Of Carlisle's Bewilderment over all the Horrid Talk; of how it wasn't her fault that Gossip was so Unreliable; of the Greatest Game in the World; also, of Mr. Heth, who didn't look like a Shameless Homicide.
The explosion that followed the boat occurrence at the Beach came as a complete surprise to the heroine of the small affair. When she had terminated the interview in the summer-house, she understood that she was giving the signal for talk to cease and all trouble to proceed to blow over. The want of cooöeration on the part of talk and trouble was gross, to say the least of it. The tide of excited questions and comment that poured in on and around Carlisle, upon her return to town on Monday, resembled the breaking of flood-gates. Her small and entirely private misadventure had become her world's sensation. And within a day there came a climax which secretly astonished and frightened her not a little. The primal blood-tie itself was severed for offended righteousness' sake. The proud old widower, Colonel Dalhousie, already sorely tried by his son's wildnesses, could not stomach his flagrant cowardice. It was shouted about the town that he had cut Jack off with a curse, and turned him finally out of his house.
Unplagued by the curses of imagination, Carlisle had, indeed, anticipated nothing in the least like this. She was dazed by the undreamed hubbub. For the first few days after her home-coming, she remained very closely in the house, to avoid all the worrying and horrid talk; and one day, the day Mattie Allen ran in with popping eyes to tell her about Jack Dalhousie, she pretended to be sick and stayed in bed, and really did feel extremely badly.
In these days of uneasiness, Carlisle wished far more than ever that the whole thing had been started differently; and she wondered often, and somewhat fearfully, if Dalhousie's friend, Mr. Vivian, would try to force himself on her again. That did not happen; nothing happened; and the more and more calmly she came to think about it all, the more clearly the girl saw that she personally was not to blame for the misunderstanding. It was plainly seen as one of those unfortunate occurrences which, while regretted by all, herself as much as anybody, you simply could not do a single thing about. And if it had seemed impossible to rake it all up again even that night, how much more unrakable was it now, when days had passed, and everybody had accepted everything, for better or worse, as it was? Fate and gossip had proved too strong. Deplorable, indeed; but it was to be, that was all.
It was very plain, of course, that all the initial excitement and pother could not possibly last. Withhold food from gossip, and it starves and dies. Carlisle simply stayed quiet and held her tongue; and as the days passed without more developments of any sort, she found her philosophical attitude thoroughly justified by events. Town-talk, that bugbear of the delicate-minded, shot off first to the Hoover divorce, and then to the somewhat public disagreement between the Governor of the State and Congressman Hardwicke, at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon for the visiting President; finally to a number of things. By the time six weeks had passed, the Beach had dropped completely from the minds of a fickle public. Dalhousie, it seemed, had considerately vanished. Talk ceased. The boat trouble blew over, much as the boat had done....
About this time, namely, about the middle of the seventh week, one of Willie Kerr's cryptic messages lay beside Mrs. Heth's breakfast plate on a morning. It ran:
I think he will come at 5.30 o'clockWednesday. Better arrive first?W.K.
Willie's cipher (he liked to write as if he lived in Russia, with the postal spies after him like hawks) was no mystery to Mrs. Heth, she being, in a certain measure, its inventor. Having taken the telegraphic brevity upstairs to show to Carlisle, she disappeared into the telephone booth, to rearrange her afternoon. If all subscribers to the telephonic system were as tireless users as she, probably fewer people would have made large fortunes by the timely purchase of forty dollars worth of stock.
This was a Wednesday morning in mid-December. Carlisle, recuperating from a gay debutante rout on the evening preceding, remained in bed. By this time the "season" was well under way: all signs promised an exceptionally gay winter, and Carlisle was, as ever, in constant demand. She had meant to spend the morning in bed anyway, and then besides her mother had pointed out the necessity of being fresh for the afternoon....
From the moment of their abrupt parting at the Beach, Carlisle had not set eyes upon Mr. Canning, though he was known to have lingered as a house-guest all through the following week. The circumstance had surprised her considerably at the time, until she had thought out some satisfactory explanations for it. To-day her maidenly thoughts assumed a wholly prospective character, very agreeable and cheery. Mr. Canning, having arrived yesterday from some southerly resort of his choice, was again staying at the Payne fort on the Three Winds Road, his reported design being to ride a few times with the Cold Run hounds, otherwise barricading himself as unsocially as before. Still, he expected to remain for a week at least, which was very nice; and under these circumstances it was as natural as possible that his connoisseurship should be asked to pass judgment on the new little bachelor apartment in Bellingham Court, where his friend Kerr was just comfortably installed.... Where, also, no impossible stranger could intrude himself upon the company of his betters, with revivalist vocabulary and killjoy face.
The clock stood at eleven. The drawn shades imparted a restful dimness to the bedroom, but the reliable maid Flora had been in to shut the windows and start a merry fire in the grate. This room had been done over last year in gray and old rose, with the "suit" in Circassian walnut, and wainscoted walls which harmonized admirably. It was a charming cloister, all most captivating to the eye, with the possible exception of the dressing-table, which rather bristled with implements and looked just a thought too businesslike.
