The Island of Faith | Page 4

tenements--to call upon families of the folk who would not come to the Settlement House. But the Superintendent had met her, always, with a denial that was wearily firm.
"I have a staff of women--older women from outside--who do the visiting," she had said. "I'm afraid" she was eyeing Rose-Marie in the blue coat and the blue tam-o'-shanter, "I'm afraid that you'd scarcely be--convincing. And," she had added, "Dr. Blanchard takes care of all the detail in that department of our work!"
Dr. Blanchard ... Rose-Marie felt the tears coming afresh at the thought of him! She remembered how she had written home enthusiastic, schoolgirlish letters about the handsome man who sat across the dining table from her. It had seemed exciting, romantic, that only the three of them really should live in the great brownstone house--the Young Doctor, the Superintendent--who made a perfect chaperon--and herself. It had seemed, somehow, almost providential that they should be thrown together. Yes, Rose-Marie remembered how she had been attracted to Dr. Blanchard at the very first--how she had found nothing wanting in his wiry strength, his broad shoulders, his dark, direct eyes.
But she had not been in the Settlement House long before she began to feel the clash of their natures. When she started to church service, on her first Sunday in New York, she surprised a smile of something that might have been cynical mirth upon his lean, square-jawed face. And when she spoke of the daily prayers that she and her aunts had so beautifully believed in, back in the little town, he laughed at her--not unkindly, but with the sympathetic superiority that one feels for a too trusting child. Rose-Marie, thinking it over, knew that she would rather meet direct unkindness than that bland superiority!
And so--though there had never been an open quarrel until the one at the luncheon table--Rose-Marie had learned to look to the Superintendent for encouragement, rather than to the Young Doctor. And she had frigidly declined his small courtesies--a visit to the movies, a walk in the park, a 'bus ride up Fifth Avenue.
"I never went to the movies at home," she had told him. Or, "I'm too busy, just now, to take a walk." Or, "I can't go with you to-day. I've letters to write."
"It's a shame," she confided, on occasion, to the Superintendent, "that Dr. Blanchard never goes to church. It's a shame that he has had so little religious life. I gave him a book to read the other day--the letters of an American Missionary in China--and he laughed and told me that he couldn't waste his time. What do you think of that! But later," Rose-Marie's voice sank to a horrified whisper, "later, I saw him reading a cheap novel--he had time for a cheap novel!"
The Superintendent looked down into Rose-Marie's earnest little face.
"My dear," she said gently, stifling a desire to laugh, "my dear, he's a very busy man. He gives a great deal of himself to the people here in the slums. The novel, to him, was just a mental relaxation."
But to the Young Doctor, later, the Superintendent spoke differently.
"Billy Blanchard," she said, and she only called him Billy Blanchard when she wanted to scold him, "I've known you for a long time. And I'm sure that there's no harm in you. Of course," she sighed, "I wish that you could feel a little more in sympathy with the spiritual side of our work. But I've argued with you, more than once, on that point!"
The doctor, who was packing medicines into his bag, looked up.
"You know, you old dear," he told her, "that I'm hopeless. I haven't had an easy row to hoe, not ever; you wouldn't be religious yourself if you were in my shoes! There--don't look so shocked--you've been a mother to me in your funny, fussy way, since I came to this place! That's the main reason, I guess, that I stick here, as I do, when I could make a lot more money somewhere else!" He reached up to pat her thin hand, and then, "But why are you worrying, just now, about my soul?" he questioned.
The Superintendent sighed again.
"It's the little Thompson girl," she answered; "she's so anxious to convert people, and she's so sincere,--so very sincere. I can't help feeling that you are a thorn in her flesh, Billy. She says that you won't read her missionary books--"
The Young Doctor interrupted.
"She's such a pretty girl," he said quite fiercely. "Why on earth didn't she stay at home, where she belonged! Why on earth did she pick out this sort of work?"
The Superintendent answered.
"One never knows," she said, "why girls pick out certain kinds of work. I've had the strangest cases come to my office--of homely girls who wanted to be artists' models, and anemic girls who