Mr. Hugo Canning, of the well-known Pursuing-Sex; how the Great Young Man pursued Miss Heth to a Summer-house, and what stopped his Thundering Feet.
Nor were the figments of sweet sleep too fanciful or far-flown. About eight-thirty o'clock, when Mrs. and Miss Heth stepped from a descending lift into the glaring publicity of the main floor, the first object that their eyes fell upon was Mr. Hugo Canning in the flesh. The second was Cousin Willie Kerr, even more in the flesh, trotting loyally at his side. At this precise instant, in short, the celebrated transient quitted the dining-room for the relaxations of his evening.
The coincidence of the moment was pure: one hundred per cent, as they say commercially. One takes it to mean that Destiny, having handled a favorite child somewhat roughly for a time, now turned back its smiling mother-face. The ladies Heth, having dined refinedly in their sitting-room, descended in search of cooling breezes, or for any other reason why. Over the spaces of the great court, half lobby, half parlor, Miss Heth had seen the masculine apparitions an instant before they saw her: or just in time, that is to say, to be showing them now her flawless profile....
It is easily surmised that Miss Heth's manner in action was contained, her habit the very reverse of forward. One seeing her now would be cheaply cynical, indeed, to say or dream that, with reference to some such conjuncture as the present, this girl had left a happy home many hours before. Her presence shamed every unworthy surmise. With a lovely unconsciousness she was spied walking her innocent ways toward the piazza with mamma, even now girlishly unaware that an opposite and uproarious sex was in headlong pursuit....
If this pursuit--to be doggedly literal--appeared to lag for a moment, if it did not seem to start with that instantélanwhich one had a right to expect, be sure that there was a complication of sound reasons for that. Kerr, in the circumstances, was the appointed leader of the chase; and Kerr hesitated. Canning's desire to avoid the local society and be left free to outdoor exercise and sleep was, in truth, only too well known to him. And to-night, worse luck, the distinguished visitor appeared even less socially inclined than usual: annoyed when the select little party he had expected from northerly haunts had been found represented at the Beach by a telegram instead; increasingly bored by the desolate air of the all but empty hostelry. "When's the next train out of this hell-hole?"--such was Mr. Canning's last recorded remark up to this not uninteresting moment.
Kerr, when he saw Mrs. and Miss Heth over the distance, merely made a genial exclamation, and then gazed. He was nearing forty, was Willie, short and slightly bald, with an increasing appreciation of the world's good things and as much good nature as his round figure called for. Canning's acquaintance he had by the chance of a lifelong friendship with Mrs. Allison Payne. By reason of a native clannishness and certain small obligations of a more material nature, he was more than ready to share his privileges with his brilliant cousins. But....
"So that's the drowned lady," said Canning's voice, rather moodily, at his elbow.... "Well, then, I know her."
"Dandy girl, Carlisle," exclaimed Willie, instantly. "Great little piece of work...."
One hundred feet away, opportunity unconsciously receded toward the piazza. Willie, having hesitated through no unfaithfulness, plunged with no want of tact.
"Got to speak to 'em a minute--make inquiries--cousins, y' know. D' ye mind?"
"My dear chap, why should I?"
"Awright--just stop and say howdedo," said the plump diplomatist. "Won't take a minute...."
And Canning, perceiving then that Kerr expected to make this stop in his company, said with an assurance not unbecoming to his lordly bearing: "If you please. And don't start anything, for pity's sake. I'm for bed in fifteen minutes."
So it all fell out, according to the book. So it was that the pursuing feet were free to thunder. So Mrs. Heth heard the voice of the leal one, subdued from a distance: "Howdedo, Cousin Isabel! How're you an' Carlisle this evening?..."
And so the maid turned, startled from her other-worldly dreams....
He was the greatest parti that had ever crossed her path, that was ever likely to cross her path. But Miss Heth faced him with no want of confidence; received his greeting with a charming bright negligence. One saw readily that such a matter as "making an impression" was far indeed from this maid's mind. If doubts, a vague uneasiness relative to the afternoon, still fretted the hinterlands of her mind (and they did), she was much too well trained, too resolute withal, to let them appear troublously upon the surface. Moreover, the nap of forty minutes, not winks, had been like the turning of a new leaf; and she was fortified, woman-wise, with the knowledge that she looked her best. Over her shoulders there clung a shimmering scarf, a pretty trifle all made of the scales of a silver mermaid. It was observed, however, that the gray crêpe-de-chine quite justified its choice....
The meeting of four had been effected in one end of the wide garish space: among the loungers of the lobby, all eyes were turned in that direction. There were salutations; the introduction of Mr. Canning to Mrs. Heth; inquiries after Miss Heth's health. Quite easily the square party resolved itself into two conversational halves. Mrs. Heth, it was clear from the outset, preferred Willie Kerr's talk above any other obtainable at that time and place. She was, and remained, absolutely fascinated by it....
"It seems quite unnecessary," Mr. Canning was saying--but he pronounced it "unne's'ry"--"to ask if you are any the worse for the ducking...."
"Oh, no--I'm quite well, thank you. We've suffered nothing worse than the spoiling of all our plans in coming here!"
