Mabel’s convalescence was slow and tedious, and, had it not been for the constant attendance of Ahleka in the sick-room, Mabel would have found it hard to endure the weary days. Mrs. Maynard was glad to leave the care of Mabel to her daughter, Lucy Howard, who was most devoted in the care of the sick girl. Lucy had remained at her mother’s house all through Mabel’s illness. She grew more and more attached to the gentle invalid each day. Mabel’s strong, self-reliant nature was so different from her own. Lucy was one of those women to whom love and kindly treatment seem a necessity of life. She had looked for love from her mother, but Mrs. Maynard was not a woman capable of any really true, deep feeling, and when her daughter had failed to be a social success she could only meet Lucy’s longing for sympathy, with disappointed repining, and complaints that Lucy was herself responsible for her own unhappiness.
In Lucy Howard’s married life had been no gleam of happiness, not even in the first few months of wedded life did Mr. Harry Howard think it necessary to defer to his wife’s wishes in anything, for, he would say to himself, “She married me for money and she has got what she married me for; while I married her because, well, just because I thought she would make me a stunning wife. But, bah! She is as insipid as stale champagne. What man wants a wife who acts as she does? If I’d had the least idea that she would have fallen in love with me, her own husband, I wouldn’t have married her, I swear I wouldn’t. For, about the most unpleasant thing a man can have happen to him is to have a woman fall desperately in love with him. They’re so exacting.” In this way the dashing Mr. Howard commiserated himself. The fact that the heart of this charming girl of eighteen, who possessed a sweet, affectionate disposition, in spite of the false training given her by her mother, should have turned to him with a vast longing for his love in return, had struck him as not a pleasant thing. During the past three years he had shamelessly neglected her, until now, Lucy felt only an intense loathing when she thought of her husband, the father of her little Mae.
During the time that Mabel was still confined to her room, the most affectionate friendship had sprung up between the two cousins. Lucy had confided to Mabel the troubles with which her life was so full. One evening the two had been sitting for some time without speaking, when suddenly Lucy exclaimed:
“Mabel, I wish I could take my little Mae away from all this world of pretense and falsity, to some place where she would grow up among those who are pure and true in their lives. I have thought many times—but that was before you came home—that I would take my little daughter and enter a convent; there, in religious seclusion, to bring her up free from the knowledge of the hollowness of the world.”
“I am thankful if my coming has put that idea out of your mind, for there is no religion so false and corrupt as the Catholic; instead of taking her away from the influence of corruption of all kinds, you would only have exposed her to still worse deceit.”
“Do not speak so bitterly of the Catholic faith, for Mabel, it has been a great comfort to me in my unhappiness.”
“That may well be, for you need some one to whom you can unbosom your sorrows, but I still say that I am thankful that I have saved my little niece from so horrible a fate as being given, body and soul, to that life so fascinating to contemplate, but so terrible in reality.”
“But Mabel, think of it, when she is a little older, she will realize that there is a dreadful gulf between her father and myself. Then, if she should ever come to know, as I do, in all its hideous truth, the fact that her father not only openly defies every supposed law of morality, but seems proud of the fact that he does so. Think Mabel, of my position. I know, and all my acquaintances know of his avowed admiration for Rosie Hastings, and his constant attendance upon her on all occasions. Oh Mabel, when I think of it all, it seems as if I should go crazy. Does society shun him on account of his glaring misdemeanors? No! No indeed. If he were a woman he would not dare to speak to a decent person, but he is a man, and a man with lots of money, so every one closes their eyes to his faults. He is received and made much of everywhere. Men take him into their homes and present him to their wives, without one thought of the horrible fact that he is dead to every feeling of respect for woman. Mothers allow him to dance with, and to amuse their innocent young daughters. Oh, Mabel, is it not terrible?”
“Yes, Lucy, it is, indeed, and, as you say, it is because he has money. Money is the God of Civilization.”
At this moment there was a gentle knock at the door which announced the entrance of Ahleka.
“Ah! you have returned from your jaunt, have you? How did you enjoy it all?” asked Mabel, as he sat down beside her. Ahleka had been seeing the wonders of San Francisco, under the guidance of Mr. Faxon, Mabel’s lawyer. They had been gone all day and it was now late in the evening.
“Do you ask me how I like it all? All the answer I can give, my moonflower, is Kaahlanai is best. We will talk it all over to-morrow, but now it is too late for you to be sitting up, so, with wishes that only sweet thoughts may come to you in the still hours of the darkness, I will say good-night to you both.” Bowing to the cousins, he left the room. The conversation which Ahleka had interrupted was not resumed, but both Lucy and Mabel still thought of it as they prepared to retire.