Carlisle loafed and invited her soul. Her glorious ash-gold hair, whose habit of crinkling from the roots was so exasperating to contemporaries of her own sex, swept loose over the pillows, charmingly framing her face....
While the Beach episode itself was now long since closed and done with, it was not unnatural that the memory of Dalhousie's friend, the Mr. Vivian, should have remained in Carlisle's mind, for Mr. Vivian had addressed such words to her as had never before sounded upon her ears. These words had clung by their sheer astounding novelty. To have God petitioned to pity you by a shabby nobody in a pictorial tie: here was an experience that invited some elucidation. For a time the girl's thoughts had attacked the nobody's sincerity: he was merely failure pretending to despise success. But, not ungifted at self-suasion though she was, she had not seemed to find solid footing here; and she had early been driven irresistibly to quite a different conclusion. Evidently this man Mr. Vivian was a queer kind of street-preacher type, victim of a pious mania which rendered him dangerously unsound in the head. This, obviously, was the truth of the matter. On no other theory could his pitying her be satisfactorily explained.
It was true that, with the dying down of her own sense of vague ambient perils, she herself had come once more to feel dreadfully sorry for Jack Dalhousie, and even to admit in her meditations that she could have afforded to be more magnanimous in defending him from gossip. But then that did not at all change the fact that Dalhousie deserved the severest punishment for all the trouble and worry he had brought her. It clearly was not right, was not moral, to make things too easy for wrongdoers. She had gradually come to see herself as a custodian of the moral law in this quarter, a tribunal of justice which, while upholding the salubriousness of punition, yet strives to keep as large and generous as it can.
Therefore it followed as the night the day that Mr. Vivian, who could work himself up to the condition of feeling sorry for her as she discharged her painful duties (while admiring her loveliness), was a sort of camp-meeting madman. He was an advanced kind of religious fanatic, nearly in the foaming stages, something like a whirling dervish. His emotional gibberings were beneath the notice of sane, wholesome people.
Still, in lengthening retrospect, Carlisle had become quite dissatisfied with the manner in which she had permitted the summer-house interview to terminate. It was somewhat galling to recall the tameness with which she had allowed a Shouting Methodist such a last word as that, entirely unreproved. Because unreproved, the staggering word had stuck fast; in spite of all efforts, it remained as a considerable irritation in the background of her mind. Many times she had resolved that, if she ever saw the man again (which seemed unlikely, as nobody appeared ever to have heard of him), she would make a point of saying something pretty sharp and definite to him, showing him how little she cared for the opinions of such as he. And then, at other times, she decided that it might be best simply to ignore the man altogether, turning her back with dignity, after perhaps one look such as would completely show him up. Let sleeping dogs lie, as they say....
She rose, in excellent spirits, shortly after noon, and began an unhurried toilet. The toilet was so unhurried, indeed, that she had hardly finished and descended to the family sitting-room on the second floor when her father's latch-key was heard clicking in the front door. This sound was the unofficial luncheon-gong. The House of Heth proceeded to the dining-room, where Mr. Heth kissed his daughter's cheek in jocund greeting.
"Good-afternoon, Cally! And you just up--well, well! Times have changed--
"'Early to bed, early to rise--That makes us all healthy,Wise and wealthy--'
"That was my father's rule, and Lord, he kept us to it...."
Mrs. Heth, already seated, bit her lip slightly, which seemed to confer prominence upon her little mustache. Her consort's habit of quoting, and especially of misquoting, was trying to her, but she now knew it to be incurable, like her daughter's occasional mannerism. She sat as usual rather silent, plotting out the next few hours of her busy time, her remarks being chiefly of a superfluous managerial nature to that thoroughly competent African, Moses Bruce.
Carlisle, having so lately risen, ate but adéjeuner. Mr. Heth, on the contrary, attacked the viands with relish, restoring waste tissues from two directors' meetings, a meeting of the Convention Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and an hour in his office at the bank. He was a full-bodied, good-looking, amiable-mannered man, of sound stock and excellent digestion, and wore white waistcoats the year round, and fine blond mustaches, also the year round. He certainly did not look to the casual eye like a shameless homicide, but rather like an English country gentleman given to dogs. He was fifty-four years old, a hard worker for all his indolent eye, and his favorite diversion was about twelve holes of golf on Sunday morning, and his next favorite one table of bridge by night in the library across the hall.
Greetings over, Mr. Heth said "Catch!" to his wife and daughter, referring to the ten-dollar goldpieces from the directors, and remarked that he hadn't been near the Works for two mornings, and that money made the mare go. A sober look touched his fresh-colored face as he voiced these observations, but then he was tired and hungry, and nobody noticed the look anyway. This fashion of the 1.30 luncheon had been one of the earliest of their Yankee innovations which had caused the rising Heths to be viewed with alleged alarm by ante-bellum critics, dear old poorhouse Tories who pretended that they wanted only to live as their grandsires had lived. The Heths, unterrified, and secure from the afternoon torpor inflicted on up-to-date in'ards by slave-time régime, dispatched the exotic meal with the cheerfulness of Property.
"Effete, Cally,--that's what this age is," said Mr. Heth, pushing back his chair, and producing his gold toothpick. "Everybody looking for somebody else's neck to hang on to. And makin' a lot of grafters out of our poor class. Look at this Labor Commissioner and his new-fangled nonsense. Nagging me to spend Lord knows how many thousands, making the plant pretty and attractive for the hands. Voted for the fellow, too."