The man's look politely interrogated her. "Oh, really? I'm sorry."
"We came, you see, to be very quiet. And we were never so frightfully noisy in our lives."
He smiled; made his small distinguished bow.
"You've reason to feel annoyed on all scores then. At any rate, it's charming to find you as our fellow guest."
And his eyes flitted from her toward Kerr, and then turned briefly upon mamma, and her strange little downy mustache.
Carlisle now perceived the disinterestedness, if not the faint weariness, in Mr. Canning's manner; she saw that he had forgotten the five minutes at the Country Club. The strong probability was, moreover, that he thought the worse of her for allowing herself to be nearly drowned in so vulgarly public a way. However, she was untroubled; she thought him, for her part, adorable to look at and of a splendid manner and conceit; and aloud she inquired, with her air of shining indifference, if Mr. Canning was not delighted with the Beach in October.
"Well, you know, I think I've been here before"--he saidbean, most deliciously--"only I can't be quite sure. It seems to me a most agreeable place. Only, if it isn't indiscreet to inquire, what does one do in the evening?"
"Usually, I believe, one goes to bed directly after dinner. If one does this, and dines extremely late, the evening slips by quite nicely, we find."
"But the afternoons? Wouldn't they perhaps loom a thought long at times, waiting on for dinner?"
"There's napping provided for the afternoon, you see. And many other diversions, such as reading, walking, and thinking."
"Perhaps one should arrange to spend only afternoons at the Beach. You make them sound simply uproarious."
"We're a simple people here, Mr. Canning, with simple joys and sorrows, easily amused."
Mr. Canning looked down at her. However, Carlisle did not meet his gaze. Having already, in a quiet way, given him two looks where they would do the most good, she was now glancing maidenly at mamma, who conversed vice-presidentially of her Associated Charities policies.
"They must be brought to help themselves!" Mrs. Heth was saying. "Wholesale, thoughtless generosity is demoralizing to poverty. It is sheer ruination to their moral fibre."
"Promiscuous charity!--ruination! Just what I always say," chirped Willie. "Look at ancient Rome, ma'am. Began giving away corn to the poor, and, by gad!--she fell!"...
"Delightful! I see I shall like it here," Mr. Canning was observing--and was there perceptible the slightest thawing in his somewhat formidable manner?... "I too," said he, "have dwelt in Arcady."
The girl looked over the spaces, a little smile in her eyes.
"Ah, then you didn't need to be told that the sandman comes early there."
"But not, I think, when the moon shines bright--and the simple amusements you speak of seem to be waiting? Surely games in the evening are not altogether forbidden, or does my memory of the place deceive me?"
"You seem to remember it perfectly. But I thought your complaint was that there was nothing at all amusing to do in Arcady."
"Ah," said Mr. Canning, "but I'm having my second thoughts now."
She had given him a third, uptilting look with her speech; and now it was as if the great eligible had seen her for the first time. If the gaze of his handsome eyes became somewhat frank, this girl had been fashioned to stand all scrutiny victoriously. A mode which defined the figure with some truthfulness held no terrors for her; rather the contrary. Her skin was fine and fair as a lily, with an undertone of warmth, dawn pink on the cheek; the whiteness of her neck showed an engaging tracery of blue. Her mass of hair, of an ashy dull gold, would have been too showy above a plain face; but the case was otherwise with her. Her mouth, which was not quite flawless but something better, in especial allured the gaze; so did her eyes, of a dusky blue, oddly shaped, and fringed with the gayest lashes ...
"Besides," added the man, looking down at her with a certain lightening in his gaze, "as I remember, I did not say that there was nothing amusing to do. I merely, as a stranger, came to you begging some guidance on the point."
"I see. But I very much doubt my ability to guide you in that way, Mr. Canning--"
"I can only observe that you've thrown out a number of perfectly ripping suggestions already--walking on the piazza, for example. Mightn't we steal that diversion from afternoon temporarily, don't you think? Perhaps Mrs. Heth would agree to pursue the missing breeze so far?"
"That would be nice," said Carlisle.
You could distinctly hear his thundering feet now....
Strolling for four was agreed upon, and that simple afternoon amusement started. But, arriving at the piazza, the dowager discovered that, after all, the night air was just a little cool for her, and turned back, not without some beaming. She mentioned the Blue Parlor as her port of call, where smoking was forbidden. Willie, doing his duty as he saw it, dropped his cigar into a brass repository. He had faults like the rest of us, had Willie, but his deathless loyalty deserved a monument in a park.
Carlisle and Mr. Canning strolled on alone. She walked outwardly serene as the high-riding moon, but inwardly with a quickening sense of triumph, hardly clouded at all now. As she and mamma had planned it, so it had fallen out....
Many eyes had followed this shining pair as they quitted the common gathering-place. She, as we have seen, was inviting as a spectacle. He, to the nobodies, was simply one of the sights of the place, like the Fort. And his distinguished House was still a small one, at that, not yet arrived where another generation would unfailingly put it. If the grandfather of Hugo Canning had founded the family, financially speaking, it was his renowned father who had raised it so fast and far, doubling and redoubling the Canning fortune with a velocity by no means unprecedented in the eighties and nineties. To-day there were not many names better known in the world of affairs, in the rarer social altitudes, even in the shore-hotels of the provinces....
