People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

"In my day it wasn't expected of a woman to make inquiries." Mrs. Swink's voice was that of righteous reserve. "It's very hard on a mother to ask questions about character and things like that. I knew of the Thorne family very well, and of the Thorne house, which I thought Harrie would live in until he and Madeleine could build a moderner one, and— Oh no, my child, you don't know the anguish of a mother's heart! You don't know!" Tears not of anguish, but of blighted ambition, caused the flow of words to cease temporarily, and light came to me. Selwyn's letter had done the work.

Harrie being eliminated, the fat old hypocrite was trimming her sails with hands hardened from long experience. Her embraces and gratitude were a veer in a new direction. In a measure I was to be held to account for the present situation; in a sense to be social sponsor for Mrs. Thomas Cressy. A homeless Harrie, disapproved of by family and friends, would not have made a desirable son-in-law, and I had been seized upon as the most available opportunity within reach to bring her daughter's marriage desirably before the public. Mrs. Swink had seemingly little understanding of the little use society has for people who do not entertain. I do not entertain.

Nothing was due her, but hoping if I promised help she might go away, I suggested the possibility of Kitty's entertaining Tom and Madeleine on their return from their wedding-trip, and at the suggestion the beady little eyes brightened, and immediately I was deluged with details of the reception she had determined to give the bride and groom, implored for help in making out the list of guests to be invited, and begged to be one of the receiving party. The last I declined.

When at last she was safely gone I locked the door and sprayed myself with a preparation that is purifying. I was dispirited. There are times when the world seems a weary place and certain of its people beyond hope or pardon.

Last night I had a talk with Mrs. Mundy. She had seen the girl I overheard speaking of an ill man who was being nursed by some one she knew, and this girl had admitted that the "some one" was Etta Blake. By another name she had been living in Lillie Pierce's world. For the past two weeks, however, she had been away from it. When Mrs. Mundy told me, something within gave way, and my head went down in my arms, which fell upon the table, and I held them back no longer—the aching tears which came at last without restraint. "The pity—oh, the pity of it!" was all that I could say, and wisely Mrs. Mundy let me cry it out—the pain and horror which were obsessing me. Hand on my head, she smoothed my hair as does one's mother when her child is greatly troubled, and for a while neither of us spoke.

I had feared for some time what I knew now was true, and it was not for Etta alone that pity possessed me. Somehow, for all young girlhood, for the weak and wayward, the bold and brazen, the unprotected and helpless, I seemed somehow responsible, I and other women like me, who were shielded from their temptations and ignorant of the dangers to which they were exposed; and Etta was but one of many who had gone wrong, perhaps, because I had not done right. Something was so wrong with life when such things could happen, as through all ages had happened; things which men said were impossible to prevent. Perhaps they are, but women are different from men in that they attempt the impossible. When they understand, this, too, must be attempted—

After a while Mrs. Mundy began to tell me what she had learned. It was an old story. The girl who told her of Etta was a friend of the latter's and had been a waitress in the same restaurant in which Etta was cashier. It was at this restaurant that Harrie met her.

"She was crazy to think he meant to marry her," the girl had told Mrs. Mundy, "but at first she did think it. For some time he was just nice to her, taking her to ride in his automobile, and out to places where he was not apt to meet any one he knew, and then—then—"

"She doesn't blame Harrie, though. That is, at first she didn't. She was that dead in love with him she would have gone with him anywhere, but after a while, when she found out the sort he was, she—cursed him. It was about the child they had a split."

"Was it born here?" I was cold and moved closer to the fire.