"I never heard of such a thing. What sort of things does he want you to do, papa?"
"Turkish baths and manicures and chicken sandwiches, I guess. I don't listen to his rot. Law's good enough for me. Point I make is that's the spirit of the poor nowadays. I pay 'em wages that would have been thought enormous a hundred years ago, but are they satisfied? Not on your life!..."
Winter sunshine, filtering in through cream-colored curtains, touched upon those refinements with which the prosperous civilize and decorate the brutal need: upon silver, growing flowers, glittering glass, agreeable open spaces, and fine old mahogany. It was an exceptionally pleasant room. The Heths might be "improbable people," as Mrs. Berkeley Page was known to have said on a certain occasion and gone unrebuked, but their material taste was clearly above reproach. And all this was to their credit, proving efficiency in the supreme art, that of living. For the Heths, of course, were not rich at all as the word means nowadays: they were far indeed from being the richest people in that town. Their merit it was that they spent all they had, and sometimes a little more; and few persons lived who could surpass Mrs. Heth in getting a dollar's worth of results for each dollar expended....
Carlisle and her father chatted pleasantly about the remarkable spirit of the poor, and the world's maudlin sentiment towards it and them. The lovely maid professed herself completely puzzled by these problems.
"We're always giving them money," she pointed out, spooning a light dessert in a tall glass, "or getting up bazaars for them, or sending them clothes that have lots more wear in them. And what do they do in return, besides grumble and riot and strike and always ask for more? And they stay poor just the same. What is going to happen, papa?"
Mr. Heth lit a cigar--not one of the famous Heth Plantation Cheroots. He requested Cally not to askhim.
"Never be satisfied," said he, "till they strip us of everything we've worked our lives away earning. They'll ride in our motor-cars and we'll sit in their workhouse. That'll be nice, won't it? How'll plain little girls like that, eh?"
She was the apple of papa's eye; and she rather enjoyed hearing him talk of his manifold business activities, which was a thing he was not too often encouraged to do. To-day the master of the Works was annoyed into speech by recent nagging: not merely from the Commissioner of Labor, but from the Building Inspector, who had informally stopped him on the street that morning....
"Don't you think, papa," Carlisle said sweetly, "that it will all end in something like the French Revolution?"
Mr. Heth thought it extremely likely.
"Well," said he, "I shan't be bothered by their college folderol. O'Neill's easy enough managed. All I need to do is invite him and Missus O. to dinner."
"Who's O'Neill?" demanded Mrs. Heth, gliding in.
For the second time during the meal, she had been absent from the table, on a telephone call. She always answered these summonses personally, regardless of when they came, appearing to fear that otherwise she might miss something.
"And who," she added, "is going to invite him to dinner?"
Mr. Heth explained, and said that nobody was. He'd only mentioned the possibility if the fellow ever got troublesome, which was most unlikely. His wife was a climber--social bug, you know. "Pays to know your man, eh, Cally?..."
"I should say! And O'Neill's wife manages him?"
"Don't they always?" said he, pinching her little pink ear. And thereupon he bethought himself of a thoroughly characteristic quotation, which he rendered right jovially:
"'Pins and needles, pins and needles,When a man marries, his trouble begins,'
"As the fellow says," concluded Mr. Heth; and so departed for The Fourth National Bank. Mrs. Heth, reminding her daughter about being fresh for the afternoon, glided to her writing-desk in the library. Carlisle confronted three hours of leisure before the prospective Great Remeeting. She went to the telephone, and called up her second-best girl-friend, Evelyn McVey. It developed that she had nothing special to say to Evey, or Evey to her. However, they talked vivaciously for twenty minutes, while operators reported both lines "busy" and distant people were annoyed and skeptical.
That done, Carlisle went to the upstairs sitting-room, and sat by the fire reading a Christmas magazine, which had come out on Guy Fawkes day, the 5th of November. Presently she slipped off her pumps the better to enjoy the heat: and assuredly there is nothing surprising in that. It is moral certainty that Queens and Empresses (if we knew all) dearly love to sit in their stocking-feet at times, and frequently do so when certain that the princesses-in-waiting and lady companions of the bath are not looking. The telephone interrupted Carlisle twice, but she toasted her arched and silken little insteps well, read three stories, and thought that one of them was quite sweet. Where she got her hands and feet she often wondered. They were so clearly neither Heth nor Thompson. By this time her unwearied mother had gone out to "get in" three or four calls; also an important Charities engagement at Mrs. Byrd's, where Carlisle was to call for her in the car at five o'clocksharp, for their visit to the Bellingham. Carlisle now became conscious of a void, and ate five chocolates from a large adjacent box of them, the gift of J. Forsythe Avery. Then she yawned delicately, and picked up "Sonnets from the Portuguese" (by Mrs. Browning); for she, it must be remembered, had a well-rounded ideal, and believed that it was your duty to cultivate your mind. Life isn't all parties and beaux, as she sometimes remarked to Mattie Allen....
