The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Foolish Virgin, by Thomas Dixon This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Foolish Virgin Author: Thomas Dixon Release Date: October 5, 2008 [EBook #1634] Last Updated: March 15, 2018 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOOLISH VIRGIN *** Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger THE FOOLISH VIRGIN By Thomas Dixon TO GERTRUDE ATHERTON WITH GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION CONTENTS LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY THE FOOLISH VIRGIN CHAPTER I. A FRIENDLY WARNING CHAPTER II. TEMPTATION CHAPTER III. FATE CHAPTER IV. DOUBTS AND FEARS CHAPTER V. WINGS OF STEEL CHAPTER VI. BESIDE THE SEA CHAPTER VII. A VAIN APPEAL CHAPTER VIII. JIM'S TRIAL CHAPTER IX. ELLA'S SECRET CHAPTER X. THE WEDDING CHAPTER XI. "UNTIL DEATH” CHAPTER XII. THE LOTOS-EATERS CHAPTER XIII. THE REAL MAN CHAPTER XIV. UNWELCOME GUESTS CHAPTER XV. A LITTLE BLACK BAG CHAPTER XVI. THE AWAKENING CHAPTER XVII. THE SURRENDER CHAPTER XVIII. TO THE NEW GOD CHAPTER XIX. NANCE'S STOREHOUSE CHAPTER XX. TRAPPED CHAPTER XXI. THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE CHAPTER XXII. DELIVERANCE CHAPTER XXIII. THE DOCTOR CHAPTER XXIV. THE CALL DIVINE CHAPTER XXV. THE MOTHER CHAPTER XXVI. A SOUL IS BORN CHAPTER XXVII. THE BABY CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT IS LOVE? CHAPTER XXIX. THE NEW MAN LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY MARY ADAMS, An Old-Fashioned Girl. JIM ANTHONY, A Modern Youth. JANE ANDERSON, An Artist. ELLA, A Scrubwoman. NANCE OWENS, Jim Anthony's Mother. A DOCTOR, Whose Call was Divine. THE BABY, A Mascot. THE FOOLISH VIRGIN CHAPTER I. A FRIENDLY WARNING “Mary Adams, you're a fool!” The single dimple in a smooth red cheek smiled in answer. “You're repeating yourself, Jane——” “You won't give him one hour's time for just three sittings?” “Not a second for one sitting——” “Hopeless!” Mary smiled provokingly, her white teeth gleaming in obstinate good humor. “He's the most distinguished artist in America——” “I've heard so.” “It would be a liberal education for a girl of your training to know such a man——” “I'll omit that course of instruction.” The younger woman was silent a moment, and a flush of anger slowly mounted her temples. The blue eyes were fixed reproachfully on her friend. “You really thought that I would pose?” “I hoped so.” “Alone with a man in his studio for hours?” Jane Anderson lifted her dark brows. “Why, no, I hardly expected that! I'm sure he would take his easel and palette out into the square in front of the Plaza Hotel and let you sit on the base of the Sherman monument. The crowds would cheer and inspire him—bah! Can't you have a little common-sense? There are a few brutes among artists, as there are in all professions—even among the superintendents of your schools. Gordon's a great creative genius. If you'd try to flirt with him, he'd stop his work and send you home. You'd be as safe in his studio as in your mother's nursery. I've known him for ten years. He's the gentlest, truest man I've ever met. He's doing a canvas on which he has set his whole heart.” “He can get professional models.” “For his usual work, yes—but this is the head of the Madonna. He saw you walking with me in the Park last week and has been to my studio a half-dozen times begging me to take you to see him. Please, Mary dear, do this for my sake. I owe Gordon a debt I can never pay. He gave me the cue to the work that set me on my feet. He was big and generous and helpful when I needed a friend. He asked nothing in return but the privilege of helping me again if I ever needed it. You can do me an enormous favor—please.” Mary Adams rose with a gesture of impatience, walked to her window and gazed on the torrent of humanity pouring through Twenty-third Street from the beehives of industry that have changed this quarter of New York so rapidly in the last five years. She turned suddenly and confronted her friend. “How could you think that I would stoop to such a thing?” “Stoop!” “Yes,” she snapped, “—pose for an artist! I'd as soon think of rushing stark naked through Twenty-third Street at noon!” The older woman looked at her flushed face, suppressed a sharp answer, broke into a fit of laughter and threw her arms around Mary's neck. “Honey, you're such a hopeless little fool, you're delicious! You know that I love you—don't you?” The pretty lips quivered. “Yes.” “Could I possibly ask you to do a thing that would harm a single brown hair of your head?” The firm hand of the older girl touched a rebellious lock with tenderness. “Of course not, from your point of view, Jane dear,” the stubborn lips persisted. “But you see it's not my point of view. You're older than I——” Jane smiled. “Hoity toity, Miss! I'm just twenty-eight and you're twenty-four. Age is not measured by calendars these days.” “I didn't mean that,” the girl apologized. “But you're an artist. You're established and distinguished. You belong to a different world.” Jane Anderson laid her hand softly on her friend's. “That's just it, dear. I do belong to a different world—a big new world of whose existence you are not quite conscious. You are living in the old, old world in which women have groped for thousands of years. I don't mind confessing that I undertook this job of getting you to pose for Gordon for a double purpose. I wished to do something to repay the debt I owe him—but I wished far more to be of help to you. You're living in the Dark Ages, and it's a dangerous thing for a pretty girl to live in the Dark Ages and date her letters from New York to-day——” “I don't understand you in the least.” “And I'm afraid you never will.” She paused suddenly and changed her tone. “Tell me now, are you happy in your work?” “I'm earning sixty dollars a month—my position is secure——” “But are you happy in it?” “I don't expect to teach school all my life,” was the vague answer. “Exactly. You loathe the sight of a school-room. You do the task they set you because your father's a clergyman and can't support his big family. You're waiting and longing for the day of