And the son and heir of the name and fortune, who now trod the Beach piazza with Miss Carlisle Heth, was obviously more than many sons of wealth, much more than a mere trousered incident to millions. This one saw in the first glance at his Olympian bearing; but Carlisle Heth knew more than that. Upon this young man the enterprising vehicles of modern history had, long since, conferred an individual celebrity. Often had the Sunday editors told their "public" of his exploits in the sporting and social realms, as they called them; not rarely had journals of a more gossipy character paragraphed him smartly, using their asterisks to remove all doubt as to who was meant. Before such an evening as this had ever crossed her maiden's dreams, Carlisle Heth had read of Hugo Canning....
It was a bad throat, a God-given touch of bronchitis or whatnot, that had sent the great young man south. This was known through Willie Kerr, and other private sources. Also, that he would remain with his Payne cousins through the following week; and in December might possibly return from the Carolinas or Florida for a few days' riding with the Hunt Club. Meantime he was here: and it was but Saturday, mid-evening, and a whole beautiful Sunday lay ahead....
From the piazza, after a turn or two, Miss Heth and Mr. Canning sauntered on to a little summer-house, which stood on the hotel front-lawn, not far from the piazza end. She had hesitated when he commended the pretty bower; but it was really the discreetest spot imaginable, under the public eye in all directions, and undoubtedly commanding a perfect view of the moonlight on the water, precisely as he pointed out.
In this retreat, "What a heavenly night!" exclaimed Miss Heth.
Canning, still standing, looked abroad upon a scene of dim beauty, gentle airs, and faint bright light. "Now that you say it," he replied, "it is. But depend on it, I should never have admitted it quarter of an hour ago."
"Oh! But isn't it rather tedious to deny what's so beautifully plain?"
"Should you say that tedious is the word? A better man than I denied his Lord."
"Yes," said Carlisle, not absolutely dead-sure of the allusion, "but he was frightened, wasn't he, or something?"
"And I was lonely. Loneliness beats fear hollow for making the world look out of whack."
"Doesn't it? And is there a lonesomer place on the globe than a summer resort out of season?"
"But we were speaking of fifteen minutes ago, were we not?" said Canning, and sat down beside her on the rustic bench.
The walls of this little summer-house were largely myth, and lattice for the rest. Through the interstices the dim brightness of the moon misted in, and the multitudinous rays from the hotel. There reached them the murmur of voices, the languorous lap of water. A serene and reassuring scene it surely was; there was no menace in the night's silvern calmness, no shadow of stalking trouble....
Carlisle imagined Mr. Canning to be capable of a rapid advance at his desire, and was opposed on principle to such a course of events. Still, she was saying, a moment or two later:
"And in the Payne fort on the Three Winds Road--I suppose you never feel lonely there?"
"Why fort, if one might know?"
"I've been told that you were awfully well barricaded there, prepared to stand any sort of siege."
Canning seemed quite amused. He declared, on the contrary, that neglect and unpopularity were his portion in a strange land.
"I'm an invalid on sick-leave," said he, "and my orders are to go to bed. Please don't smile, for it's all quite true ..."
He appeared to develop a certain interest in the moonlit talk. He proceeded in a voice and manner no longer purely civil:
"And, to bare my soul to you, I'm no fonder of being lonely than another man.... Do you know that, but for Kerr, you're my one acquaintance in all this part of the world? What shall we say of that? I sit at dinner, consumed by blue devils. I emerge, and behold, you walk across the lobby. Haven't I some right to feel that the gods are with me even at the Beach?"
Perchance she might have given him some information there, but instead she laughed musically.
"The god of the pretty speeches, at any rate! Must I tell you that you didn't look quite overjoyed when dear Willie came dragging you up?"
"I've no doubt I looked all sorts of ways, for I'd never felt more unfit for any society, including my own. The more is my debt to you for chasing my devils away.... But perhaps I owe you no thanks after all, as one guesses that you do these little services for others without any particular effort."
Carlisle glanced at him, smiling a little from her dusky eyes.
"Your experience is that most people find it a great effort to speak pleasantly to you, I suppose?"
"Again I point out to you that our talk is not of most people, but of you."
"Oh! And is there something particularly original about me? This grows exciting."
"I, for one, think that beauty is always original," said Canning, with sufficient impersonality, but no more.... "Still, we know, of course, that unaided it cannot drive the blues of others very far."
"After the sugar-coating comes the pill. Tell me in what way I have been deficient."
"Ah, that's yet to learn. To be charming by habit is an agreeable thing; but you haven't convinced me yet, you know, that you know how to be kind."
Her lashes fell before his masculine gaze; she did not answer. About them was the sweet hush of the night. She was aware that he had moved nearer upon their bench; aware, too, of a faster beating of her heart. And then, quite suddenly, a new voice spoke, so close that both started sharply; a rather shy voice, yet one possessed of a certain vivid quality of life.
"I beg your pardon--butisthis Miss Heth?"
