People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

"And then—" My voice, too, was low.

"He got mad and went away. I thought I hated him, but I can't hate him. I've tried and I can't. When he came back and found where I was living—" A long, low shiver came from the twisting lips. "About five weeks ago I moved to where he was taken sick. And now—now he has gone home again and I—" She got up as if the torment of her soul made it impossible for her to sit still, and again she faced me. "It doesn't matter what becomes of me. What do rich people and good people and people who could change things care about us? And neither do they care what we think of them, and specially of good women. Do you suppose we think you really believe in the Christ who did not stone us? We don't. We laugh at most Christians, spit at them. We know you don't believe in Him or you'd remember what He said."

She turned sharply. Mrs. Mundy with Kitty behind her was at the door. The latter hesitated, and, seeing it, Etta nodded to her. "Come in. I won't hurt you. You need not be afraid."

Speaking first to Etta, Kitty kissed me, and I saw she had come up-stairs because she, too, was wondering if there was something she could do. Kitty is no longer the child she once was. She is going, some day, to be a brave and big and splendid woman. At the window she sat down, and as though she were not in the room Etta turned toward me.

"You said just now you wanted to help. Wanting won't do that!" She snapped her fingers. "You've got to stop wanting and will to do something. Men laugh at the laws men make, but we don't blame men like we blame women who let their men be bad and then smile on them, marry them, and pretend they do not know. They do not want to know. If you made men pay the price you make us pay, the world would be a safer place to live in. Men don't do what women won't stand for."

Kitty leaned forward, and Etta, with twisting hands, looked at her and then at Mrs. Mundy and then at me, and in her eyes was piteous appeal. "There's no chance for me, but I've got a little baby girl. What's going to become of her? In God's name, can't you do something to make good women understand? Make them know the awfulness—awfulness—"

Again the room grew still and presently, with dragging steps, Etta turned toward the door. Quickly I followed her. She must not go. I had said nothing, gotten nowhere, and there was much that must be said that something might be done. To have her leave without some plan to work toward would be loss of time. She was but one of thousands of bits of human wreckage, in danger herself and of danger to others, and somebody must do something for her. I put my hand on her shoulder to draw her back and as I did so the door, half ajar, opened more widely. Motionless, and as one transfixed, she stared at it wide-eyed, and into her face crept the pallor of death.

Selwyn and Harrie were standing in the doorway.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Stumbling back as if struck, Harrie leaned against the door-frame, and the hat in his hand dropped to the floor. Selwyn, too, for a half-minute drew back, then he came inside and spoke to Etta, and to me, and to Mrs. Mundy, and to Kitty. Pushing a chair close to the fire, he took Harrie by the arm and led him to it.