your deliverance—isn't it so?” “Perhaps.” “And that day of deliverance?” “Will come when I meet my Fate!” “You'll meet him, too!” “I will——” Jane Anderson shook her fine head. “And may the Lord have mercy on your poor little soul when you do!” “And why, pray?” “Because you're the most helpless and defenseless of all the things He created.” Mary smiled. “I've managed to take pretty good care of myself so far.” “And you will—until the thunderbolt falls.” “The thunderbolt?” “Until you meet your Fate.” “I'll have someone to look after me then.” “We'll hope so anyhow,” was the quick retort. “But can't you see, Jane dear, that we look at life from such utterly different angles. You glory in your work. It's your inspiration— the breath you breathe. I don't believe in women working for money. I don't believe God ever meant us to work when He made us women. He made us women for something more wonderful. I don't see anything good or glorious in the fact that half the torrent of humanity you see down there pouring through the street from those factories and offices is made up of women. They are wage-earners —so much the worse. They are forcing the scale of wages for men lower and lower. They are paying for it in weakened bodies and sickly, hopeless children. We should not shout for joy; we should cry. God never meant for woman to be a wage-earner!” A sob caught her voice and she paused. The artist watched her emotion with keen interest. “Neither do I believe that God means to force woman at last to do the tasks of man. But she's doing them, dear—and it must be so until a brighter day dawns for humanity. The new world that opens before us will never abolish marriage, but it has opened our eyes to know what it means. You refuse to open yours. You refuse to see this new world about you. I've begged you to join one of my clubs. You refuse. I beg you to meet and know such men of genius as Gordon——” “As an artist's model!” “It's the only way on earth you can meet him. You stick to your narrow, hide-bound conventional life and dream of the Knight who will suddenly appear some day out of the mists and clouds. You dream of the Fate God has prepared for you in His mysterious Providence. It's funny how that idea persists even today in novels. As a matter of fact we know that the old-fashioned girl met her Fate because her shrewd mother planned the meeting—planned it with cunning and stratagem. You're alone in a great modern city, with all the conditions of the life of the old regime reversed or blotted out. Your mother is not here. And if she were, her schemes to bring about the mysterious meeting of the Fates would be impossible. You outgrew the limits of your village life. Your highly trained mind landed you in New York. You've fought your way to a competent living in five years and kept yourself clean and unspotted from the world. Granted. But how many men have you met who are your equals in culture and character?” Jane paused and held Mary's gaze with steady persistence. “How many—honest?” “None as yet,” she confessed. “But you live in the one fond, imperishable hope! It's the only thing that keeps you alive and going—this idea of your Fate. It's an obsession—this mysterious Knight somewhere in the future riding to meet you——” “I'll find him, never fear,” the girl laughed. “Of course you will. You'll make him out of whole cloth if it's necessary. Our ideals are really the same when you come to analyze my wider outlook.” The artist paused and laughed softly. “The same?” the girl asked incredulously. “Certainly. Mine is based on intelligence, however—yours on blind instinct perverted and twisted by the idiotic fiction you read morning, noon and night.” “I don't see it,” Mary answered emphatically. “Your ideal is fame, achievement, the applause of the world—mine just a home and a baby——” Jane laughed softly. “And that's all you know about me?” “Isn't it true?” “You've been in this room five years, haven't you?” the older girl asked musingly. “Yes——” “And though you've kept your lamp trimmed and burning, you haven't yet seen a man whom you could recognize as your equal.” “I'm only twenty-four.” “In these five years I've met a hundred men my equal.” “And smashed the conventions of Society whenever you saw fit.” “Without breaking a single law of reason or common-sense. In the meantime I've met two men who have really made love to me. I thought I loved one of them—until I met the other. The second proved himself to be an unprincipled scoundrel. If I had held your views of life and hated my work, I would have married this man and lived to awake in a prison whose only door was Death. But I loved my work. Life meant more than one man who was not worth an hour's tears. I turned to my studio and he slipped back into the gutter where he belonged. I'll meet MY Fate some day, too, dear. I'm waiting and watching—but with clear eyes and unafraid. I'll know mine when he comes, I shall not be blinded by passion or the fear of drudgery. Can't you see this bigger world of realities?” The dimple flashed again in the smooth red cheek. “It's not for me, Jane. I'm just a modest little home body. I'll bide my time——” “And eat your foolish heart out here between the narrow walls of this cell you've built for yourself. I should think you'd die living here alone.” The girl flushed. “I'm not lonely——” “Don't fib! I know better. Your birds and kitten occupy daily about thirty minutes of the time that's your own. What do you do with the rest of it?” “Sit by my window, watch the crowds stream through the streets below, read and dream and think——” “Yes—read love stories and dream about your Knight.” “Well?” “It's morbid and unhealthy. You've hedged yourself about with the old conventions and imagine you're safe—and you are—until you meet HIM!” “I'll know how to behave—never fear.” “You mean you'll know how instantly to blindfold, halter and lead him to the Little Church Around the Corner?” Mary moved uneasily. “And what else should I do with him?” “Compare him with other men. Weigh him in the balances of a remorseless common-sense. Study him under a microscope and keep your reason clear. The girl who rushes into