They turned as upon one string. At the door of the summer-house stood the blurred figure of a man, bareheaded and tall. The light being chiefly behind him, he showed only in thin silhouette, undistinguishable as to age, character, and personal pulchritude. Stares passed between the dim trio.
"I am Miss Heth."
"Could you possibly let me speak to you--for a moment, Miss Heth? I realize, of course, that it's a great intrusion but--"
Canning started up, annoyed. Carlisle, without knowing why, was instantly conscious of a subtle sinking of the heart: some deep instinct rang a warning in the recesses of her being, as if crying out: "This man means trouble." She glanced at Mr. Canning with a kind of little shrug, suggesting doubt, and some helplessness; and he, taking this for sufficient authority, assumed forthwith the male's protectorship.
"Yes? What is it that you wish?"
The tall stranger was observed to bow slightly.
"As I say, I beg the favor of speaking to Miss Heth a few moments--privately. Of course I shouldn't venture to trespass so, if the matter weren't vitally important--"
"Who are you?" demanded the great young man with rather more impatience than seemed necessary. "And what do you wish to speak to her about? Speak plainly, I beg, and be brief!"
The two men stood facing each other in the faint light. Ten feet of summer-house floor was between them, yet something in their position was indefinably suggestive of a conflict.
"I should explain," said the intruder, dim in the doorway, "that I come as a friend of poor Dalhousie--the boy who got into all the trouble ... Ah...."
The involuntary ejaculation, briefly arresting his speech, was his perfect tribute to the girl's beauty now suddenly revealed to him. For Carlisle had unconsciously leaned forward out of the shadows of the bench just then, a cold hand laid along her heart.
"This afternoon," the man recovered, with a somewhat embarrassed rush. "I--I appreciate, I needn't say, that it seems a great liberty, to--"
"Liberty is scarcely the word," said Hugo Canning, fighting the lady's battle with lordly assurance. "Miss Heth declines to hear...."
But the stranger's vivid voice bore him down: "Do you, Miss Heth?... The situation is terribly serious, you see. I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, but--I--I'm afraid he may take matters into his own hands--"
Canning took an impatient step forward.
"Nevertheless, it's pure impudence for him to send to this lady, sneaking for favors now. Let's--"
"Mr. Canning, I--I'm afraid Ioughtto speak to him!"
"What?" said Mr. Canning, wheeling at the voice, as if stung.
"Oh!... That's kind of you!"
Carlisle felt, under Mr. Canning's incredulous gaze, that this sudden upwhirl of misfortune was the further refinement of cruelty. She hardly knew what to do. Scarcely thinkable as it was to dismiss Hugo Canning from her presence, it seemed even more impossible to pack off this nameless intruder. Inconceivable malignity of chance, indeed! Only one doubt of its all being settled and blown over had lingered on to trouble her; and now without warning this doubt rose and rushed upon her in the person of the sudden stranger--and before Mr. Canning, too. It occurred to her, with ominous sinkings of the heart, that she had relied mistakenly upon Dalhousie's gentlemanliness. What horrid intention was concealed behind these strange words about his taking matters into his own hands? And suppose she refused to see the emissary alone, and he then said: "Well, then, I'll just have to speak before your friend."... What would Mr. Canning think of her then? What was he going to think of her anyway?
Carlisle, having risen, answered her protector's gaze with a look of appealing sweetness, and said in a low, perturbed voice:
"I'm so dreadfully sorry. But I don't quite see how I could refuse just to--to hear what he has to say. Under the circumstances, would it--wouldn't it be simply unkind?"
Canning said, with small lightening of his restrained displeasure: "Ah! I'm to understand, then, that you wish to give this--gentleman an audience alone?"
It was, of course, the last thing on earth she desired, but God clearly was out of his heaven to-day, and Mr. Canning would like her better in the long run if he stepped aside for a space now. She said, with a restraint which did her credit:
"Couldyou forgive me--for five minutes? You must know how I--dislike this. Butoughtn'tI--"
The great parti gave an ironic little laugh.
"As you please, of course. I shall await your pleasure on the piazza."
And he stamped out and away into the moonlight, passing the silent intruder with a look which said loudly that he would have kicked him if it had promised to be worth the trouble.
The silver cord was loosed. The village-clock, quarter of a mile away, struck nine, and all's well. Hugo Canning's stately back receded. Coincidently the shabby-looking stranger who had displaced him stepped forward into the summer-house. The first thing Carlisle noticed about him was that he was lame.
Dialogue between V. Vivian, of the Slums, and Mr. Heth's Daughter (or his Niece); what the lovely Hun saw in the Mr. Vivian's eyes, just before he asked God to pity her.
Dalhousie's tall friend advanced with a limp, in silence. He halted at a courteous distance; it was seen that one hand held a soft hat, crushed against his side. A faint wave of the ethereal light immersed the man now, and Carlisle dimly descried his face. She observed at once that it did not seem to be a menacing face at all; no, rather was it kindly disposed and even somewhat trustful in its look. It was the second thing that she noticed about him.
