been drowned in the powerful radiance of the girl
from Simiti. And from that moment the assassination of the character
of the little Inca princess was decreed.

But, what with incessant striving to adapt herself to her environment,
that she might search its farthest nook and angle; what with ceaseless
efforts to check her almost momentary impulse to cry out against the
vulgar display of modernity and the vicious inequity of privilege
which she saw on every hand; what with her purity of thought; her rare
ideals and selfless motives; her boundless love for humanity; and her
passionate desire to so live her "message" that all the world might
see and light their lamps at the torch of her burning love for God and
her fellow-men, Carmen found her days a paradox, in that they were
literally full of emptiness. After her _debut_, event followed event
in the social life of the now thoroughly gay metropolis, and the poor
child found herself hustled home from one function, only to change her
attire and hurry again, weary of spirit, into the waiting car, to be
whisked off to another equally vapid. It seemed to the bewildered girl
that she would never learn what was _de rigueur_; what conventions
must be observed at one social event, but amended at another. Her
tight gowns and limb-hampering skirts typified the soul-limitation of
her tinsel, environment; her high-heeled shoes were exquisite torture;
and her corsets, which her French maid drew until the poor girl gasped
for air, seemed to her the cruellest device ever fashioned by the
vacuous, enslaved human mind. Frequently she changed her clothing
completely three and four times a day to meet her social demands.
Night became day; and she had to learn to sleep until noon. She found
no time for study; none even for reading. And conversation, such as
was indulged under the Hawley-Crowles roof, was confined to insipid
society happenings, with frequent sprinklings of racy items anent
divorce, scandal, murder, or the debauch of manhood. From this she
drew more and more aloof and became daily quieter.

It was seldom, too, that she could escape from the jaded circle of
society revelers long enough to spend a quiet hour with the Beaubien.
But when she could, she would open the reservoirs of her soul and give
full vent to her pent-up emotions. "Oh," she would often exclaim, as
she sat at the feet of the Beaubien in the quiet of the darkened music
room, and gazed into the crackling fire, "ho