The girl on the couch lay silent for a while, then she rose and went over to the window, gazing across to the park, where people were walking and riding along the green knolls and levels. Young girls were there, too, and she watched them a little while, with the old moody expression in her dark eyes.
“Perhaps it is because I don’t like to make friends under false pretenses,” she said, at last. “Your society is a very fine and very curious thing, and there is a great deal of false pretense about it. Individually, they would overlook the fact that I was accused of murder in Idaho—the gold mine would help some of them to do that! But if it should ever get in their papers here, they would collectively think it their duty to each other not to recognize me.”
“Oh, Montana, my dear child, why do you not forget that horrible life, and leave your mind free to partake of the advantages now surrounding you?” and Miss Seldon sighed with real distress, and dropped her ivory needles despairingly. “It seems so strange that you care to remember that which was surely a terrible life.”
“Much more so than you can know,” answered the girl, coming over to her and drawing a velvet hassock to her side. “And, my dear, good, innocent little lady, just so long as you all try to persuade me that I should go out among young people of my own age, just so long must I be forced to think of how different my life has been to theirs. Some day they, too, might learn how different it has been, and resent my presence among them. I prefer not to run that risk. I might get to like some 317 of them, and then it would hurt. Besides, the more I see of people since I came here, the more I feel that every one should remain with their own class in life.”
“But, Montana, that is not an American sentiment at all!” said Miss Seldon, with some surprise. “But even that idea should not exclude from refined circles. By birth you are a lady.”
The girl smiled bitterly. “You mean my mother was,” she answered. “But she did not give me a gentleman for a father; and I don’t believe the parents of any of those lovely girls we meet would like them to know the daughter of such a man, if they knew it. Now, do you understand how I feel about myself and this social question?”
“You are foolishly conscientious and morbid,” exclaimed the older lady. “I declare, Montana, I don’t know what to do with you. People like you—you are very clever, you have youth, wealth, and beauty—yes, the last, too! yet you shut yourself up here like a young nun. Only the theaters and the art galleries will you visit—never a person—not even Margaret.”
“Not even Margaret,” repeated the girl; “and that is the crowning sin in your eyes, isn’t it? Well, I don’t blame you, for she is very lovely; and how much she thinks of you!”
“Yes!” sighed the little lady. “Mrs. Haydon is a woman of very decided character, but not at all given to loving demonstrations to children. Long ago, when we lived closer, little Margie would come to me daily to be kissed and petted. Max was only a boy then, and they were great companions.”
“Yes; and if he had been sensible, he would have fallen in love with her and made her Mrs. Lyster, 318 instead of knocking around Western mining towns, and making queer friends,” said the girl, smiling at the old lady’s astonished face. “She is just the sort of girl to suit him.”