marriage in a great city under the conditions in which you and I live is a fool. More girls are ruined in New York by marriage than by any other process. The thunderbolt out of the blue hasn't struck you yet, but when it does——” “I'll tell you, Jane.” “Will you, honestly?” The question was asked with wistful tenderness. “I promise. And you mustn't think I don't appreciate this visit and the chance you've given again to enter the `big world' you're always telling me about. I just can't do it, dear. It's not my world.” “All right, my little foolish virgin, have it your own way. When you're lonely, run up to my studio to see me. I won't ask you to pose or meet any of the dangerous men of my circle. We'll lock the doors and have a snug time all by ourselves.” “I'll remember.” The clock in the Metropolitan Tower chimed the hour of five, and Jane Anderson rose with a quick, business-like movement. “Don't hurry,” Mary protested. “I know I've been stubborn, but I've been so happy in your coming. I do get lonely—frightfully lonely, sometimes—don't think I'm ungrateful——” “You're dangerously beautiful, child,” the artist said, with enthusiasm. “And remember that I love you—no matter how silly you are —good-by.” “You won't stay for a cup of tea? I meant to ask you an hour ago.” “No, I've an engagement with a dreadful man whom I've no idea of ever marrying. I'm going to dinner with him—just to study the animal at dose range.” With a jolly laugh and quick, firm step she was gone. Mary snatched the kitten from his snug bed between the pillows of the window-seat and pressed his fuzzy head under her chin. “She tempted us terribly, Kitty darling, but we didn't let her find out—did we? You know deep down in your cat's soul that I was just dying to meet the distinguished Gordon—but such high honors are not for home bodies like you and me——” She dropped on the seat and closed her eyes for a long time. The kitten watched her wonderingly sure of a sudden outbreak with each passing moment. Two soft paws at last touched her cheeks and two bright eyes sought in vain for hers. The little nose pressed closer and kissed the drooping eyelids until they opened. He curled himself on her bosom and began to sing a gentle lullaby. For a long while she lay and listened to the music of love with which her pet sought to soothe the ache within. The clock in the tower chimed six. She lifted her body and placed her head on a pillow beside the window. The human torrent below was now at its flood. Two streams of humanity flowed eastward along each broad sidewalk. Hundreds were pouring in endless procession across Madison Square. The cars in Broadway north and South were jammed. Every day she watched this crowd hurrying, hurrying away into the twilight—and among all its hundreds of thousands not an eye was ever lifted to hers—not one man or woman among them cared whether she lived or died. It was horrible, this loneliness of the desert in an ocean of humanity! For the past year it had become an increasing horror to look into the silent faces of this crowd of men and women and never feel the touch of a friendly hand or hear the sound of a human voice in greeting. And yet this endless procession held for her a supreme fascination. Somewhere among its myriads of tramping feet, walked the one man created for her. She no more doubted this than she doubted God Himself. It was His law. He had ordained it so. She had grown so used to the throngs below her window and so loved the little park with its splashing fountain that she had refused to follow her landlady uptown when the brownstone boarding-house facing the Square had been turned into a studio building. Instead of moving she had wheedled the landlord into allowing her to cut off a small space from her room for a private bath and kitchenette, built a box couch across the window large enough for a three-quarter mattress and covered it with velour. For five dollars a week she had thus secured a little home in which was combined a sitting-room, bed-room, bath and kitchenette. It had its drawbacks, of course. The Professor downstairs who taught music sometimes gave a special lesson at night, and the Italian sculptor who worked on the top floor used a hammer at the most impossible hours. But on the whole she liked it better than the tiresome routine of boarding. She was not afraid at night. The stamp-and-coin man who occupied the first floor, lived with his wife and baby in the rear. The janitress had a room on the floor above hers. Two elderly women workers of ability in the mechanical arts occupied the rear of her floor, and a dear little fat woman of fifty who drew designs for the New England weavers of cotton goods lived in the room adjoining hers. She had never spoken to any of these people, but Ella, the janitress, who cleaned up her place every morning, had told her their history. Ella was a sociable soul, her face an eternal study and an inscrutable mystery. She spoke both German and English and yet never a word of her own life's history passed her lips. She had loved Mary from the moment she cocked her queer drawn face to one side and looked at her with the one good eye she possessed. She was always doing little things for her comfort—and never asked tips for it. If Mary offered to pay she smiled quietly and spoke in the softest drawl: “Oh, that's nothing, child—Ach, Gott im Himmel— nein!” This one-eyed, homely woman who cleaned up her room for three dollars a month, and Jane Anderson, were the only friends she had among the six million people whose lives centered on Manhattan Island. Man had yet to darken her door. The little room had been carefully fitted, however, to receive her Knight when the great event of his coming should be at hand. The box couch was built of hard wood paneling and was covered with pillows of soft leather and silk. The bed-clothes were carefully stored in the locker beneath the mattress cushion. No one would ever suspect its use as a bed. The bathroom was fitted with a bureau and no signs of a sleeping apartment disfigured the effect of her one library, parlor, and reception-room. A desk and bookcase stood at either end of the box couch. The bookcase was filled with fiction—love stories exclusively. A large birdcage swung from a staple in the window and two canaries peered cautiously from their perches at the kitten in her lap. She had trained him to ignore this cage. The crowds below were thinning down. A light snow was falling. The girl lifted her pet and kissed his cold nose. “We must get our own dinner tonight, Mr. Thomascat—it's snowing outside. And did you hear what she said, Kitty dear—`More girls are ruined by marriage in New York than by any other process!' A good joke, Kitty!