“My poor innocent lamb,” said Lady Blount, “there are thousands like her. They are the dregs of our civilization. We could n't possibly keep them all in luxury, could we? Now, don't be distressed, dear,” she added, bending down and kissing the girl's cheek.
“I 'll go and have a word with the woman. I 'll treat her quite generously, for your sake, you may be assured.”
She smiled, and went out of the room, leaving Stella crushed beneath an avalanche of knowledge. Filthy, starving shreds of humanity were common objects in the beautiful world—so common as to arouse little or no compassion in the hearts of kind women like the maid Mary and her Aunt Julia. All they had thought of was of her, Stella, her danger and possible contamination. Toward the woman they were callous, almost cruel. What did it mean? Her chivalrous anger died down; reaction came. She looked about her beautiful world piteously, and then for the first time in her life she wept tears of bitter sorrow.
They told her afterward of the tramp's wayward, wandering life, of the various charities that existed for the regeneration of such people, of the free hospitals for the sick, of the workhouse system, and they gave her John Risca's famous little book to read. Eventually she was convinced that it was quixotic folly to bestow a fortune on the first beggar that came along, and she acquitted her aunt of cruelty. But a cloud hung heavy for a long time over her spirits, and a stain soiled the beauty of the garden, so that it never more was the perfect paradise. And, henceforward, when she drove through the streets of the great watering-place near by, and through the villages which still held something of their summer enchantment, her eyes were opened to sights of sorrow and pain to which they had been happily blind before.
Winter came, and the routine of her life went on, despite revolutionary changes of habit. Her heart had learned not to be affected by the transition from the prone to the sitting posture. No longer did beholders realize her as nothing but a head and neck and graceful arms, and no longer was a dressing-jacket the only garment into which she could throw her girlish coquetry. Her hair was done up on the top of her head in the manner prescribed by fashion, and she wore the whole raiment of womankind.
John, when he first saw her reclining in her invalid chair, dressed in a soft gray ninon gown, a gleam of silk stocking peeping between the hem and a dainty-shoe, hung back for a second or two from a feeling of shyness. It was a shock to find that Stella had feet like anybody else, and very prettily shaped, adorable little feet. It seemed almost indelicate to look at them, as it would be to inspect too curiously the end of a mermaid's tail. She held out both hands to greet him, laughing and blushing.
“How do you like me?” she asked.
The lights of the drawing-room were dim, and the firelight danced caressingly over her young beauty.
“I 've never seen anything so lovely,” said John, looking at her in stupid admiration until her eyes dropped in confusion.
“I did n't mean me, you silly Belovedest. I meant my new dress, my general get-up. Don't you think it's pretty?”