Part 29

“And you know, Mrs. Blunt,” said Carmen, recovering herself and smiling, “that I must have some excitement this dull season.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Blunt, with no relaxation of her manner; “we are all grateful to Mrs. Delancy.”

“Mrs. Henderson does herself injustice,” Edith again interposed. “I can assure you she has a great talent for domesticity.”

Carmen did not much fancy this apology for her, but she rejoined: “Yes, indeed. I'm going to cultivate it.”

“How is this privileged person?” Mrs. Blunt asked.

“You shall see,” said Edith. “I am glad you came, for I wanted very much to consult you. I was going to send for you.”

“Well, here I am. But I didn't come about the baby. I wanted to consult you. We miss you, dear, every day.” And then Mrs. Blunt began to speak about some social and charitable arrangements, but stopped suddenly. “I'll see the baby first. Good-morning, Mrs. Henderson.” And she left the room.

Carmen felt as much left out socially as about the baby, and she also rose to go.

“Don't go,” said Edith. “What kind of a summer have you had?”

“Oh, very good. Some shipwrecks.”

“And Mr. Henderson? Is he well?”

“Perfectly. He is away now. Husbands, you know, haven't so much talent for domesticity as we have.”

“That depends,” Edith replied, simply, but with that spirit and air of breeding before which Carmen always inwardly felt defeat--“that depends very much upon ourselves.”

Naturally, with this absorption in the baby, Edith was slow to resume her old interests. Of course she knew of the illness of Father Damon, and the nurse, who was from the training-school in which Dr. Leigh was an instructor, and had been selected for this important distinction by the doctor, told her from time to time of affairs on the East Side. Over there the season had opened quite as usual; indeed, it was always open; work must go on every day, because every day food must be obtained and rent-money earned, and the change from summer to winter was only a climatic increase of hardships. Even an epidemic scare does not essentially vary the daily monotony, which is accepted with a dogged fatality:

There had been no vacation for Ruth Leigh, and she jokingly said, when at length she got a half-hour for a visit to Edith, that she would hardly know what to do with one if she had it.

“We have got through very well,” she added. “We always dread the summer, and we always dread the winter. Science has not yet decided which is the more fatal, decayed vegetables or unventilated rooms. City residence gives both a fair chance at the poor.”

“Are not the people learning anything?” Edith asked.

“Not much, except to bear it, I am sorry to say. Even Father Damon--”

“Is he at work again? Do you see him often?”

“Yes, occasionally.”

“I should so like to see him. But I interrupted you.”

“Well, Father Damon has come to see that nothing can be done without organization. The masses”--and there was an accent of bitterness in her use of the phrase--“must organize and fight for anything they want.”

“Does Father Damon join in this?”

“Oh, he has always been a member of the Labor League. Now he has been at work with the Episcopal churches of the city, and got them to agree, when they want workmen for any purpose, to employ only union men.”

“Isn't that,” Edith exclaimed, “a surrender of individual rights and a great injustice to men not in the unions?”

“You would see it differently if you were in the struggle. If the working-men do not stand by each other, where are they to look for help? What have the Christians of this city done?” and the little doctor got up and began to pace the room. “Charities? Yes, little condescending charities. And look at the East Side! Is its condition any better? I tell you, Mrs. Delancy, I don't believe in charities--in any charities.”

“It seems to me,” said Edith, with a smile calculated to mollify this vehemence, “that you are a standing refutation of your own theory.”

“Me? No, indeed. I'm paid by the dispensary. And I make my patients pay--when they are able.”