—You and I know better than that if we do live in our own tiny world! We'll risk it some day, anyhow, won't we?” The kitten purred his assent and Mary bustled over the little gas stove humming an old love song her mother had taught her in a far- off village in Kentucky. CHAPTER II. TEMPTATION Her kitchenette was a model of order and cleanliness. The carpenter who built its neat cupboard and fitted the drawers beneath the tiny gas range, had outdone himself in its construction. He had given the wood-work four coats of immaculate white paint without extra charge. Mary had insisted on paying for it, but he waved the proffered money aside with a gesture that spoke louder than words: “Pooh! That's nothing to what I'd like to do for you.” She was not surprised when he called the following Saturday and stood at her door awkwardly fumbling his hat, trying to ask her to spend the afternoon and evening at Coney Island with him. There was no mistaking the manner in which he made this request. She had refused him as gently as possible—a big, awkward, good-natured, ignorant boy he was, with the eyes of a St. Bernard dog. He apologized for his presumption and never repeated the offense. Somehow her conquests had all been in this class. The tall, blushing German youth from the butcher's around the corner had been slipping extra cuts into her bundle and making awkward advances until she caught him red-handed with a pound of lamb chops which he failed to explain. She read him a lecture on honesty that discouraged him. It was not so much what she said, as the way she said it, that wounded his sensitive nature. The ice man she had not yet entirely subdued. Tony Bonelli had the advantage of pretending not to understand her orders of dismissal. He merely smiled in his sad Italian way and continued to pack her ice-box so full the lid would never close. She was reminded at every turn tonight of these futile conquests of the impossible. They all smelled of the back stairs and the kitchen. Her people had been slaveholders in the old regime of southern Kentucky. A kindly tolerant contempt for the pretensions of a servant class was bred in the bone of her being. And yet their tribute to her beauty had its compensations. It was the promise of triumph when he for whom she waited should step from the throng and lift his hat. Just how he was going to do this without a breach of the proprieties of life, she couldn't see. It would come. It must come. It was Fate. In twenty minutes her coffee-pot was boiling, the lamb chops broiled to perfection and she was seated before the dainty, snow- white table, the kitten softly begging at her feet. Half an hour later, every dish and pot and pan was back in its place in perfect order. She prided herself on her mastery of the details of cooking and the most economical administration of every dollar devoted to housekeeping. She studied cooking in the best schools the city afforded. She meant to show her Knight a thing or two in this line when the time came. His wife would not be an ignorant slattern, the victim of incompetent servants. No servant could fool her. She would know the business of the house down to its minutest detail. Not that she loved dish-washing and pot-polishing and scrubbing. It was simply a part of the Game of Life she must play in the ideal home she would build. There was no drudgery in it for this reason. She was a soldier on the drill grounds preparing for the battle on the successful issue of which hung her happiness and the happiness of the one of whom she dreamed. She might miss some of the dangerous fun which Jane Anderson could enjoy without a scratch, but she would make sure of the fundamental things which Jane would never stop to consider. She threw herself on the couch in her favorite position against the pillows, drew the kitten into her arms and hugged him violently. “It's all right, Mr. Thomascat; we'll show them,” she purred softly. “We'll see who wins at last, the eagle who soars or the little wren in the hedge close beside the garden wall—we'll see, Kitty—we'll see!” The room was still, the noise of the street-cars below muffled with the first soft blanket of snow. The street lamps flickered in the wind with a pale subdued light that scarcely brought out the furnishings of her nest. She was in the habit of dreaming in this window for hours with only the light from the lamps on the street. The Square, deserted by its tramp lovers, lay white and still and cold. The old battle with the Blue Devils was on again within. The fight with Jane had been easy. She had always found it easy to face temptation in the concrete. The moment Satan appeared in human shape she was up in arms and ready for the fray. It was this silent hour she dreaded when the defenses of the soul were down. There was no use to lie to herself. She was utterly lonely and heartsick. She had guarded the portals of life with religious care—with a care altogether unnecessary as events had proved. There had been no crush of rude men to assault her. Only an awkward carpenter, a butcher's boy and the ice man! It was incredible. Of all the men whose restless feet pressed the pavements of New York, not one, save these three, had apparently cared whether she lived or died. The men whom she met in her duties in the schoolroom she had found utterly devoid of imagination and beneath contempt. They had each been obviously on guard against the machinations of the female of the species. They had, each of them, shown plainly their fear and hatred of women teachers. The feeling was mutual. God knows she had no