Perhaps no girl in the world was less like the popular portrait of a fat horse-leech's daughter than this girl, Carlisle Heth. Surely no advance ever less resembled the charge of a hating prophet upon a Hun than this man's advance. Carlisle, to be sure, was never one to think in historical or Biblical terminology. But she did note the man's manner of approach upon her, and his general appearance, with an instant lifting of the heart. The whole matter seemed desperately serious to her, full of alarming possibilities, a matter for a determined fight. And she felt more confidence at once, the moment she had seen how the emissary looked, how he looked at her.
Chiefly for strategic reasons, she had sat down on the bench again, well back in the shadows. She did not speak; had no intention of speaking till speech might gain something. And the stranger, silent also, wore an air of hesitancy or confusion which was puzzling to her and yet quite reassuring, too. If he had come to say that Dalhousie would talk unless she did, would he be this sort of looking person at all?...
The man began abruptly; clearly nothing plotted out in advance.
"He's quite crushed.... I--I've just come from him...."
And then, hurriedly running his fingers through his hair, he retraced his steps for a better start.
"I should first say how kind it is of you to receive a--a stranger, in this way. I need hardly say that I appreciate it, greatly.... And I bring his hope that you can be merciful, and forgive him for what he did. He is badly broken, that I promise you.... It's all so curiously confused. But it doesn't seem that he can be quite so bad as they're saying here to-night...."
The stranger hesitated; he was gazing down with grave intentness.
"Miss Heth, Dal swears he can't remember the boat's upsetting at all."
His tone expressed, oddly, not so much a contradiction of anybody as a somewhat ingenuous hope for corroboration: Carlisle's ear caught that note at once. She was observing Jack Dalhousie's shabby friend as a determined adversary observes. He had moved a little nearer, or else the pale light better accustomed itself to him. And she saw that his face, though manifestly young, had an old-fashioned sort of look which seemed to go with his worn clothes; a quaint face, as she regarded it, odd-looking in some elusive way about the eyes, but, she felt surer and surer, not dangerous at all.
Now her gaze, shifting, had fastened upon his tie, which was undeniably quaint; a very large four-in-hand showing pictorially, as it seemed, a black sea holding for life a school of fat white fish. And then there came a lovely voice from the shadows--lovely, but did it sound just a little hard?...
"Perhaps you had better begin at the beginning, and tell me who you are, and what it is you want."
"Yes, yes! Quite so!" agreed the author of the Severe Arraignment, rather hastily....
A little easier said than done, no doubt. Yet it may be that one of the young man's inner selves still hovered over the belief that this girl must be Mr. Heth's (of the Works) niece, or haply a yet more distant relative....
"I mentioned that," said he, "because it was naturally uppermost in my mind. I--ah.... But to begin at the beginning, as you say.... I got a telegram in town, telling me that Jack Dalhousie was in serious trouble. It was from Hofheim, a fellow, a sort of druggist, who happened to know that I was one of his best friends. So I caught the six-ten train and Hofheim met me at the station.Myname's Vivian...."
He stopped short, with an odd air of not having intended to stop at this point at all. So bystanders have watched the learning bicycle rider, irresistibly drawn to his doom against the only fixed object in miles. However, no association of ideas woke in the mind of the silent girl upon the bench. Not easily at any time did brick-throwing Socialists gain foothold there; and this day had been a disruptive one for her, beyond any in her experience.
"The name," hastily continued the young man, with an intake of breath, "probably conveys nothing to you. I--I merely mention it.... Well, Hofheim, this sort of--fellow, wasn't in the hotel when the--the occurrence took place, but he told me what everybody was saying, as we came up in the 'bus together. I feel very sure you can have no idea.... Shall I repeat his story? I don't, of course, want to trouble you needlessly."
"Do."
So bidden, he swiftly epitomized the narrative told him by the fellow Hofheim, who had got it at fifth or sixth hand after Mrs. Heth's striking of the right note. The Hofheim rendering seemed to include such details as that Dalhousie (being an entire stranger to Miss Heth) had overthrown her boat with homicidal hands, and that, as he swam away, he had laughed repeatedly and maniacally over his shoulder at the girl's agonized screams.
"They don't say that he struck you--with an oar," the man concluded, sad and satirical. "I believe that's the only detail of the sort they omit.... As a matter of fact, Miss Heth, Dal says he never heard you scream at all."
Then he clearly paused for a reply, perhaps a reassuring burst; but there was only silence. The harried girl on the bench was thinking, intently but with some bewilderment. Somewhat aghast as she was (truth to tell) at the way in which the minor variations had been maliciously distorted, her attention had been closely engaged by the curious way in which Mr. Dalhousie's friend was going at things. Why did he sound less like a challenge and a threat than like somebody whistling hopefully to keep up his courage?
The question irresistibly emerged. Carlisle's slim fingers furled and unfurled the end of her mermaiden's scarf, and she looked up at the tall stranger in the dusk and sweetly spoke for the third time.
"But I don't understand. If he has told you all about it, I--I don't see why you have come to me at all."
Then the man appeared to recollect that he had omitted the most important part of his narrative--of course she didn't understand, no wonder!--and spoke with some eagerness.
