To Mildred, however, the days were growing darker and the way more thorny.  She was gaining only in the power of endurance; she was unconsciously developing the trait that bade fair to become the keynote of her life—­fidelity.  It was her absolute loyalty to her long-cherished love that prevented her from accepting invitations to go with Belle and Roger.  Through all disguises she saw that the latter was a lover and not a friend, and while she had learned to respect him much more, she shrank from him none the less.  True, therefore, to her womanly instincts, and pathetically patient with a life full of pain and weariness, she faltered on toward a future that seemed to promise less and less.  Roger did not need to be told by Belle of Mildred’s burdened life, although the young girl did speak of it often with sad and indignant emphasis.  “Beautiful Millie, who would grace the finest house in the city,” she said, “is as much out of place in this life as if a gazelle were made to do the work of a cart-horse.  It’s just killing her.”

“It’s not the work that’s harming her so much as the accursed brutality which permits more cruelty to white women than was ever inflicted on black slaves.  If the shopkeepers owned these girls who serve their counters they would provide them seats instantly, on the same principle that some of your Southern people, who had no humanity, cared well for their human property; but these fellows know that when a girl breaks down they can take their pick from twenty applicants the next morning.  If I could scalp a few of these woman-murderers, I’d sleep better to-night.  Oh, Belle, Belle, ii you knew how it hurts me to see such advantage taken of Miss Mildred!  I sometimes walk the streets for hours chafing and raging about it, and yet any expression of my sympathy would only add to her distress.  You must never speak to her of me, Belle, except in a casual way, when you cannot help it, for only as I keep aloof, even from her thoughts, can she tolerate me at all.”

“Be patient, Roger.  Millie is unlike many girls, and wants only one lover.  Now I’d like half a dozen, more or less, generally more.  She’s too infatuated with that weakling, Vinton Arnold, to care for any one else.  And to think he hasn’t sent her one reassuring word since last summer!  There isn’t enough of him to cast a shadow.  Catch me moping after such a dim outline of a man!  But it’s just like Millie.  If he’d only vanish into thin air she might give him up, and perhaps he has.”

“No, he’s in Europe, and has been there ever since he left the hotel at Forestville.  I learned the fact the other day.  He’s living in luxury and idleness, while the girl who loves him is earning her bread in a way that’s infernal in its cruelty.”

“How did you find that out?” Belle asked quickly.

“It was in no mean or underhand way, and no knowledge of my inquiries will ever reach him.  I thought she’d like to know, however, and you can tell her, but give her no hint of the source of your information.”