desire to encroach on their domain any longer than absolutely necessary. Perhaps she was making a mistake. The thought was strangling. Only the girl who waived conventions in the rushing tide of the modern city's life seemed to live at all. The others merely existed. Jane Anderson lived! There could be no mistake about that. She had mastered the ugly mob. Its cruel loneliness was to her a thing unknown. But Jane was an exception—the one woman in a thousand who could defy conventions and yet keep her soul and body clean. The offer she had made had proved a terrible temptation. The artist who had asked with such eagerness to use her head for his portrait of the Madonna on the canvas he was executing for the new cathedral, had long appealed to her vivid imagination. Two prints of his famous work hung on her walls. She had always wished to know him. He had married a Southern girl. That was just the point—he WAS married! No girl could afford to be shut up alone in a studio with a fascinating married man for three hours—or half an hour. What if she should fall in love with him at first sight! Such things had happened. They could happen again. Only tragedy could be the end of such an event. It was too dangerous to consider for a moment. She would have consented had it been possible for Jane to chaperon her. That would have been obviously ridiculous. No artist with any self-respect would tolerate such a reflection on his honesty. No girl could afford to confess her fears in this brazen fashion. The necessity for her refusal had depressed her beyond any experience she had passed through in the dreary desert of the past five years. She lifted the sleeping kitten and whispered passionately: “Am I a silly fool, Kitty? Am I?” The tears came at last. She lay back on the pillows and let them pour down her cheeks without protest or effort at self-control. Every nerve of her strong, healthy body ached for the love and companionship of men which she had denied herself with an iron will. At nineteen it had been easy. The sheer animal joy in life had been enough. With the growth of each year the ache within had become more and more insistent. With each ripening season of body and mind, the hunger of love had grown more and more maddening. How long could she keep up this battle with every instinct of her being? She rose at last, determined to go to Jane, confess that she had been a fool, and step out into the new world, New York's world, and begin to live. She seized her hat and furs and put them on with feverish haste. “God knows it's time I began—I'll be an old maid in another year and dry up—ugh!” She looked in the quaint oval mirror that hung beside her door and lifted her head with a touch of pride. She had reached the street and started for the Broadway car before she suddenly remembered that Jane was “dining with a dangerous man.” She couldn't turn back to that little room tonight without new courage. Her decision was instantaneous. She couldn't surrender to the flesh and the devil by yielding to Jane. She would go to prayer-meeting! Religion had always been a very real thing in her life. Her father was a Methodist presiding elder. She would have gone to the meeting tonight in the first place but for the snow. Dr. Craddock, the new sensational pastor of the Temple, was giving a series of Wednesday-night talks that had aroused wide interest and drawn immense crowds. His theme tonight was one that promised all sorts of sensations—“The Woman of the Future.” The only trouble with the Doctor was that the substance of his discourses sometimes failed to make good the startling suggestions of his titles. No matter—she would go. She felt a sense of righteous pride infighting her way to the church through the first storm of the winter. In spite of the snow the church was crowded. The subject announced had evidently touched a vital spot in modern life. More people were thinking about “The Woman of the Future” than she had suspected. The crowd sat with eager, upturned faces. The first half-hour's prayer and song service had just begun. Mary joined in the singing of the stirring evangelistic hymns with enthusiasm. Something in their battle-cry melody caught her spirit instantly tonight and her whole being responded. In ten minutes she was a good shouting Methodist and supremely happy without knowing why. She never paused to ask. Her nature was profoundly religious and she had been born and bred in the atmosphere of revivals. Her father was an aggressive evangelist both in his character and methods of work, and she was his own daughter—a child of emotion. The individuals in the eager crowd which packed the popular church meant nothing to her personally. They had passed before her unseeing eyes Sunday after Sunday the past five years as mere shadows of an unknown world which swallowed them up the moment they reached the street. She had never seen the inside of one of their homes. Not one of them had drawn close enough to her to venture an invitation. Two of the stewards she knew personally—one a bricklayer, the other a baker on Eighth Avenue. The preacher she had met in a purely formal way as the bishop of the flock. She liked Dr. Craddock. He was known in the ministry as a live wire. He was a man of vigorous physique—just turning fifty, magnetic, eloquent and popular with the masses. Mary was curious tonight as to what the preacher would say on “The Woman of the Future.” The Methodist Church had been a pioneer in the modern Feminist movement, having long ago admitted women to the full ordination of the ministry. Craddock, however, had been known for his conservatism in the woman movement. He abhorred the idea of woman's suffrage as a dangerous revolution and the fact that he consented to treat the topic at all was a reluctant confession of its menacing importance. With keen interest, the girl saw him rise at last. A breathless hush fell on the crowd. He walked deliberately to the edge of the platform and gazed into the faces of the people. “I have often been asked,” he slowly began, “where I get my sermons.” He paused and laughed. “I'll be perfectly honest with you. Sometimes I get them