Carmen’s rapid transition from the eternal solitudes of GuamocÓ to the whirring activities of New York was like a plunge into the maelstrom, and left her groping blindly in the effort to adapt herself to the changed order. There was little in her former mode of existence that could be transferred to her new environment, and she felt that she was starting life like a new-born babe. For days, even weeks, she moved about dreamily, absorbed, ceaselessly striving to orient herself and to accept easily and naturally the marvels, the sudden accession of material aids, and the wonders of this modern, complex civilization, so common to her associates, but scarcely even dreamed of by her in her former home, despite the preparation which JosÈ had tried to give her. The Elwin school was small, its student-body seldom numbering more than fifty, and in it Carmen found herself hedged about by restrictions which in a way were beneficial, in that they narrowed her environment and afforded her time for her slow adjustment to it.

But if these restrictions aided her, they also rendered the length of her stay in the school almost calculable. Little by little the girl saw the forces developing which she knew must effect her dismissal; little by little, as Madam Elwin’s manner toward her became less gracious, and her schoolmates made fewer efforts to conceal from her the fact that she was not one of them, Carmen prepared for the inevitable. Six months after the girl’s enrollment, Madam Elwin terminated her series of disparaging reports to Ketchim by a request that he come at once and remove his charge from the school.

“As I have repeatedly said, Mr. Ketchim, the girl is a paradox. And after these months of disappointing effort to instruct her, I am forced to throw up my hands in despair and send for you.” Madam Elwin tapped nervously with a dainty finger upon the desk before her.

“But, if I may be permitted the question, what specific reasons have you, Madam, for––ah, for requesting her removal?” asked the very Reverend Dr. William Jurges, who, having 51 come up to the city to attend a meeting of the directors of the SimitÍ company, had accepted Ketchim’s invitation to first accompany him on his flying trip to Conway-on-the-Hudson, in response to Madam Elwin’s peremptory summons.

“Because,” replied that worthy personage with a show of exasperation, “I consider her influence upon the young ladies here quite detrimental. Our school, while non-sectarian, is at least Christian. Miss Carmen is not. Where she got her views, I can not imagine. At first she made frequent mention of a Catholic priest, who taught her in her home town, in South America. But of late she has grown very reserved––I might say, sullen, and talks but little. Her views, however, are certainly not Catholic. In her class work she has become impossible. She refuses to accept a large part of our instruction. Her answers to examination questions are wholly in accord with her peculiar views, and hence quite apart from the texts. For that reason she fails to make any grades, excepting in mathematics and the languages. She utterly refuses to accept any religious instruction whatsoever. She would not be called atheistic, for she talks––or used to at first––continually about God. But her God is not the God of the Scriptures, Dr. Jurges. She is a free-thinker, in the strictest sense. And as such, we can not consent to her remaining longer with us.”

“Ah––quite so, Madam, quite so,” returned the clergyman, in his unconsciously pompous manner. “Doubtless the child’s thought became––ah––contaminated ere she was placed in your care. But––ah––I have heard so much from our good friend, Mr. Ketchim, regarding this young girl, that––ah––I should like exceedingly to see and talk with her––if it might be––ah––”

“Madam Elwin will arrange that, I am sure,” interposed Ketchim. “Suppose,” he suggested, addressing the lady, “we let him talk with her, while I discuss with you our recently acquired mine in South America, and the advisability of an investment with us.”

“Certainly,” acquiesced Madam Elwin, rising and pressing one of the several buttons in the desk. “Bring Miss Carmen,” she directed, to the maid who answered the summons.

“Pardon me,” interrupted Dr. Jurges; “but may I go to her? Ah––it would doubtless be less embarrassing for the child.”

“Miss Carmen was in the chapel a few moments ago,” volunteered the maid.

“Then take the doctor there,” returned Madam Elwin, with a gesture of dismissal.

At the head of the stairway the mingled sounds of a human voice and the soft, trembling notes of an organ drifted through the long hall and fell upon the ears of the clergyman.

