"I will send you a little pamphlet in regard to this. Many Americans eat more meat than they require; more Americans are wasteful, and ignorant of food values. Housewives of moderate means who approach this subject in a serious spirit can learn how to nourish adequately the human body at a far less cost than their unenlightened sisters. Cereals, macaroni, milk, bread and butter, cheese—they are all nutritive and easy to prepare. If I may say so, you appear to me just the woman to appreciate these modern scientific truths, and to make the most of them."
It seemed to Constance that she had never heard anyone speak more alluringly. What was said interested her, and she was pleased by the flattering personal allusion at the close, but every other effect was subordinated for her at the moment to the charm of expression, or, indeed, to Mrs. Wilson's whole magnetic personality as shown in looks and words. She had never before come in personal contact with anything just like it, and it fascinated her. An admiration of this sort would have promptly generated envy and dislike in some women, but in Constance it awoke interest and ambition. Although she felt that she had stayed long enough, she was loth to go, so absorbed was she by the consummate graciousness and sympathetic fluency, by the effective gown and elegant personal details of her hostess. She rose at last, and, impelled to make some acknowledgment of her emotions, said, wistfully, yet in nowise abashed:
"What a beautiful house this is! I have never seen anything like it before. It must be a great pleasure to live here."
The frank artlessness of this tribute was grateful to Mrs. Wilson. "Yes, we think it beautiful. We have tried to make it so. Would you like to walk through some of the other rooms?"
Constance was glad to accept this invitation. As they proceeded Mrs. Wilson let the apartments speak for themselves, adding only an occasional phrase of enlightenment. She was pleased with her visitor, and divined that words were not needful to produce the proper impression. Constance walked as in a trance, admiring unreservedly in thought the splendor, elegance, and diversity of the upholsteries and decoration, admiring also the graceful magnetic woman beside her whose every gesture and intonation seemed attuned to the exquisite surroundings. As they parted Constance said:
"This has been a great pleasure to me." She added, "I had no idea that people here—in this country—had such beautiful homes, such beautiful things."
There was no repugnance in the confession, but a mere statement of fact which suggested satisfaction rather than umbrage at the discovery, although the ethical doubt of the relevancy of these splendors to American ideals was a part of her sub-consciousness. Mrs. Wilson's response gave the finishing touch to this passive doubt. That lady had recognized that she was not dealing with dross but a sensitive human soul, and had refrained from didactic utterances. Yet she felt it her duty, or rather her duty and her mission combined, to take advantage of this opportunity to sow the seed of culture in this rich but unploughed soil by a deft and genuine illustration.
"The spirit which has accomplished what you see here can be introduced into any home, Mrs. Stuart, and work marvels in the cause of beauty, health, and decency," she said with incisive sweetness, her head a little on one side. "Because one is poor it is not necessary to have or foster ugly, inartistic, and sordid surroundings. A little thought, a little reverence for æsthetic truth will not enable those of restricted means to live in luxury, but it will serve to keep beauty enshrined in the hearts of the humblest household—beauty and her hand-maidens, cleanliness, hygiene, and that subtle sense of the eternal fitness of things which neither neglects to use nor irreligiously mismates God's glorious colors. We as a people have been loth to recognize the value of artistic merit as an element of the highest civilization. Until recently we have been content to cultivate morality at the expense of æsthetic feeling, and have only just begun to realize that that type of virtue which disdains or is indifferent to beauty is like salt without savor. There is no reason why in its way your home—your apartment—should not be as faithful to the spirit of beauty as mine. Do you understand me? Do I make myself clear?" Her mobile face was vibrant with the ardor of proselytism.
Constance looked at her eagerly. "I think I understand," she said. "But," she added, "I might not have understood unless I had seen this house—unless I had seen and talked with you." She paused an instant, for the vision of her own tenement as a thing of beauty, alluring as was the opportunity, had to run the gauntlet of her common sense. Then she asked a practical question. "If one had aptitude and experience, I can see that much might be accomplished. But how is one with neither to be sure of being right?"
Conscious of these honest, thoughtful eyes—eyes, too, in which she felt that she discerned latent charming possibilities—Mrs. Wilson had an inspiration which satisfied herself fully as she thought of it later.