from the Bible—sometimes from the book of life. The genesis of this talk tonight is very definite. I found it in the liquid depths of a little girl's eyes. She asked a simple question that set me thinking—not only about the subject of her query but on the vaster issues that grew out of it. She looked up into my face the other night after my call for volunteers for the new mission we are beginning in the slums of the East Side, and asked me if the girls were not going to be given the chance to do something worth while in this church's work. “I couldn't honestly answer her off-hand and in my groping I forgot the child and her question. I saw a vision—a vision of that broader, nobler future toward which human civilization is now swiftly moving. “I say deliberately that it is swiftly moving, because the progress of the world during the last fifty years has been greater than in any five hundred years of the past. “The older I grow the stronger becomes my conviction that the problems of the age in which we now live cannot be solved by masculine brain and brawn alone. The problems of the city and the nation and the great fundamental social questions that involve the foundations of modern life will find no solution until the heart and brain of woman are poured into the crucible of our test. “They talk about a woman's sphere As though it had a limit: There's not a place in earth or heaven, There's not a task to mankind given, There's not a blessing or a woe, There's not a whisper yes or no, There's not a life, or death, or birth That has a feather's weight of worth Without a woman in it! “The difference between a man and a woman is one that makes them the complementary parts of a perfect unit. God made man in His own image—male and female. The person of God therefore combines these two elements unseparated. The mind of God is both male and female. In man we have the strength which lifts and tugs and fights the elements. This is the aspect turned primarily toward matter. In woman we have the finer qualities of the Spirit turned toward the source of all spirit in God. The idea of a masculine deity is a false assumption of the Dark Ages. God is both male and female. “I used to wonder why Jesus Christ was a man, until I realized that the Incarnation expressed the depth of human need. God stooped lower in assuming the form of man. The form of the divine revelation through Jesus Christ was determined solely by this depth of human need——” For half an hour in impetuous eloquence, in telling incidents wet with tears and winged with hope, he held his listeners in a spell. It was not until the burst of applause which greeted his closing sentence had died away that Mary Adams realized that another landmark had toppled before the onrushing flood of modern Feminism. The conservatism of Doctor Craddock had yielded at last to the inevitable. He, too, had joined the ranks of the prophets who preach of a Woman's Day of Emancipation. And yet it never occurred to her that this fact had the slightest bearing on her personal outlook on life. On the contrary she felt in the spiritual elation of the triumphant eloquence of her favorite preacher a renewal of her simple religious faith. At the bottom of that religion lay the foundation of life itself—her conception of marriage as the supreme and only expression of woman's power in the world. She walked back to her home on the Square, in a glow of ecstatic emotion. Surely God had miraculously saved her this night from the wiles of the Devil! No matter what this eloquent discourse had meant to others, it had renewed her faith in the old-fashioned woman and the old-fashioned ways of the old-fashioned home. Her vision was once more clear. She was glad Jane Anderson had come to put her to the test. She had been tried in the fires of hell and came forth unscorched. She stood beside her window dreaming again of the home she would build when her Knight should stand before her revealed in beauty no words could describe. The moon was shining now in solemn glory on the white-shrouded Square. Temptation had only strengthened the fiber of her soul. She knelt in the moonlight beside her couch and prayed that God should ever keep her faith serene. She rose with a sense of peace and joy. God would hear and answer the cry of her heart. The City might be the Desert—it was still God's world and not a sparrow that twittered in those bare trees or chattered on her window-ledge in the morning could fall to the ground without His knowledge. God had put this deathless passion in her heart; He could not deny it expression. She could bide His time. If the day of her deliverance were near, it was good. If God should choose to try her faith in loneliness and tears, it was His way to make the revelation of glory the more dazzling when it came. She drew the covering about her warm young body with the firm faith that her hour was close at hand, and fell asleep to dream of her Knight. CHAPTER III. FATE Mary waked next morning with the delicious sense of impending happiness. A wonderful dream had come to thrill her half- conscious moments, repeating itself in increasing vividness and beauty with each awakening. The vision had been interrupted by the unusual noise of the snow machines on the car tracks, and yet she had fallen asleep after each break and picked up the rapturous scene at the exact moment of its interruption. She was married and madly in love with her husband. His face she could never see quite clearly. His business kept him away from home on long trips. But his baby was always there—a laughing, wonderful boy whose chubby hands persisted in pulling her hair down into her face each time she bent over his cradle to kiss him. Ella was chattering in German to someone on the stairs. She wondered again for the hundredth time how this poor, slovenly, one- eyed, ill-kempt creature, scrub-woman and janitress, could speak two languages with such ease. Her English, except in excitement, seemed equally fluent with her German. How did such a woman fall so low? She was industrious and untiring in her work. She never touched liquor or drugs. She was kind and thoughtful and watched