Romance Island | Page 9

not more penetrable. Her
look was immovably fixed upon St. George as if she divined that in
some way his coming affected her.
"We will have our hymn first." Mrs. Manners' words were buzzing and
pecking in the air. "What can I have done with that list of numbers? We
have to select our pieces most carefully," she confided to St. George,
"so to be sure that _Soul's Prison_ or Hands Red as Crimson, or, _Do
You See the Hebrew Captive Kneeling?_ or anything personal like that
doesn't occur. Now what can I have done with that list?"
Her words reached St. George but vaguely. He was in a fever of
anticipation and enthusiasm. He turned quickly to Mrs. Manners.
"During the hymn," he said simply, "I would like to speak with one of
the women. Have I your permission?"
Mrs. Manners looked momentarily perplexed; but her eyes at that
instant chancing upon her lost list of hymns, she let fall an abstracted
assent and hurried to the waiting organist. Immediately St. George
stepped quietly down among the women already fluttering the leaves of
their hymn books, and sat beside the mulatto woman.

Her eyes met his in eager questioning, but she had that temper of
unsurprise of many of the eastern peoples and of some animals. Yet she
was under some strong excitement, for her hands, large but faultlessly
modeled, were pressed tensely together. And St. George saw that she
was by no means a mulatto, or of any race that he was able to name.
Her features were classic and of exceeding fineness, and her face was
sensitive and highly-bred and filled with repose, like the surprising
repose of breathing arrested in marble. There was that about her,
however, which would have made one, constituted to perceive only the
arbitrary balance of things, feel almost afraid; while one of high
organization would inevitably have been smitten by some sense of the
incalculably higher organization of her nature, a nature which breathed
forth an influence, laid a spell--did something indefinable. Sometimes
one stands too closely to a statue and is frightened by the nearness, as
by the nearness of one of an alien region. St. George felt this directly he
spoke to her. He shook off the impression and set himself practically to
the matter in hand. He had never had greater need of his faculty for
directness. His low tone was quite matter-of-fact, his manner
deferentially reassuring.
"I think," he said softly and without preface, "that I can help you. Will
you let me help you? Will you tell me quickly your name?"
The woman's beautiful eyes were filled with distress, but she shook her
head.
"Your name--name--name?" St. George repeated earnestly, but she had
only the same answer. "Can you not tell me where you live?" St.
George persisted, and she made no other sign.
"New York?" went on St. George patiently. "New York? Do you live in
New York?"
There was a sudden gleam in the woman's eyes. She extended her
hands quickly in unmistakable appeal. Then swiftly she caught up a
hymn book, tore at its fly-leaf, and made the movement of writing. In
an instant St. George had thrust a pencil in her hand and she was
tracing something.

He waited feverishly. The organ had droned through the hymn and the
women broke into song, with loose lips and without restraint, as street
boys sing. He saw them casting curious, sullen glances, and the
Readers' Guild whispering among themselves. Miss Bella Bliss Utter,
looking as distressed as a nut can look, nodded, and Mrs. Manners
shook her head and they meant the same thing. Then St. George saw
the attendant in the red waist descend from the platform and make her
way toward him, the little American flag rising and falling on her
breast. He unhesitatingly stepped in the aisle to meet her, determined to
prevent, if possible, her suspicion of the message. "Is it the barbarism
of a gentleman," Amory had once propounded, "or is it the
gentleman-like manners of a barbarian which makes both enjoy
over-stepping a prohibition?"
"I compliment you," St. George said gravely, with his deferential
stooping of the shoulders. "The women are perfectly trained. This, of
course, is due to you."
The hard face of the woman softened, but St. George thought that one
might call her very facial expression nasal; she smiled with evident
pleasure, though her purpose remained unshaken.
"They do pretty good," she admitted, "but visitors ain't best for 'em. I'll
have to request you"--St. George vaguely wished that she would say
"ask"--"not to talk to any of 'em."
St. George bowed.
"It is a great privilege," he said warmly if a bit incoherently, and held
her in talk about an institution of the sort in Canada where