?" I asked.
"She said I must not come back; she could not be an object of curiosity—nor allow him to be. She said that she allowed me to come this time because on the night we first saw her she had stepped into that little hall to keep herself from freezing in her thin clothes as she was making her way home, and she saw that I was earnest in what I said, and she stayed to listen—" his voice broke again.
Just then the drapery was drawn back, and his wife, superbly robed, swept in, bringing a bevy of girls.
"Oh, Mr. Barker," said one, gayly, "you don't know what you missed to-night by deserting our theatre party; it was all so real—love in rags, you know, and all that sort of thing; only I really don't like to see quite so much attention paid to the 'Suffering poor,' with a big S, and the lower classes generally. I think the stage can do far better than that, don't you? But it is the new fad, I suppose, and after all I fancy it doesn't do much harm, only as it makes that sort of people more insufferably obtrusive about putting their ill-clad, bad-smelling woes before the rest of us. What a beautiful vase this is, Mrs. Barker! May I take it to the light?"
"Certainly, my dear," laughed Mrs. Barker; "and I agree with you, as usual. I think it is an exquisite vase—and that the stage is becoming demoralized. It is pandering to the low taste for representations of low life. I confess I don't like it. That sort of people do not have the feelings to be hurt—the fine sensibilities and emotions attributed to them. Those grow up in refined and delicate surroundings. That is what I often tell Roland when he insists upon making himself unhappy over some new 'case' of destitution. I tell him to send them five dollars by mail and not to worry himself, and I won't allow him to worry me with his Christie-street emotions."
Barker winced, and I excused myself and withdrew, speculating on certain phases of delicacy of feeling and fine sensibility.