over her tenants with a motherly care for which no landlord could pay in dollars and cents. She was on her knees on the stairs now, scrubbing down the steps to be crowded again with muddy feet from the street below. Mary lay for half an hour snuggling under the warm blankets, weaving a romance about Ella's life. A great love for some heroic man who died and left her in poverty could alone explain the mystery that hung about her. She never spoke of her life or people. Mary had ventured once to ask her. A wan smile flitted across the haggard face for a moment, and she answered in low tones that closed the subject. “I haven't any people, dear,” she said slowly. “They are dead long ago.” The girl wondered if it were really true. In her joy this morning she felt her heart go out to the pathetic, drooping figure on the stairs. She wished that every living creature might share the secret joy that filled her soul. She drew the kitten from his nest beside her pillow and rubbed her cheek against his little cold nose. He always waked her with a kiss on her eyelids and then coiled himself back for a tiny cat-nap until she could make up her mind to rise. She sprang from the couch with sudden energy and stretched her dainty figure with a prodigious yawn. “Gracious, Kitty, we must hurry!” she cried, thrusting her bare feet into a pair of embroidered slippers and throwing her blue flannel kimono on over her night-dress. The coffee-pot was boiling busily when she had bathed and dressed. Each detail of her domestic schedule was given an extra care this morning. The stove was carefully polished, each pot and pan placed in its rack with a precision that spoke an unusual joy within the heart of the housewife. And through it all she hummed a lullaby that haunted her from the memories of a happy childhood. Breakfast over, the kitten fed, the birds given their bath, their sand and seed, she couldn't stop until the whole place had been thoroughly cleaned and dusted. Exactly why she had done this on Thursday morning it was impossible to say. Some hidden force within had impelled her. Then back into the dream world her mind flew on joyous wings. It was a sign from God in answer to prayer. Why not? The Bible was full of such revelations in ancient times. God was not dead because the world was modern and we had steam and electricity. The routine of school was no longer dull. Around each commonplace child hung a halo of romance. They were love-children today. She wove a dream of tenderness, of chivalry, and heroic deeds about them all. She searched each face for some line of beauty caught in the vision of her own baby who had looked into her heart from the mists of eternity. Three days passed in a sort of trance. Never had she felt surer of life and the full fruition of every hope and faith. Just how this marvelous blossoming would come, she could not guess. Her chances of meeting her Fate were no better than at any moment of the past years of drab disillusionment, and yet, for some reason, her foolish heart kept singing. Why? There could be but one answer. The event was impending. Such things could be felt—not reasoned out. She applied herself to her teaching with a new energy and thoroughness. She must do this work well and carry into the real life that must soon begin the consciousness of every duty faithfully performed. A boy asked her a question about a little flower which grew in a warm crevice of the stone wall on which the iron fence of the school yard rested. She blushed at her failure to enlighten him and promised to tell him on Monday. Botany was not one of her tasks but she felt the tribute to her personality in his question, and she would take pains to make her answer full and interesting. Saturday afternoon she hurried to the Public Library, on Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, to look up every reference to this flower. The boulevard of the Metropolis was thronged with eager thousands. Handsome men and beautifully dressed women passed each other in endless procession on its crowded pavements. The cabs and automobiles, two abreast on either side, moved at a snail's pace, so dense were the throngs at each crossing. Her fancy was busy weaving about each throbbing tonneau and limousine a story of love. Not a wheel was turning in all that long line of shining vehicles that didn't carry a woman or was hurrying to do a woman's bidding. Her hero was coming, too, somewhere in the crowd with his gloved hand on one of those wheels. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he handed her into the seat by his side and then the sudden leap of the car into space and away on the wings of lightning into the future! She ascended the broad steps of the majestic building with quick, springing strength. She loved this glorious library, with its lofty, arched ceilings. The sense of eternity that brooded over it and filled the stately rooms rested and inspired her. Besides, she forgot her poverty in this temple of all time. Within its walls she belonged to the great aristocracy of brains and culture of which this palace was the supreme expression. And it was hers. Andrew Carnegie had given the millions to build it and the city of New York granted the site on land that was worth many millions more. But it was all built for her convenience, her comfort and inspiration. Every volume of its vast and priceless collection was hers—hers to hold in her hands, read and ponder and enjoy. Every officer and manager in its inclosure was her servant—to come at her beck and call and do her bidding. The little room on Twenty-third Street was the symbol of the future. This magnificent building was the realization of the present. She smiled pleasantly to the polite assistant who received her order slip, and took her seat on the waiting line until her books were delivered. This magnificent room with its lofty ceilings of golden panels and drifting clouds had always brought to her a peculiar sense of restful power. The consciousness of its ownership had from the first been most intimate. No man can own what he cannot appreciate. He may possess it by legal documents, but he cannot own