“Miss Carmen,” said the maid, answering his unspoken thought. “She often comes up to the chapel and sings for hours at a time––alone. The chapel is down there,” pointing to the end of the hall.

“Then––ah––leave me,” said the doctor. “I will proceed alone.”

The maid turned willingly and went below, while the man tiptoed to the chapel door. There he stopped and stood listening. The girl was singing in Spanish, and he could not understand the words. But they would have meant nothing to him then. It was the voice upon which they were borne that held him. The song was a weird lament that had come down to the children of SimitÍ from the hard days of the Conquistadores. It voiced the untold wrongs of the Indian slaves; its sad, unvarying minor echoed their smothered moans under the cruel goad; on the plaintive melody of the repeated chorus their piteous cries were carried to heaven’s deaf ears; their dull despair floated up on the wailing tones of the little organ, and then died away, as died the hope of the innocent victims of Spanish lust.

The reverend doctor had never heard a song of that kind before. Nor could he readily associate the voice, which again and again he could not distinguish from the flute-like tones of the organ, with the sordidness and grime of material, fleshly existence. He entered softly and took a seat in the shadow of a pillar. The clear, sweet voice of the young girl flowed over him like celestial balm. Song after song she sang. Some were dreamy bits and snatches in Spanish and English; others were sacred in character. He wondered deeply, as the girl mused over these; yet he knew not that they were her own compositions. Curiosity and uncertainty mastered him at length, and he got softly to his feet and moved away from the pillar, that he might see from what manner of being issued such unbroken harmony. But in his eagerness his foot struck a chair, and the sound echoed loudly through the room.

The music abruptly ceased, and the girl rose and looked over the organ at the intruder.

“I––I beg your pardon,” said the clergyman, advancing in some embarrassment. “I was listening to your singing––uninvited, but none the less appreciative. I––”

“Wait, please!” cried the girl, hastily stooping over and fumbling with her shoes. The doctor laughed genially, as he grasped the situation.

“I took them off,” she explained hurriedly. “I am not yet accustomed to them. I never wore shoes until I left SimitÍ.” Her face was scarlet, and she tried to cover her confusion with a little laugh.

The doctor stood staring at her, lost in admiration of the shapely figure, the heavy, curling hair, and the wonderfully expressive face. The girl quickly recovered her poise and returned him a frank smile.

“You wish to see me?” she said, after waiting in vain for him to begin.

“Ah––a––yes, certainly––that is, I beg your pardon,” stammered the doctor. “I did request permission of Madam Elwin to make your acquaintance. We have heard so much about you. I am Doctor Jurges, an Episcopal clergyman.” His sentences issued like blasts from an engine exhaust.

“I am Carmen Ariza,” said the girl, extending her hand.

“Ah––quite so, quite so,” blustered the doctor, clearing his throat noisily. “Let us be seated. Ah––ah––you have a remarkable voice. It gives evidence of careful cultivation.”

“No,” returned the girl simply. “It has never had any cultivation. It is natural for me to sing. And my poor organ-playing is what I have picked up myself these six months.”

The man regarded her with amazement. “Remarkable!” he murmured.

The girl looked up into his face searchingly. “Why,” she asked, “should every one up here think it remarkable when a human mind is clear enough to be a transparency for God?”

Had the roof fallen, the excellent doctor could have been no more startled. He cleared his throat violently again; then fumbled nervously in his pocket and drew out his glasses. These he poised upon the ample arch of his ecclesiastical nose, and through them turned a penetrating glance upon the girl.

“H’m! yes,” said he at length; “quite so, quite so! And––ah––Miss Carmen, that brings us to the matter in question––your religious instruction––ah––may I ask from whom you received it?”

“From God,” was the immediate and frank reply.

The clergyman started, but quickly recovered his equipoise.

“H’m! yes, quite so, quite so! All real instruction descendeth from above. But––your religious views––I believe they are not considered––ah––quite evangelical, are they? By your present associates, that is.”

