All this, which may be purely irrelevant matter, has grown out of a visit paid by some of the characters in this narration, to a fashionable restaurant and saloon on Broadway, and the belief that in some of those houses temptation is lurking in so insidious and deadly a form that they are doing a thousand times the injury inflicted by the acknowledged haunts of vice. Special allusion may or may not be made to the gorgeous but tawdry room in which the three sat down to discuss their a la mode beef, coffee and biscuits. Any one of the fashionable houses to which ladies habitually resort without male protection, for a noonday lunch when shopping,—may serve as a type of all the rest; and not one of them but may be passed with a shudder, by husbands who wish their wives to remain like Cesar's, not only chaste but above suspicion,—and by fathers who do not desire the peach-bloom too early rubbed off from the innocence of their fair daughters.
At this marble table, where the cloth is being so carefully spread by the white-napkined waiter who has a steaming cluster of dishes on a salver on the table opposite,—there may be a little party, like that of our three friends, dropped in on the most proper of errands—that of merely procuring a bit of lunch in the midst of a day of business, without going home for it or visiting the table d'hote at a hotel; but at the next table and the next there is something different. Here sit a party of three giddy girls, without male protection, innocent enough in their lives and intentions, but boldly exposing their faces to the rude gaze of any of the libertine diners-out who may happen to be at the tables opposite, and returning that gaze, when met, with a smile and a simper that merely means scorn and self-confidence but may be easily construed into a less creditable expression. And at this table, only two removed, discussing a pate de foix gras which may or may not have come from Strasburg of the Big Goose Livers, and washing down his edibles with a glass of liqueur that fires the blood like so much molten lava,—sits a boldfaced man, fashionable in dress and perfumed in hair and whiskers, whose gaze is that of the evil eye upon the reputation of any woman, and who has no better occupation than lounging in any place of public resort, to spy out the beauties of female face and figure and the weaknesses in the fortifications that surround female virtue. And here—at one of the opposite row of tables, her cup of coffee and plate of French trifles in pasty just being set down before her—here is a sadder spectacle than either. The wife of a wealthy merchant, yet young, beautiful and attractive, but with a frightened look in her dark eye and a nervous glancing round at the door every time it opens, which too well reveals her story to the close observer. She is waiting for her lover—harsh word in that connection, but the true and only one; her lover, whose acquaintance she may have made through unforbidden glances in this very room, and whom she has permitted to approach her, slowly but surely, as the serpent stole upon Eve in Eden, until she has fallen completely into his power, losing honor, self-respect, everything that a true wife most values, and probably supporting the wretch in a course of gambling and dissipation, with money wrung on one pitiable pretext or other from the grudging hand of her betrayed husband.
It is enough!—let the curtain fall. But oh, heart of man, put up the prayer that other and holier lips once uttered: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!" And may not the houses indeed come into judgment?
We have no concern whatever with the pleasant small-talk which floated over the little table at Taylor's, from the lips of Tom Leslie and his two female companions; nor is there any need to pause at this juncture and remark whether the strange glance of Josephine Harris on being introduced to the young man on the street, was repeated or returned. The trio seemed to be a very happy one, Miss Bell Crawford a little starched at first towards a man who had been flung into her way so ambiguously, but rattle-pated Joe firing off occasional fusillades of odd sayings, and Tom, the prince of preux chevaliers, falling into the position of an old acquaintance with marvellous rapidity. Their lunch was nearly over, when the mischievous face of Joe, who had been making running comments upon some of the people on the other side of the room, good-naturedly wicked if not complimentary—lit up with a conceit which set her hazel-gray eyes laughing away down to the depths of her brain. At the same moment the quick eyes of Bell Crawford saw that the hand of the merry girl was rummaging in her pocket, and her face became anxious. Before the latter could speak, however, the hand of Joe came out with the treasure she had been seeking—a torn half column, or less, of the Herald. The moment Miss Crawford saw the slip, her anxiety seemed to be redoubled, and she reached over to Joe, as if to take the paper, with the words, half-pleading, half-pettish:
"Don't, Joe—pray don't!"
"Oh, but I must!" said the mischievous girl, taking care that her companion should not reach the slip. "I cannot think of throwing away such an excellent opportunity. I say, Mr. Leslie, you are not an unscrupulous destroyer of female innocence—one of those dreadful fellows we read about in the books, are you?"
"Oh, Joe, I am ashamed of you!" said Bell Crawford, and she lay back in her chair, very near to a fit of the sulks.
"Really," said Tom Leslie, blushing a little in spite of himself, though without knowing precisely why—"really, Miss Harris, I am afraid I am not the best of men, but I hope I do not deserve any such terrible appellation."
"There, I told you so, Bell, I knew he wasn't!" went on the wild girl, as if she had been asking a solemn question and receiving a conclusive answer. "We can trust him—he says we can, and I am going to put him to the test at once. Suppose, Mr. Leslie, that a couple of distressed damsels—"
"What a ninny you are making of yourself!" put in Miss Crawford, in a tone not very far from earnest.