it unless he has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel its charm. This appreciation Mary Adams possessed by inheritance from her student father who devoured books with an insatiate hunger. Nowhere in all New York's labyrinth did she feel as perfectly at home as in this reading-room. The quiet which reigned without apparent sign or warning seemed to belong to the atmosphere of the place. It was unthinkable that any man or woman should be rude or thoughtless enough to break it by a loud word. This room was hers day or night, winter or summer, always heated and lighted, and a hundred swift, silent servants at hand to do her bidding. Around the room on serried shelves, dressed in leather aprons, stood twenty-five thousand more servants of the centuries of the past ready to answer any question her heart or brain might ask of the world's life since the dawn of Time. In the stack-room below, on sixty-three miles of shelves, stood a million others ready to come at her slightest nod. She loved to dream here of the future, in the moments she must wait for these messengers she had summoned. In this magic room the past ceased to be. These myriads of volumes made the past a myth. It was all the living, throbbing present—with only the golden future to be explored. Her number flashed in red letters on the electric blackboard. She rose and carried her books to the seat number assigned her near the center of the southern division of the room on the extreme left beside the bookcases containing the dictionaries of all languages. Her seat was on the aisle which skirted the shelves. She found the full description of the flower in which she was interested, made her notes and closed the volume with a lazy movement of her slender, graceful hand. She lifted her eyes and they rested on a remarkable-looking young man about her own age who stood gazing in an embarrassed, helpless sort of way at the row of ponderous volumes marked “The Century Dictionary.” He was evidently a newcomer. By his embarrassment she could easily tell that it was the first time he had ever ventured into this room. He looked at the books, apparently puzzled by their number. He raised his hand and ran his fingers nervously through the short, thick, red hair which covered his well-shaped head. The girl's attention was first fixed by the strange contrast between his massive jaw and short neck which spoke the physical strength of an ox, and the slender gracefully tapering fingers of his small hand. The wrist was small, the fingers almost feminine in their lines. He caught her look of curious interest and to her horror, smiled and walked straight to her seat. There was no mistaking his determination to speak. It was useless to drop her eyes or turn aside. He would certainly follow. She blushed and gazed at him in a timid, helpless fashion while he bent over her seat and whispered awkwardly: “You look kind and obliging, miss—could you help me a little?” His tone was so genuine in its appeal, so distressed and hesitating, it was impossible to resent his question. “If I can—yes,” was the prompt answer. “You won't mind?” he asked, fumbling his hat. “No—what is it?” Mary had recovered her composure as his distress had increased and looked steadily into his steel blue eyes inquiringly. “You see,” he went on, in low hurried tones, “I'm all worked up about the mountains of North Carolina—thinkin' o' goin' down there to Asheville in a car, an' I want to look the bloomin' place up and kind o' get my bearin's before I start. A lawyer friend o' mine told me to come here and I'd find all the maps in the Century Dictionary. The man at the desk out there told me to come in this room and look in the shelves on the left and take it right out. Gee, the place is so big, I get all rattled. I found the Century Dictionary on that shelf——” He paused and smiled helplessly. “I thought a dictionary was one book—there's a dozen of 'em marked alike. I'm afraid to pull 'em all down an' I don't know where to begin—COULD you help me—please?” “Certainly, with pleasure,” she answered, quickly rising and leading the way back to the shelf at which he had been gazing. “You want the atlas volume,” she explained, drawing the book from the shelf and returning to the seat. He followed promptly and bent over her shoulder while she pointed out the map of North Carolina, the position of Asheville and the probable route he must follow to get there. “Thanks!” he exclaimed gratefully. “Not at all,” she replied simply. “I'm only too glad to be of service to you.” Her answer emboldened him to ask another question. “You don't happen to know anything about that country down there, do you?” “Why, yes. I know a great deal about it——” “Sure enough?” “I've been through Asheville many times and spent a summer there once.” “Did you?” His tones implied that he plainly regarded her as a prodigy of knowledge. His whole attitude suggested at once the mind of an alert, interested boy asking his teacher for information on a subject near to his heart. It was impossible to resist his appeal. “Why, yes,” Mary went on in low, rapid tones. “My people live in the Kentucky mountains.” He bent low and gently touched her arm. “Say, we can't talk in here—I'm afraid. Would it be asking too much of you to come out in the park, sit down on a bench and tell me about it? I'll never know how to thank you, if you will?” It was absurd, of course, such a request, and yet his interest was so keen, his deference to her superior knowledge so humble and appealing, to refuse seemed ungracious. She hesitated and rose abruptly. “Just a moment—I'll return my books and then we'll go. You can replace this volume on the shelf where we got it.” “Thank yoo, miss,” he responded gratefully. “You're awfully kind.” “Don't mention it,” she laughed. In a moment she was walking by his side down the smooth marble stairs and out through the grand entrance into Fifth Avenue. The strange part about it was, she was not in the least excited over a very unconventional situation. She had allowed a handsomely groomed, young, red-haired adventurer to pick her up without the formality of an introduction, in th...