“No,” she replied, with a trace of sadness in her tone. “But,” looking up with a queer little smile, “I am not persecuting them for that.”

“Oh, no,” with a jerky little laugh. “Assuredly not! H’m! I judge the persecution has come from the other side, has it not?”

“We will not speak of that,” she said quickly. “They do not understand––that is all.”

“H’m! no, quite so––that is––ah––may I ask why you think they do not understand? May not you be in error, instead?”

“If that which I believe is not true,” the girl replied evenly, “it will fail under the test of demonstration. Their beliefs have long since failed under such test––and yet they still cling jealously to them, and try to force them upon all who disagree with them. I am a heretic, Doctor.”

“H’m––ah––yes, I see. But––it is a quite unfortunate characteristic of mankind to attribute one’s views indiscriminately to the Almighty––and––ah––I regret to note that you are not wholly free from this error.”

“You do not understand, I think,” she quickly returned. “I put every view, every thought, every idea to the test. If good is the result, I know that the thought or idea comes from the source of all good, God. The views I hold are those which I have time and again tested––and some of them have withstood trials which I think you would regard as unusually severe.” Her thought had rested momentarily upon her vivid experience in Banco, the dangers which had menaced her in distant SimitÍ, and the fire through which she had passed in her first hours in Christian America, the land of churches, sects, and creeds.

“H’m!” the worthy doctor mused, regarding the girl first through his spectacles, and then over the tops of them, while his bushy eyebrows moved up and down with such comicality that Carmen could scarcely refrain from laughing. “H’m! quite so. Ah––suppose you relate to me some of the tests to which your views have been subjected.”

“No,” she returned firmly; “those experiences were only states of consciousness, which are now past and gone forever. Why rehearse them? They were human, and so, unreal. Why go back now and give them the appearance of reality?”

“Unreal! H’m––then you do not regard untoward experience as given us by God for the testing of our faith, I take it.”

Carmen turned her head away with a little sigh of weariness. “I think,” she said slowly, “I think we had better not talk about these things, Doctor. You are a preacher. Your views are not mine.”

“Why––ah,” blustered the clergyman, assuming a more paternal air, “we––ah––would not for a moment cause you embarrassment, Miss Carmen! But––in fact, Madam Elwin has––ah––expressed her disapproval of your views––your religious ideals, if I may put it so baldly, and she––that is––the good lady regrets––”

“She wishes to be rid of me, you mean, Doctor?” said the 55 girl, turning and stretching a mental hand to the sinking divine.

“H’m! well, hardly so––ah––so––”

“Doctor,” said the girl calmly, “I know it, and I wish to go. I have been waiting only to see the way open. I do not wish to remain longer in an atmosphere where ignorance and false belief stifle all real progress.”

The doctor turned another look of astonishment upon her. He had forgotten that he had not been talking with one of his own age. The fact suddenly pressed upon him. “How old are you?” he blurted.

Carmen could not help laughing. But if her clear mental gaze penetrated the ecclesiastical mask and surmounted the theological assumptions of her interlocutor, enabling her to get close to the heart of the man, she did not indicate it further. “I am nearly sixteen,” was her only reply.

“Ah,” he reflected, “just a child! My dear girl,” he continued, laying a hand indulgently upon hers, “I will advise with Madam Elwin, and will endeavor to convince her that––ah––that your spiritual welfare, if I may so put it, requires that you be not turned adrift at this critical, transitorial period of your life. We must all be patient, while we strive to counteract the––ah––the pernicious teaching to which you were exposed before––ah––before becoming enrolled in this excellent school.”

Carmen looked at him steadily for a moment before replying. There was something of pity in the expression of her beautiful face, of tender sympathy for those who seek the light, and who must some day find it, but whose progress is as yet hampered by the human mind’s unreasoning adherence to the stepping-stones over which it has been passing through the dark waters of ignorance. “Then, Doctor,” she said calmly, “you know what I have been taught?”

“Why––ah––yes––that is, vaguely. But––suppose you inform me briefly.” He was beginning to be sensible of having passed judgment upon the girl without first according her a hearing.

