"But you'll come to see us sometime, won't you Mary?" asked Katie, and she gave her address. "We'll have a fine party at the christening an' I'll want you to see the baby."
"Oh, yes," said Mary; "yes, of course."
But Katie was hesitant.
"You're sure I can't do nothin'?" she asked.
"No, no. I——" Mary caught and pressed with what warmth there was left in her fingers, the Irish girl's hand. "Good-by," she concluded, and then, in order to keep up the farce of an appointment, she got upon a passing car.
Even if panic had not possessed her, she could not have accepted anything that Katie might offer. The most that could have been given her would have been but temporary, and what she must have was a means of earning a living.
She rode well downtown, and then walked farther southward. She slipped along the broad, yellow-lighted Bowery, gathering one or two quarters on her way, and wandered into the narrow, serpentine, fevered alleys of Chinatown. When an ugly rain began to fall, the open door of a mission attracted her, and she went in to rest.
It was the typical mission-room, very different from the uptown church where she had seen the wedding. This new place was mean; it had a low ceiling and was none too clean. The lights were flaring and the dull walls were enlivened by boldly lettered Bible texts. The air was close; on the platform, at the front of the place, a well-fed man was pleading, in sweat and tears, the cause of his religion; nearby, his double was making ready the reed-organ. Crowded into the unsteady benches were pimpled boys with lolling mouths and preternaturally knowing eyes; youths already old in disease and drink and crime; full-grown men, frog-eyed or blear-eyed, who needed only the faculty of firmness and the chance to cultivate it; old men, who had lost their hold upon work in a country still too barbarous to pension its aged; and, though there were no young girls, here and there Mary saw a few women, bedraggled, sodden, hideous, because men had at some time thought them chic, dainty, beautiful.
One of the "workers" attached to the place—a bland, prosperous man, with a pleasant smile—approached Mary and shook her hand as if he were an old acquaintance. He had fat red cheeks, firm teeth, and kindly eyes.
"I'm glad to see you, sister," he said. "Are you saved?"