There came a knock upon the door, breaking the thread of culture. The seneschal Moses entered, announcing callers, ladies, in the drawing-room. Carlisle sighed; recalled herself to actuality. After glancing at the cards, she conceded the injudiciousness of saying that she was out, and told Moses to announce that she would be down in a moment. She kept the callers waiting twenty moments, however, while, in her own room, she made ready for the street. She was donning a hat which in shape and size was not unlike a man's derby; it was of black velvet, lined under the brim with old-blue, and edged with a piping of dark-brown fur. At a certain point in or on it, there stuck up two stiff straight blue plumes. The hat was simply absurd, wildly laughable and ridiculous, up to the moment when she got it on; then it was seen that it had a certain merit after all. It was a calling-costume (as one believes) that Carlisle assumed for the Bellingham; a blue costume, of a soft material which had been invented only about a month before, and which was silk or satin, according as you looked at it, but certainly did not shine much. The coat, or jacket or wrap, which completed the suit was arresting in design, to say no more of it. Less original were the muff and stole of darkest sable; but they were beautiful.
Carlisle, it need hardly be said, went downstairs in her hat. "Oh," the visiting ladies would say, "but you are going out." "Oh, not for half an hour yet," she would protest. "I'msoglad you came."
About 4.30, J. Forsythe Avery, who had no office hours, was ushered into the stately Heth drawing-room. The lady callers withdrew promptly, but not so promptly as to make it too pointed. It was generally believed at this time that Miss Heth "had an understanding" with Mr. Avery, though it was quite well known that she, personally, much preferred young Robert Tellford. The figure, however, at which a famous life insurance company commanded Robert's undivided services made him a purely academic interest. With J. Forsythe the case was totally different: from the environs of his native Mauch Chunk the Avery forbears had dug principal and interest in enormous quantities.
J. Forsythe remained for twenty minutes, the period named when he had telephoned. Having failed to secure any extension of time, he went away, and Carlisle skipped upstairs to look in the mirror, and put on the concluding touches indicated above. Descending and emerging into the winter sunset, she sent the waiting car on ahead to the Byrds', and set out to do the five blocks afoot. Exercise makes pink cheeks.
It was a splendid afternoon, sharp and clear as a silver bell. Carlisle walked well, especially when one considers the sort of shoes she wore: she had the good free stride of one who walks for the joy of it and not because that is the only conceivable way to get somewhere. Nevertheless, just as she reached the Byrd doorstep, she was overhauled by the Cooneys, her poor but long-stepping relatives. There were only two of them this time, Henrietta and Charles, better known, from one end of the town to the other, as Hen and Chas.
The Cooneys, who were young people of about her own age, greeted Carlisle with their customary simple gaiety. Both exclaimed over her striking attire, Charles adding to his sister:
"Let Uncle Dudley stand next to Cally there, Hen--I'm better-looking than you, anyway."
"I'd like to see a vote on that first. Recognizemine, Cally?" cried Hen--"the brown you gave me last fall? First appearance since I steamed and turned it. It'll stand a dye next year, too. But we haven't seen you for a long time, my dear. Did you know Aunt Rose Hopwood's staying with us now?"
"Oh, is she? I hadn't heard, Hen. How is she?"
"She's bad off," said Chas, cheerfully. "Deaf, lame, and cruel poverty's hit her right at her old home address. I guess she'll come live with us later on. Come walk out to King's Bridge for an appetite."
Carlisle, with an impatient foot on the Byrds' bottom step, glanced from Chas to Hen, smiling a little. Her cousins were well-meaning young people, and she liked them in a way, but she often found their breezy assurance somewhat amusing.
"Thank you, Chas," said she, "but I've an engagement with mamma. I'm to pick her up here now. I hope Aunt Molly's well?"
"Fine," said Hen. "Come and see us, Cally. Why don't you come to supper to-morrow night?"
The lovely cousin obviously hesitated.
"Aw, Cally doesn't want to come yell in Aunt Rose Hopwood's trumpet, Hen--"
"Aunt Rose Hopwood's going home to-morrow."
"First I've heard of it. Frankly I doubt your word."
For that Hen idly smote Chas's shins with her silver-handled umbrella (Carlisle's gift three Christmases before), at which Chas criedouchin such a manner as to attract the attention of bystanders. Henrietta liked this umbrella very much and commonly carried it, like a cane, through all droughts.
"But," said she, reconsidering, "I think Hortense'll be off to-morrow, that's so. Well, come the first soon night you feel like it--"
Carlisle had been doing some considering also, her conscience pricking her on account of the cousinly duty, long overdue.
"I've an engagement to-morrow--so sorry," she said, rather hastily. "But how about one night early next week, say--Thursday, if that would suit--?"
Chas and Hen agreed that it would do perfectly. Pot-luck at seven. Sorry she wouldn't walk on with them. Bully day for Shanks's mares. And so forth....
Carlisle, an eye-catching figure in her calling costume (assuming that this is what it was) glanced after her poor relations from the Byrds' vestibule, and was amused by her thought. How exactly like the Cooneys' lively cheek (and nobody else's) to propose a country walk with them as a perfectly satisfactory substitute for an hour'stête-à-têtewith Hugo Canning!
How the Great Parti, pursued or pursuing to Cousin Willie Kerr's apartment, begins thundering again.