“Well,” she smiled up at him, “I have been taught the very hardest thing in the whole world.”

“H’m, indeed! Ah, quite so––and that?”

“To think.”

“To––ah––to think!” He again clutched at his mental poise. “Well, yes, quite so! But––ah––is it not the function of all our schools to teach us to think?”

“No,” answered the girl decidedly; “not to teach us to think, but to cause us blindly to accept what is ignorantly called ‘authority’! I find we are not to reason, and particularly 56 about religious matters, but to accept, to let those ‘in authority’ think for us. Is it not so? Are you not even now seeking to make me accept your religious views? And why? Because they are true? Oh, no; but because you believe them true––whether they are or not. Have you demonstrated their truth? Do you come to me with proofs? Do your religious views rest upon anything but the human mind’s undemonstrated interpretation of the Bible? And yet you can not prove that interpretation true, even though you would force it upon such as I, who may differ from you.”

“I––ah––” began the doctor nervously. But Carmen continued without heeding the interruption:

“Only yesterday Professor Bales, of the University, lectured here on ‘The Prime Function of Education.’ He said it was the development of the individual, and that the chief end of educational work was the promotion of originality. And yet, when I think along original lines––when I depart from stereotyped formulÆ, and state boldly that I will not accept any religion, be it Presbyterian, Methodist, or Roman Catholic, that makes a God of spirit the creator of a man of flesh, or that makes evil as real as good, and therefore necessarily created and recognized by a God who by very necessity can not know evil––then I am accused of being a heretic, a free-thinker; and the authorities take steps to remove me, lest my influence contaminate the rest of the pupils!”

“H’m––ah––yes, quite so––that is––I think––”

“Do you, a preacher, think?” the girl went on hurriedly. “Or do you only think that you think? Do you still believe with the world that the passing of a stream of human thought, or a series of mental pictures, through your mentality constitutes real thinking? Do you believe that jumping from one human mental concept to another twenty-four hours a day constitutes thinking? Have you yet learned to distinguish between God’s thoughts and their opposites, human thoughts? Do you know what Jesus taught? Have you a real, working, demonstrable knowledge of Christianity? Do you heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach the truth that sets men free from the mesmerism of evil? If so, then you are unevangelical, too, and you and I are both heretics, and we’d better––we’d better leave this building at once, for I find that the Inquisition is still alive, even in America!”

She stopped, and caught her breath. Her face was flushed, and her whole body quivered with emotion.

“The Inquisition! Why, my dear young lady, this is a Christian nation!”

“Then,” said the girl, “you have still much to learn from the pagan nations that have gone before.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the doctor, again adjusting his glasses that he might see her more clearly. “My dear child, you have been thinking too much, and too seriously.”

“No, Doctor,” she replied; “but you preachers have not been thinking enough, nor even half seriously. Oh,” she went on, while her eyes grew moist, and ever and again her throat filled, “I had expected so much in this great country! And I have found so little––so little that is not wholly material, mechanical, and unreal! I had imagined that, with all your learning and progress, which Padre JosÈ told me about, you would know God much better than we in the darkened South. But your god is matter, machinery, business, gold, and the unreal things that can be bought with money. Some one wrote, in a recent newspaper, that America’s god was ‘mud and mammon!’ What do I find the girls here in this school talking about but dress, and society, and the unreal, passing pleasures of the physical senses! Do they know God? No––nor want to! Nor do the preachers! There are religious services here every Sunday, and sermons by preachers who come down from the city. Sometimes a Baptist; sometimes a Presbyterian; and sometimes an Episcopalian, or a Methodist. What is the result? Confusion––religious confusion. Each has a different concept of God; yet they all believe Him the creator of a man of flesh and bones, a man who was originally made perfect, but who fell, and was then cursed by the good and perfect God who made him. Oh, what childish views for men to hold and preach! How could a good God create anything that could fall? And if He could, and did, then He knew in advance that the man would fall, and so God becomes responsible, not man. Oh, Doctor, is it possible that you believe such stuff? How can you! how can you! Is it any wonder that, holding such awful views, you preachers have no longer the power to heal the sick? Do you not know that, in order to heal the sick, one must become spiritually-minded? But no one who holds to the puerile material beliefs embraced in your orthodox theology can possibly be spiritual enough to do the works Jesus said we should all do if we followed him––really understood him.”