"I should have explained that in the beginning!--only of course I don't like to trespass too far on your time.... You see--unfortunately--Dal's hardly in position to speak about the matter at all. I--"
He paused, as if seeking how to put it, and then spoke these doubt-destroying words:
"It is very perplexing, but the truth is--he says so himself--he doesn't know at all what took place."
"Oh!...He doesn't know!"
"I don't wonder you're astonished at his saying so," said the young man, in quite a gentle way. "And yet I do believe him absolutely...."
He now explained, in well-selected phrases, that Jack Dalhousie had been very drunk when he boarded the boat, having taken a running start on the evening preceding. Though he might have seemed normal enough, through long experience in control, he was actually quite irresponsible; and drink had played strange tricks with his mind before now. The boy could remember getting into the boat, it seemed; remember that--ah--that she had objected (very properly) to his presence; remember standing up in the boat, very angry, and the wind blowing in his face. The next thing he remembered was being in the water, swimming away. And then, when he landed, a man standing there on shore cursed him and struck him in the face.... Then he had looked out over the water; he saw the upset sailboat and the boatman rowing out, and the people, and it rushed over him what he must have done. Till then, he said, he had never dreamed that anything had happened. He could hardly believe it, even with the evidence of his own eyes. Then later Hofheim, the sort of fellow, had gone up to see him, and told him what people were saying, which so much more than confirmed his worst suspicions. Hofheim was a stranger, but he meant well....
Dalhousie, in short, was in the singular position of having to implore others to assure him that he hadn't done all these terrible things. And it appeared that Miss Carlisle Heth was the one person in the world who could possibly give him that assurance.
So spoke the stranger. That he had scattered lifelines, that all his oratory had come agrapple with nature's first law, evidently did not cross his mind. He gazed down at the girl's dimly limned face, and his gaze seemed full of an unconquerable hopefulness.
"The boy's behavior has been inexcusable in any case," he said. "And be sure he's been punished, and will be punished severely. But ... it must be that either the--the trouble didn't happen at all as this story says it did, or if--at the worst--it did happen that way, Dalhousie was simply out of his mind, quite insane, and didn't know what he was doing. He isn't, of course, a ruffian or a coward. Won't you help to make them understand that?"
The girl raised her eyes, which in the twilight were darker than the 'depth of water stilled at even.'
"I don't see the necessity for that," she said, in a firm voice. "I--I'm afraid I can't consent to be involved in it any further."
Over the little summer-house hung the sweet beauties of the serene night. About it stretched the calm lawn in chequers of large faint brightness and gigantic shadows. Within it stood the tall stranger, rooted in his tracks. Then it seemed to occur to him that there was some misunderstanding; that at least, in his anxiety about his friend, he hadn't allowed sufficiently for the properly outraged feelings of the lady--this so unreasonable-looking daughter of Mr. Heth of the Works, or his niece....
"It's all tremendously trying for you, I know," he said, with the same sort of gentleness. "I assure you the situation has distressed me greatly--from every aspect. And I think it's most kind and--and generous of you to let me speak with you when you must feel that you've been so badly treated.... But you see--as it stands, you are involved in it, really, more than any one else. I'm sorry, but in fact the whole issue is in your hands."
"I can't see that. He has given you his--his version of what took place. No one will prevent him from saying the same thing to whomever he wishes."
"But who will believe him?"
Carlisle perceived a rhetorical question, though she didn't know it under that name; she made no reply. She would really have preferred no more questions of any sort--what was the use of them? In her, as in all the Maker's creatures, the instinct for self-preservation was planted to work resistlessly. Small wonder, indeed, if, in the unexpected discovery that dependence on Dalhousie's dubious gentlemanliness was unnecessary, the uprush of relief should have swept away all lesser considerations, flooded down all doubts. All was settled again in a trice, as by a miracle: the miraculous agent here being, not the Deity (as she vaguely suspected), but only the Demon Rum, he who had taught the frail lad Dalhousie to be so mistrustful of himself ...
She had had a harassing day, including three momentoustête-à-têteswith three different and widely variegated men, mostly comparative strangers: Jack Dalhousie, Mr. Canning, and now this Mr. Vivian. She was very tired of being dogged and nagged at and interfered with, and she wanted very much to terminate this interview, which she saw now had been extorted from her by a pretty sharp piece of deception. And through her mind there skipped a beckoning thought of Mr. Canning, conceived as feverishly pacing the piazza ...
"You see, his defence," Mr. Vivian was saying, with some signs of nervousness, "is merely his own word that he had no idea you were upset. I believe him absolutely, because I know he wouldn't lie, and he admits, to his own disadvantage, that his memory isn't at all clear. But--it's all so muddled and confused somehow--I'm afraid everybody else will think that a rather silly fabrication, invented by a desperate man to put himself in the best light possible. That is--unless his word is corroborated."
His inflection invited remarks, nay, urged them, but there was only silence.
And then within V. Vivian, M.D., there woke a cold doubt, and gnawed him.
"Miss Heth--I must ask--for the whole moral question hangs on this ...Did he know that you were upset?"
Miss Heth cleared her throat, preparatory to rising. She saw now that she ought never to have consented to talk with this strange man at all. Mamma would have known that in advance.