Bellingham Court was the very newest of those metropolitan-looking apartment hotels which the rapid growth and complicating "standards" of the city was then calling into being. It was on the most fashionable street, Washington, in one of the most fashionable parts of it. And it had bell-boys, onyxine vestibules, and hot and cold water in nearly every room.
It also had a fat black hall-porter in a conductor's uniform, and this functionary informed Mrs. Heth that Mr. Kerr was momentarily detained at the bank, but had telephoned orders that any callers he might have were to be shown right up. The Heth ladies were shown right up.
Willie's new apartment consisted of a sitting-room, a fair-sized bedroom, and a very small bath. About the sitting-room the ladies wandered, glancing disinterestedly at the Kerr Penates. Presently Mrs. Heth opened doors and peeped into what lay beyond.
"It's a good thing he's small," said she. "H'm, that thing looks like a foot-tub."
Carlisle, looking over her mother's shoulder, laughed. "You couldn't splash about much.... You shave at that, I suppose."
"I don't. One shaves. There's a better apartment he could have got for the same price, but manlike he didn't find it out till too late. What's this--bedroom?... Yes, there's the bed."
They stepped back into the sitting-room, and Carlisle, strolling aimlessly about, became a little silent and distrait.
It is possibly true, as crusty single-men affirm, that a certain solacing faculty inheres in beautiful ladies: the faculty, namely, of explaining all apparently unwelcome situations upon theories quite flattering to themselves. But Carlisle surely needed no such make-believe in this moment of rather excited expectancy.
Of course she knew well enough what inferences Evey and Mattie, for instance (in both of whom there was a certain amount of the cat), would have drawn from the fact that Mr. Canning, last month, had not seemed to follow up in anyway their very interesting meeting at the Beach. She alone knew the real circumstances, however, and it had become quite clear to her that Mr. Canning's demeanor was only what was to be expected. He was the proudest of men, and (that awful night at the Beach) she had expelled him from her presence like a schoolboy. Naturally he had been annoyed and offended--stung even into the rudeness of abandoning her in a summer-house to an entire stranger. How could you possibly wonder (unless feline) that he, great unsocial at best, had thereafter remained silent inside his fort?...
"How like a man," breathed Mrs. Heth, glancing at her watch, "to pick out this day of all others to be detained at a bank."
She had sat down in one of the bachelor chairs, to take her weight from her feet, which hurt her by reason of new shoes half a size too small. The sitting-room was pleasant enough in a strictly orthodox fashion, and was illuminated by an electric-lamp on the black centre-table. Mrs. Heth, who had helped Willie with his furnishings, had considered it the prettiest electrolier that fourteen dollars would buy in the town during the week before last. Carlisle had come to a halt before the bookcase. It was a mission-oak case, with leaded glass doors. For the moment it might be said to represent rather the aspirations of a bibliophile than their fulfilment, since it contained but seven books, huddled together on the next-to-the-top shelf. Carlisle swung open the door, and examined the Kerr library title by title: "Ben Hur," "The Little Minister," "Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" (from his loving Grandma--Xmas 1904), "Droll Tales," "Religio Medici" (Grandma again--Xmas 1907), "The Cynic's Book of Girls"--
Carlisle laughed merrily. "Willie has two copies of 'The Cynic's Book of Girls.'... I'd never thought of him as a divil with the women somehow."
"He could never get Helen Tellford tolookat him."
"'Religio Medici.' Is it religious or medical? It might be either, by my Latin."
"One of those faith-healing things, I suppose. Emmanuel Movement. I'd sit down if I were you.... Ah! There's Willie at last. Mind, Carlisle,--don't you hear the steps?"
"Well, we're invited to look at his things--aren't--"
Her careless voice died, as both together became aware that these could not possibly be the steps of a proprietor. The approaching feet halted decorously without, and instead of the door's bursting open there came only a manly knock upon it. Carlisle looked at her mother, and found that her mother was looking at her with quite a tense expression. This certainly was not the way they had wanted things to happen....
"Possibly it's only a tradesman," murmured Mrs. Heth, with hope; and she added in a commanding voice: "Come in."
The door opened, with a certain stately dubiousness. Full on the threshold stood Mr. Hugo Canning, no less: an impressive presence in loose motor-coat of black fur. Mr. Canning stood agaze; it was to be seen that he was taken considerably by surprise.
For the smallest known fraction of a second, the tableau held. Then action began, dashingly.
"Why, Mr. Canning!" cried Mrs. Heth, heartily, rising. "What a very pleasant surprise! So you're back with us again? Delightful!"
Mr. Canning came forward; he bowed with fine civility over the proffered hand, voicing great pleasure in this remeeting. And then his eye went flitting, with a certain interrogativeness, from mother to daughter.
"Such an agreeable coincidence," beamed the good little lady. "Or perhaps this is not your first visit here, like ours? When did you return? Carlisle...."
Carlisle, having forgotten more about the Great Game than her mother would ever know, was far from effusive. Advancing half a step from the bookcase, and offering the tips of white-gloved fingers, she said, smiling perfunctorily:
"How nice to see you. And Willie Kerr, our very delinquent host,--do you bring us news of him?"