“My dear child––you really are quite inconsistent––you––”

“Inconsistent! What a charge for an orthodox preacher to bring! Let us see: You say that the Scriptures teach that God made man in His image and likeness––the image and likeness of spirit. Very well. Spirit, God, is eternal, immortal. Then while He exists can His image fade away, or die? Can or would God cause it to do so? Can or would He destroy His own reflection? And could that image, always being like 58 Him, ever change, or manifest sin, or disease, or evil, unless God first manifested these things? And if God did manifest them, then, perforce, the image would have to do likewise. But, in that case, could God justly punish His image for faithfully reflecting its original? Consistent! Oh, it is you preachers, lacking sufficient spirituality to correctly interpret the Scriptures, who are wildly, childishly, ignorantly inconsistent!”

Carmen rose and faced the clergyman. “I did not mean to condemn you, Doctor,” she said earnestly. “I wage no warfare with persons or things. My opposition is directed only against the entrenched human thought that makes men spiritually blind and holds them in the mesmeric chains of evil. I am young, as you reckon years, but I have had much experience in the realm of thought––and it is there that all experience is wrought out before it becomes externalized. I have told you, my teacher was God. He used as a channel a priest, who came years ago to my little home town of SimitÍ, in far-off Colombia. His life had been wrecked by holding to the belief of evil as a power, real and intelligent. He began to see the light; but he did not overcome fear sufficiently to make his demonstration and break the imaginary bonds which held him. He saw, but he did not prove. He will, some day. And, Doctor, you and everybody else will have to do the same. For, unless Jesus uttered the most malicious falsehoods ever voiced, every human being will have to take every step that he took, make every demonstration that he made, and prove all that he proved, before mortals will cease to consume with disease, perish miserably in accidents, and sink with broken lives into graves that do not afford a gateway to immortal life! My God is infinite, eternal, unchanging mind. The god of the preachers, judging from their sermons preached here, is a human, mental concept, embodying spirit and matter, knowing good and evil, and changing with every caprice of their own unstable mentalities. My religion is the Christianity of the Master, love. Oh, how this poor world needs it, yearns for it! The love that demonstrates the nothingness of evil, and drives it out of human experience! The love that heals the sick, raises the dead, binds up broken hearts! The love that will not quench the religious instincts of children, and falsely educate them to know all manner of evil; but that teaches them to recognize it for what it is, the lie about God, and then shows them how to overcome it, even as Jesus did. My God is truth. Is truth real? Ah, yes, you say. But error is the opposite of truth. Then can error, evil, be real? No, not if you will be consistent. Again, God is infinite. But God is spirit. Then all is spirit and spirit’s manifestation––is it not true? What, 59 then, becomes of the evil that men hug to their bosoms, even while it gnaws into their hearts? It is the opposite of good, of mind, of truth, God. And the opposite of truth is supposition. Is it not so? And the supposition is––where? In your mentality. And you can put it out whenever you are willing to drop your ceremonials and your theories, and will open your mentality to truth, which will make you free, even as the Master said. That is my religion, Doctor. Those are the religious views which you have been sent by Madam Elwin to investigate. Am I a heretic? Or unevangelical?”

She waited a few moments for the doctor to reply. Then, as he remained silent, she went up to him and held out her hand.

“You do not care to talk with me longer, I think,” she said. “Perhaps we may meet again. But, as regards Madam Elwin’s wishes, you may tell her that I shall leave the school.”

“Have you––have you been fitting yourself for any––ah––particular work––ah––for your support, that is?” inquired the doctor gravely, as he took the proffered hand. He had been swept off his feet by the girl’s conversation, and he had not the temerity to combat her views.