"It is--rather absurd--for me to be asked to decide whatheknew. He has assured you that--"
"But--I don't make myself clear, I see--the fact is that yours is the only assurance that will carry the smallest weight on that point.... He wasn't--may I ask?--actuallyinthe boat when it went over, was he?"
"N-no. As to that--I believe he had just got out, but--"
"Did you think at the time that he knew you were upset?"
"Unfortunately, I am not a mind reader," she began with dignity, objecting seriously to these obstacles in the way of ending the interview. "Thrown without warning into the water, I could not look into his thoughts and see--"
"Quite so. But did he show in any way that he knew you were upset?"
A kind of chill had crept into the stranger's voice. The two young people gazed at each other. The man had strange eyes (they were the third thing she had noticed about him), gray, she thought, and gifted with an odd sort of translucence, singular and speaking.
"Let me see. No, he did not. That is what I said at the time--that he didn't take the slightest notice of me--"
"He swears he never dreamed anything was wrong till he landed. Don't you feel that that's quite possible, at least? Or.... did you scream out for his help, so loudly that hemusthave heard you, if he'd been himself?"
"The--the first few minutes in the water were very confusing. I can't pretend to say exactly what I did or didn't do. I had to think about saving my life--"
"Of course. But if you'd screamed a number of times in saving your life, you would be likely to remember it, wouldn't you?"
"Really I can't acknowledge your right to--"
"Miss Heth--why didn't you scream?"
His swift cross-examination touched the quick of her spirit; and she came to her feet, trembling a little, and feeling rather white.
"I will not allow you to catechise me in this way. I will not...."
Dr. Vivian, from the Dabney House, over the Gulf, stood still, quite silenced....
The thought had struck V. Vivian, and shot him down, that this girl was lying, deliberately suppressing the truth that meant more than life to Dal. She hadn't screamed. Dal hadn't known she was upset.... Yet was it thinkable? In the fiercest denouncing of the yellowest Huns, who had ever dreamed anything so base of them as this?Lying?With that face like all the angels, that voice like a heavenly choir?...
The tall doctor saw that his suspicion was unworthy and absurd. His was no simple choice between his friend's shameful cowardice, and this girl's criminal falsehood. No, Dal was crazy-drunk at the time, and himself cried out in his misery that the worst that they said of him was probably true. And even supposing that this girl was no more than a fiend in seraphic shape, what conceivable reason could she have for such infamous suppression? Motive was unimaginable.... No, the fault must be his own. He had pressed too hard, pried too tactlessly and inquisitively, not made her understand sufficiently the dire swiftness of the poor boy's need....
These two stood face to face. Carlisle saw that Jack Dalhousie's friend was becoming excited; but then, so was she. The man spoke first, in a low, hurried voice:
"I don't mean to catechise--indeed, I don't. You must try to forgive me for the liberties I seem to be taking.... The thing's so serious, so pitiful. This story already flying around back in town--making him a base coward--he'll never live it down. And it's to-night or never, a--a misstatement travels so fast and far, and has so long a life--"
"You should have reminded him of all this," said Carlisle, her rounded breast rising and falling, "before he got into my boat."
"Oh, you have a right to say that! He's been wrong, insanely wrong! But does he deserve disgrace--ostracism--ruin? You alone stand between him and--"
"I don't feel that it--it's right for me to be brought into it further. I've explained that. And I must ask--"
"But youarein it already, you see. Whatever anybody does or leaves undone, now and for the future--you are in it...."
The enemy paused, gazing at her; and then suddenly, before she could make just the right opening to go past him, he abandoned restraint, and flung himself upon entreaties.
"Couldn't you make a statement--just a little statement--saying that you feel certain he didn't know the boat was upset? that perhaps in the excitement you forgot to scream?--that you know he wouldn't have left you if he'd understood you were in trouble? Couldn't you at least give him the benefit of the doubt?--say or do something to show you've no bitter feeling toward him?--"
"Did he show any regard for my feelings? I must ins--"
"All the finer is your opportunity--don't you see?... Even strain the truth a little for him, if that's necessary. God," said the shabby young man, quite passionately, "would count it a virtue, I know, for it's now or never to save a man.... Couldn't you do that? I promise you you won't be bothered any more about it. I know how awfully hard it's all been for you. Couldn't you saysomethingto help him a little?"
Miss Heth, facing him, imperceptibly hesitated.
For a second, offended though she was by his religious reference (she never heard the name of God mentioned in polite society), this quaint begging Mr. Vivian had her upon the balance. Her flying thoughts swept down the parting of the ways. But they flew swiftly back, stabbing all hesitancies....
She wished as much as any one that it had all been started differently, as it might have been had she been perfectly certain in advance that no one would dare say anything the least bit horrid about her. It was not her fault that gossip was so notoriously unreliable. And now it was simply impossible to rake up the whole subject again, just when it was all settled, and go through another long explanation with mamma. Of course she didn't believe all this about Dalhousie's being ruined and disgraced forever: that was just the man's way of working on her feelings and trying to frighten her. She knew very well that the whole thing would blow over in a few days, if just quietly left to itself.