"I'm told that he's unluckily detained downtown. But, indeed, it's charming to find you awaiting him too, Miss Heth."
Mrs. Heth sparkled, and declaimed of Willie's remissness. Canning stood in the middle of the floor, hat and stick under his arm, looking without pretences at Carlisle. Under the agreeable indifference of his seemingly amused eye, she felt her color mounting, which only brightened her loveliness. Perhaps it was not quite so easy to maintain the reasoning of beautiful ladies here on the firing-line, as in the maidenly cloister at home.
"Why are men the unreliable sex, Mr. Canning?" said she, laughing. "Here Willie begs us for days to visit him at his rooms--I believe he thinks there's something rather gay and wicked about it, you know, though mamma picked them out for him!--and assures us on his honor as a banker that he is in every afternoon by five at the very latest. So we inconvenience ourselves and come. And now--look!"
"At what, Miss Heth? I trust nothing serious has happened?"
"Ah, but our time is so valuable, you see. We must leave without even saying how-do-you-do. Don't you think so, mamma?"
"So it seems," said Mrs. Heth, and sank into a chair.
Canning smiled.
"Very pleasant little diggings he has here," he observed casually--"my first glimpse of them. I happened to be coming in town on business, and Kerr invited me particularly to drop in to see them, at half after five sharp."
"Really! Howveryfortunate we are! But, oh, why didn't you come a little earlier and charitably help us through the wait? We've had nothing on earth to do but read and reread 'The Cynic's Book of Girls.'"
"Had I ventured to hope that you were to be here," said he, with a little bow--and was there the slightest, most daring stress upon the pronouns?--"you may be sure I should have arrived long ago."
Carlisle, dauntless, looked full at him and laughed audaciously.
"I recall you now as a maker of the very prettiest speeches. And the worst of it is--Ilike them!... Mamma," she added, with fine, gay courage, "it is sad to go just as the guests arrive. Yet don't you think, really--"
"I'm afraid we must, my dear. Willie's evidently--"
But the need for tactics was fortunately at an end. If Carlisle had drawn it rather fine, it was yet not too fine. The door flew open, and in bounded Willie. Destiny climbed to the wheel once more.
Willie, though heated with hurry and worry, handled the situation loyally and well, expressing just the right amount of surprise at the coincidental assemblage, in just the right places. Of his detention at the bank (where, as we may infer from his long incumbency, he discharged a tellership to the complete satisfaction of the depositing public), he spoke in bitter detail.
"If you'll excuse the French, ma'am," he summed up, "a man might's well be in hell as ten cents out."
"Why, I do think, Willie," said Mrs. Heth, "that rather than take all that trouble, I should simply have paid the ten cents from my own pocket and said no more about it."
But even Willie, perfect host though he was, did not see his way clear at the moment to explaining the banking system to a lady.
"You might call it sporting pride, ma'am," he said, patiently, and proposed a little tour of the rooms.
The tour, in the nature of the case, was a little one, almost a fireside tour, and soon over. Willie simply did not have the material to spin it out indefinitely. Then refreshments were hospitably insisted on: tea--muffins--something of that sort, you know--and Willie cried down his order through the telephone, which had already been duly admired--one in every room, etc. Next from a hidden cubby he produced siphon-water, glasses, and a black bottle of Scotch. Needed it, said he--digging two hours for ten cents out.
"Like the quarters, hey, Canning? Gad, may move again. Man across the hall--bigger rooms--wants to sublet. Like you to look at 'em sometime, Cousin Isabel. Say, Cousin Isabel, by the bye," he added, expertly putting ice into three glasses, "ran down that chap V. Vivian for you, just now. Fact. Old Sleuth Kerr--catches 'em alive. He's Armistead Beirne's nephew--just turned up here--what d'you think of that?"
"Mr. Beirne'snephew!" echoed Carlisle Heth, without the slightest strategy.
"Vivian? Who onearth, Willie?" demanded Mrs. Heth, puzzled; and looked, not at Willie, but at Carlisle.
"Don't you remember?--chap that wrote that fierce slush attackin' the Works, month or so ago? That's the bird.--Got rye right here, if you prefer it, Canning.--Walked a block with him and old Beirne just now. Remember Amy Beirne--eloped with some inventor fellow--what's his name--oh, sure, Vivian, haha! Lived in Alabama. Here's regards."
Mrs. Heth now recalled the name, and also having asked Willie, long since, to identify it. However, she thought the topic just a little inopportune at the moment.
"Ah, yes. Mr. Beirne's nephew--well! I hope you made thisverymild, indeed, Willie? You know I rarely consent to.... He might be better employed, one would think, than vilifying the Works, but there's no accounting for tastes, as I always say."
"Just water with a dash, ma'am. Oh, he's one of these slumming chaps, seems--kind of a Socialist, y' know--"
"The Works?" queried Mr. Canning. "Ah, yes! Mr. Heth's--of course! Is a cigarette permitted?..."
Carlisle, who had been gazing into the fire and acquiring information, roused. "Oh, here's your tea, Willie!" said she. "How very good it looks!"