“Yes,” replied Carmen. “I have been working daily to gain a better understanding of the teachings of Jesus, and through them, of God. My single aim has been to acquire ‘that mind which was in Christ Jesus.’ And I have no other business than to reflect it to my fellow-men in a life of service. That is my Father’s business, and I am working with Him. My mission in this world is to manifest God. I am going out now to do that, and to show what love will do. God will use me, and He will supply my every need. And now, good-bye.”

She turned abruptly from him and went to the organ. Soon the same song which he had heard as he entered the room rose again through the stillness. A strong emotion seemed to possess him. He started toward the girl; checked himself; and stood hesitating. Then his lips set, and he turned and walked slowly from the room.

In the hall two women were approaching, and as they drew near he recognized one of them.

“Why,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm, holding out both hands, “my dear Mrs. Hawley-Crowles! It is not so long since we met at the Weston’s. But what, may I ask, brings you here?”

“This is my sister, Mrs. Charles Reed, Doctor Jurges. We have come to, make a duty call on Mr. Reed’s protÉgÉe, the little South American savage, you know. Madam Elwin said she was up here with you?”

“Ah, yes, quite so––er, in the chapel, I believe,” said the clergyman, his face becoming suddenly grave. “I would return with you, but my time is––ah––so limited.” He bowed low, with his hand in the breast of his long frock coat, and passed on down the hall.

As the women approached the door of the chapel through which came Carmen’s low singing they turned and looked at each other inquiringly. Then they quietly entered the doorway and stood listening. Carmen, concealed behind the organ, did not see them.

The song stopped, and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles went quickly to the organ. Bending over it, she gazed down into the face of the startled girl. “My goodness!” she exclaimed. “Get up and let me see what sort of a looking creature you are.”

Carmen rose, and Mrs. Reed came forward and gave her a tempered greeting. Then Mrs. Hawley-Crowles fell back and stared at the girl from head to foot. “You know,” she said to her sister, “this is the first glimpse I’ve had of your husband’s discovery. I was out of the city when he brought her to my house, you remember. But,” turning again to Carmen, “sing that song over, dear, please––the one you were singing just now.”

Carmen seated herself again at the organ, and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles drew her sister to the rear of the room. “It will sound better back here,” she explained.

After the lapse of a few minutes she turned to Mrs. Reed. “Belle,” she said, nodding her head sententiously, “you had a pearl, and you threw it away. That girl there is our social fortune! Her voice, and her face––why, with our ward––this beautiful, gifted, South American owner of a famous mine––as a lever, we can force the Beaubien to bring the Ames to our terms! She goes back with us to-night! You’ve been blind!”

Meantime, the dainty Madam Elwin and the amiable Doctor Jurges in the office below had reached a conclusion. “A young lady of––ah––invincible will,” the doctor had observed; “and already––ah––decidedly mature, despite her tender years. Should she––ah––assume leadership over the pupils of your school, my dear Madam Elwin, the result might be disquieting. There can be no question as to her religious views, as I have said. But, what astonishes me is––ah––that this strange cult should have its devotees even in the wilds of tropical America! Astonishing––and so unfortunate! The girl is utterly––ah––unevangelical, Madam; and the advisability of removing her from the school can not be questioned. Do you not agree with me, Mr. Ketchim?”

“By all means,” asserted the latter gentleman with great 61 seriousness, while his eyes dwelt tenderly upon Madam Elwin’s written order for a hundred shares of SimitÍ stock which he held in his hand.

“Very well, then,” said the lady with a determined nod of her head; “I shall request Mrs. Reed to take her to-day.” Then, with a proper sense of what it meant to have the moral support of such an eminent divine as Doctor Jurges, she rang for her maid and bade her summon Mrs. Reed and the girl.

Thus it was that Carmen was again shifted a space on the checkerboard of life, and slept that night once more under the spacious roof of the wealthy relict of the late James Hawley-Crowles, on Riverside Drive.