So he came back. What an excuse he made to conscience as he did so!—That it was only to upbraid the woman for deceiving him. He deceived himself. First, in trusting himself in a deceitful woman's power; and, secondly, in supposing that after she had deceived him once, she would not again. This last visit was upon the very night in which Athalia was introduced into the house, and hence the lies to inflame his mind, and the art made use of to give him a stolen glance of her face.
It is no wonder that the first man fell, when "tempted of a woman." It is idle to talk of our power to withstand their seductive arts. Otis was entrapped again. The sight of Athalia's beauty inflamed his already wine-heated blood, and he readily offered Mrs. Laylor a hundred dollars to bring about a successful negociation. This was just what she intended—what she expected—she had baited her trap high, and the game was already caught. And he was not the only one she intended to catch with the same bait. She intended to use her as a profitable investment upon all her "regular customers"—for all such houses boast of such—as long as she could make the lie of "fresh from the country," pass as current coin. She little thought, and cared less, how many lies she had to contrive and tell Athalia, before she could accomplish her purpose. It does seem as though, when a woman loses her own virtue, that she imagines all her sex have lost or would lose theirs just as easy as herself.
"I drag down," should be graven upon the brow of every one of her class. Whether man or woman, whoever comes within their influence—and who does not, since they are permitted to go forth at noonday through the thoroughfares of this city, seeking whom they may devour, and all night long they show their brazen faces in the streets, "picking up" poor fools for victims, whom they drag down—true, they go willingly—to their dens of destruction.
It does seem as though when a man loses his balance so far as to fall into the influence of such a woman, that he is "ready to believe a lie even unto his own damnation." How else could Walter Morgan—there are a great many Walter Morgans—leave such a wife as Athalia for such a Jezebel as he did? How else did such a man as Otis, whose business it was to watch the fold, allow the wolf to enter and carry off the shepherd? Why, after he had found out how much he had been cheated, did he believe the lies of the cheat again? Who can answer? I cannot. I can only say, that in this branch of intoxication, the only safe rule is that of the teetotaller, "touch not, taste not, handle not;" and it must be more rigidly applied in the one case than the other. A man may possibly touch liquor and drink not. Can he play with a harlot and not fall? Otis should have preached a sermon, not to his congregation, but to his own conscience in his own closet, from this text:
"For a whore is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
"She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressions among men."
She certainly had increased the transgressions in the case of Otis, and she lay in wait for Athalia as a prey.
Otis would have sought an introduction immediately, for wine had mastered reason; wine, that is made expressly for such houses, had inflamed his blood.
This the master-piece of iniquity knew would never answer. But she promised him that for the sum named, she would bring about the desired interview.
"To-night?"
"Yes. At least she would try."