Unlike mamma, she did not in the least mind Mr. Canning's hearing mention of the Works, even under attack. Shame at trade was not in her: she was confidently proud of the great mute author of her brilliant being. And it was by this pride, dating back many years and untouched by any late personal impression, that no "attack" could gain standing in her mind. At seven, she had one day asked her father, "Papa, whatarethe Works?"--and papa had smiled and answered, "It's the place where all our money comes from." To this day, her mind's eye called up a great white marble palace, something like the New York Public Library, only bigger, from the front of which, through an enormous cornucopia, poured a ceaseless flood of golden dollars....
"I've no patience with Socialism," said Mrs. Heth, rising. "Where do you want your things put, Willie? Divide all our property up equally with the lazy and drunken classes, to-day, and by to-morrow the hard-working, well-to-do people would have won every bit of it back again. I'm surprised everybody can't see that, aren't you, Mr. Canning?"
"I'm astonished at their blindness," said Canning, gazing at the floor. "Vivian is clearly off his chump at all points."
"That's right--screw loose," said Willie, genially. "Set 'em here, boy. From the feller's literary style, I'd expected a regular riproarin' fire-eater. Gad, no! Face like a child's, kinder cute-lookin'! Fact. Polite as peaches. You pour, Carlisle, will you?"
The folding-table was set. The tea-things were tenderly arranged upon it by the dusky waiter. The little company moved and shifted. Host Kerr surveyed the pleasant scene with no little secret pride of proprietorship. His room--his tea the ripping-looking girl was serving on his patent table--his hireling just backing out of the door.... However, his also was the manifest duty in the premises; and, bestirring himself, he fetched tea and cakes for Mrs. Heth and invited her to sit with him beside the mission-oak bookcase.
Canning had dropped into a chair near the fireplace, one yard from the tea-table. He wore without concealment the air of waiting to be entertained. Carlisle poured, and thought that in ten minutes, or at most fifteen, this would be all over: if the presenttête-à-têtewas to lead to another, and so on through a gorgeous climacteric sequence, it was now, or it was never. Here was an exciting thought, with stage-fright possibilities to some; but Carlisle, confident through her many testimonials, merely smiled prettily and asked Mr. Canning if he would not take one or more of the cunning little pink cakes. It appeared that Mr. Canning would; pink, he said, was his color.
"I believe we parted rather suddenly," said Carlisle, continuing to smile a little to herself, "the last time I had this pleasure. Do you remember?"
He desired to know if she could possibly conceive his memory to be so short.
"I was immensely mortified," said she, "to learn that I had given you a cold--it was a cold, wasn't it?--or whooping-cough?--by keeping you so long in the night air that evening. I've worried so about it all these weeks.AmI too late to inquire?"
"I kick myself to have gone away leaving you anxious," said Canning, with entire gravity. "The attack, as it chanced, was transitory. There was no coughing--whooping or otherwise. The trouble was purely localized, in the head, and--"
"In the imagination, might one almost say?"
"In the head. You must have heard somewhere of cold in the head? A well-known though unfashionable complaint, throughout the north. I, on the other hand, was much troubled about you, whom I was compelled, by your command, to leave to the mercies of the nocturnal caller. However, Kerr assured me, before I was obliged to go away, that you had come through alive and uninjured."
"Ah, but did I?"... She added, after a brief pause: "Should you call a biting lecture on one's shortcomings from a strange man no injury?"
"But surely, speaking to that topic alone, my supplanter could not have spun it out for two hours, while I, luckless one, tramped alone on the piazza."
"Two hours?... As I say," Carlisle laughed at him, nibbling a little pink cake, "I like your pretty speeches."
The fire crackled merrily. The masculine paraphernalia stood, convenient. Canning stretched out an indolent but man's sized hand and refilled his glass. From across the room Kerr's voice sounded, conveying enthusiasm founded on the solid rock of patience:
"And this little poem about roses and how cold your nose is--I must really show you that, ma'am. Spicy, you know! And the witty picture!"
"I'll compromise on an hour," said Canning. "And what hideous foibles did the visitor charge you with to banish me that long?"
"With being quite heartless."
"Oh."
"With having nothing inside to be kind with. For these reasons he felt quite sorry for me."
"Ah! Is it possible that you could remembermysuggesting, just a thought before him--"
"I do remember. But, you see, this man is quite crazy. I suspected it then, but I know it now, for you said so not five minutes ago."
Canning looked at her.
"Your words," said Carlisle, "were that he was off his chump at all points. I hope mamma isn't listening, for she doesn't like me to use slang, and will not believe me when I say the men teach it to me."
"Oh!... WasthatVivian!"
Carlisle nodded. "It makes it all quite interesting, doesn't it? To be felt sorry for by a man who writes really wicked attacks on one's father's perfectly lovely business. Only I knew all along he wasn't really quite right.... I hope you've had a very happy trip?"
"Thank you. I don't believe I have, particularly."
"Oh, I'm sorry!... Have you suffered at all from the blues, since you got well of the cold and escaped at midnight from your little fort?"
Canning continued to look at her.
"I've felt lonely," said he, "when the moon shines bright."
"You?"
A knock fell upon the door, making all look up; and Kerr bustling forward, first opened the door, and then stepped out into the hall. He returned in a moment, his round face puckered dubiously.