And what use, whispered the returning thoughts, would the unknown make of the "little statement" he begged so for? What would mamma say, for instance, to a black-typed piece-in-the-paper in the "Post" to-morrow? And what of Mr. Canning--nudged the wise thoughts--the happiness symbol on the piazza, whose princely feet were so plainly twitching to thunder behind?...
No; clearly the only sensible thing to do was to end all the talk and quibbling at once, definitely. Carlisle took a step forward over the dim chequered floor, resolute as her mother.
"I can't add anything to what I've already said. I cannot let you detain me any longer."
Her advance had brought her fully into what light there was, falling mistily through lattice and door. And at the look in her eyes, young Dr. Vivian's hands fell dead without a struggle at his sides. His tall figure seemed mysteriously to shrink and collapse inside his clothes. He said, oddly, nothing whatever. Yet an hour's oration could not have conveyed more convincingly his sense of irreparable disaster.
The instantaneous cessation of his verbal flow curiously piqued the girl's attention. Face to face as they stood, she was struck quite sharply with an elusive something that seemed to cling to this man's look, a subtle enveloping wistfulness which she had vaguely noticed about him before, which somehow seemed, indeed, only the sum of all that she had noticed about him before. It may have been this look that briefly checked her withdrawal. An odd desire to justify herself somewhat more clearly fluttered and stirred within her. Or--who can say?--perhaps this was no more than the beautiful woman's undying desire to appear at advantage before every man, however far beneath her.
"You--you must not think me unfeeling," she said in a sweet hurried voice. "I want to be as considerate as possible. I am terribly sorry for him--terribly--and you must tell him so, from me. But I--I am in a peculiar position. I am not free to--"
"I see. I understand now."
His strange tone fell upon her ears as a challenge, quiet though it was; and it was a challenge which Carlisle, though instantly regretting her generosity (when she might just have walked away), saw no entirely dignified way of avoiding.
"You see what?" she said, faltering a little. "I don't know what you mean."
The man replied slowly, almost as if he were thinking of something else, and the thought rather hurt him:
"I see your only thought is to gain some point for yourself--you alone know what--no matter what pain your silence may give to others.... Ah, that's sad...."
Angry and a little frightened, too, Carlisle Heth drew her gossamer shawl more closely about her shoulders, with a movement that also wore the air of plucking together her somewhat wavering hauteur.
"You are at liberty to think and say what you please," she said, distantly, and with a slight inclination of her head started past him.
But he did not seem to hear the dismissal order; stood unmoving, blocking her progress; and looking up with now tremulous indignation, Carlisle ran once more full on the battery of his speaking eyes....
Perhaps it was not difficult to guess what John the Baptist would have said, in such a case as this: but then the young man V.V. was not thinking of John the Baptist now. He was not feeling grim at all at this moment; not fierce at all. So in his look there was to be seen nothing of the whiplash, not one thing reminiscent of the abhorring fanatic on the outskirts of the city. His eyes were filled, indeed, with a sudden compassion; a compassion overflowing, unmistakable, and poignant. And from that look the richly dressed girl with the seraph's face instantly averted her gaze.
She heard a voice: the lame stranger speaking as if to himself.
"All that beauty without, and nothing at all within.... So lovely to the eye, and empty where the heart should be.... God pity you, poor little thing...."
And then Carlisle passed him quickly and went out of the summer-house upon the lawn. The escape, this time, presented no difficulties. For the last syllable had hardly died on the young man's lip before self-consciousness appeared to return upon him, staggering him, it may be, at the words of his mouth. He turned, abruptly, and fled in the other direction.
So the audience in the moonlit summer-house concluded precipitately, with the simultaneous departure of both parties from opposite exits. Carlisle Heth went hurrying across the lawn. Within her, there was a tumult; but her will was not feeble, and her sense of decorum and the eternally fitting hardly less tenacious. Strongly she ruled her spirit for the revivifying remeeting that awaited her just ahead....
But it was not Mr. Canning's voice which greeted her as she stepped up on the hotel piazza. It was the low, angry challenge of her soldier-mother, nipped in the act of charging upon the summer-house.
"Carlisle!... In heaven's name, what have you been doing?"
Facing mamma on the deserted piazza-end, Carlisle explained in a hurried sentence that Mr. Dalhousie had sent a pleading friend to her, whom she had felt obliged to see....
"Are youmadto say such a thing? Was it for wild antics of this sort that I threw everything to the winds to bring you down here?"
"Oh, mamma--please!" said Carlisle, her breath coming fast. "I've had about enough.... I--I couldn't run the risk of his starting heaven knows what scandalous story. Where is Mr. Canning?"
Mamma looked as if she wanted to shake her.
"You may well ask," she said, savagely, and turned away.
"I do ask," said Carlisle, with returning spirit. "Where is he?"
Mrs. Heth wheeled on her.
"Did you suppose he would hang about kicking his heels for hours while you hobnobbed with low men in dark summer-houses? He just excused himself on the ground of a cold caught on the piazza, and has retired for the night. You shall do the same. Come with me."
Carlisle went with her.
And next morning, Sunday, the very first news that greeted the two ladies, upon their appearance for a late breakfast, was that Mr. Canning and Mr. Kerr had left the Beach for town by the nine-twenty-two train.