第2章 THE PANEL OF LIGHT(2)

Mary, nevertheless, avoided the worst perils of her lot.She did not flinch under privation, but went her way through it, if not serenely, at least without ever a thought of yielding to those temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming.

Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position.She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse than any devised by a Javert.In the store, such things were matters of course.There is little innocence for the girl in the modern city.There can be none for the worker thrown into the storm-center of a great commercial activity, humming with vicious gossip, all alive with quips from the worldly wise.At the very outset of her employment, the sixteen-year-old girl learned that she might eke out the six dollars weekly by trading on her personal attractiveness to those of the opposite sex.The idea was repugnant to her; not only from the maidenly instinct of purity, but also from the moral principles woven into her character by the teachings of a father wise in most things, though a fool in finance.Thus, she remained unsmirched, though well informed as to the verities of life.She preferred purity and penury, rather than a slight pampering of the body to be bought by its degradation.Among her fellows were some like herself; others, unlike.Of her own sort, in this single particular, were the two girls with whom she shared a cheap room.Their common decency in attitude toward the other sex was the unique bond of union.In their association, she found no real companionship.Nevertheless, they were wholesome enough.Otherwise they were illiterate, altogether uncongenial.

In such wise, through five dreary years, Mary Turner lived.Nine hours daily, she stood behind a counter.She spent her other waking hours in obligatory menial labors: cooking her own scant meals over the gas; washing and ironing, for the sake of that neat appearance which was required of her by those in authority at the Emporium--yet, more especially, necessary for her own self-respect.With a mind keen and earnest, she contrived some solace from reading and studying, since the free library gave her this opportunity.So, though engaged in stultifying occupation through most of her hours, she was able to find food for mental growth.Even, in the last year, she had reached a point of development whereat she began to study seriously her own position in the world's economy, to meditate on a method of bettering it.

Under this impulse, hope mounted high in her heart.Ambition was born.By candid comparison of herself with others about her, she realized the fact that she possessed an intelligence beyond the average.The training by her father, too, had been of a superior kind.There was as well, at the back vaguely, the feeling of particular self-respect that belongs inevitably to the possessor of good blood.Finally, she demurely enjoyed a modest appreciation of her own physical advantages.In short, she had beauty, brains and breeding.Three things of chief importance to any woman--though there be many minds as to which may be chief among the three.