“Bertie dear!” cried the mother, again; and you knew that for eighteen or nineteen years she had been crying “Bertie dear!”—­in a tone in which rebuke was tempered by fatuous maternal admiration.  And all the time, Bertie had gone on doing what he pleased, knowing that in her secret heart his mother was smiling with admiration of his masterfulness, taking it as one more symptom of the greatness of the Stebbins line.  I could see him in early childhood, stamping on the floor and commanding his governess to bring him a handkerchief—­and throwing his shoe at her when she delayed!

Presently it was Luanda’s turn.  Lucinda, you understand, was in revolt against the social indignity which her mother had inflicted upon her.  When Carpenter had entered the car, she had looked at him once, with a deliberate stare, then lifted her chin, ignoring my effort to introduce him to her.  Since then she had sat silent, cold, and proud.  But now she spoke.  “Mother, tell me, do we have to meet those horrid fat old Jews again?”

Mrs. Stebbins wisely decided that this was not a good time to explore the soul of a possible Eastern potentate.  Instead, she elected to talk for a minute or two about a lawn fete she was planning to give next week for the benefit of the Polish relief.  “Poland is the World’s Bulwark against Bolshevism,” she explained; and then added:  “Bertie dear, aren’t you driving recklessly?”

Bertie turned his head.  “Didn’t you hear me tell that old sheeny I was going to beat him to it?”

“But, Bertie dear, this street is crowded!”

“Well, let them look out for themselves!”

But a few seconds later it appeared as if the son and heir of the Stebbins family had decided to take his mother’s advice.  The car suddenly slowed up—­so suddenly as to slide us out of our seats.  There was a grinding of brakes, and a bump of something under the wheels; then a wild stream from the sidewalk, and a half-stifled cry from the chauffeur.  Mrs. Stebbins gasped, “Oh, my God!” and put her hands over her face; and Lucinda exclaimed, in outraged irritation, “Mamma!” Carpenter looked at me, puzzled, and asked, “What is the matter?”

XX

The accident had happened in an ill-chosen neighborhood:  one of those crowded slum quarters, swarming with Mexicans and Italians and other foreigners.  Of course, that was the only neighborhood in which it could have happened, because it is only there that children run wild in the streets at night.  There was one child under the front wheels, crushed almost in half, so that you could not bear to look at it, to say nothing of touching it; and there was another, struck by the fender and knocked into the gutter.  There was an old hag of a woman standing by, with her hands lifted into the air, shrieking in such a voice of mingled terror and fury as I had never heard in my life before.  It roused the whole quarter; there were people running out of twenty houses, I think, before one of us could get out of the car.