"It's Johnson," he explained--"chap across the hall, with the better apartment. Wanted to show it to me now. He's living down the river, and's going off in half an hour. H'm. Well, guess I better let it go till the next time he's in."
"Don't mind us, old chap," said Canning, without hesitation.
"If you wanted mamma to look at it with you, Willie? Perhaps--"
Mrs. Heth was already on her feet.
"Nonsense, Willie! Of course get the man while he's here--andI'mhere too! Across the hall?--it won't take us five minutes--"
"All right'm--thank you," agreed Willie, with evident pleasure. He added, smiling roguishly: "You two be trusted five minutes without a chaperon?"
Carlisle laughed dazzlingly.
"Five years, Willie. Mr. Canning is absolutely safe."
Mrs. Heth, saying archly that they would not absent themselves quite so long as that, glided out. Willie followed, engrossed in Johnson. The door was left half open. Johnson was presented. Their voices died away across and down the hall....
A momentary silence fell upon Mr. Canning and Carlisle, thus deserted in the Kerr sitting-room. It appeared to embarrass neither. Having risen, Canning stood at the mantel, sipping his Scotch and looking down at her. Carlisle went on cutting bread and butter, or something of that sort. She felt agreeably excited. In the manner of the shining passer-by she had observed just that progressiveness noted on the occasion of their two other meetings: faintly ironic boredom yielding slowly to passive interest, passive interest warming steadily....
She had taken off her coat, at Kerr's solicitation; she sat with lowered lashes, the glow of the fire upon her cheek. To what measure she engaged and intrigued the eye, Mr. Canning had had seven weeks to forget. No dull wit, we may suppose, in appreciation of feminine masterpieces, he seemed to see it suddenly with some force now, standing and sipping the pleasurable Scotch. And he began to speak in a voice not previously heard in Kerr's apartment.
"Lonely, Miss Heth, when the moon shines bright--blue, too, now that I think of it.--You are good enough to ask if I've had a happy trip. Happy!... Weeks of moping from dull place to duller, months ditto staring one in the face, and for this present--the rural villa of one's estimable cousins, with the sun and the stars for company. Really does it seem such a trifle to you to be plucked up by the ears from one's environment, transplanted bodily league on league, and set down on an empty road four miles from nowhere?"
"Nowhere? You are cruel, Mr. Canning. Four miles travelled in the right direction might bring you to a good deal. Only mountains never really come to Mahomets, not in life."
"Ah, but I'm no Mahomet in these months, alas! to scale mountains or not as the whim strikes me. If I were!... But no, no!--my sentence, you see, is expressly to avoid all mountain-climbing with whatever else is pleasant--to play the invalid, to rest, breathe deep, sleep and coddle. And for excitement--it is my revered mother's own suggestion--why, write a book if I like--my impressions of the New South, or any other reason why! Write a book! What have I to do with writing, think I, of a long morning or a longer night! I'm no scrivening professor, but blood and flesh.... You couldn't imagine the number of times I've been tempted to chuck all the mild climate tomfoolery, and cut away for lights and home!"
Carlisle gazed up at him, her chin upon her ungloved hand. Was there pose in these depictions of Mr. Hugo Canning as a morose recluse? She thought not: his light bitterness rang true enough, the note of a man really half-desperate with ennui. And she read his remarks as a subtle sign of his confidence, an acknowledgment of acquaintance between them, a bond....
"But you can't do it, I suppose?--if your health demands that you put up with us a little while longer?"
"I seem rude?--of course. But my meaning is quite the contrary.... May you, Miss Heth, never know the sorrows of the transplanted and the idle--"
He broke off, staring with apparent absentness.
Much interested, Carlisle said, toying with her teaspoon:
"I didn't think you rude at all. It seems to me perfectly natural that you should be both bored and blue--especially if you don't feel quite well.... But surely a little mild pleasuring during rest hours isn't forbidden as injurious to throats?"
"A little?"
"Of course you think we haven't much to offer, but really there issomeamusement to be had here. Really! Perhaps a little gambolling now and then--"
"My curse," said Canning, turning his dark eyes down upon her, "is that I can't learn when to stop. Once I begin, I am never satisfied till I've gambolled all over the place."
Carlisle's eyes fell before his gaze. "This," said she, drawing on a glove, "is a small place."
"You appear to invite me to gambol?"
"I? Oh, no! These are matters that men decide for themselves."
"Possibly the fact is that you invite without desiring to do so."
"Then what," said she, suddenly laughing up at him, "should I have to think of your rudeness in declining my invitation all these days?"
She rose on that, looking about for coat and furs.
"But you must not think of going," said Canning, instantly.
The thundering of his feet grew very audible now.
"The instant mamma comes back. She is staying a long time, isn't she? Do you realize that we've been here hours and hours, and that it looks like midnight outdoors?"
"Still, it would be a satisfaction to finish one conversation with you. We seem to remain all beginnings."
"What end is there to such conversations as this, Mr. Canning?"
"Conversations end in many ways, Miss Heth. I have known them to end like journeys."
The man left the fire, advanced to her side, took the modish wrap from her hands. But he did not at once offer to hold it for her. He stood two feet away from her, and a gleam came into his eyes, faint and a little cold.
"But I wonder," said he, musingly, "if what two men told you in a summer-house one night isn't quite true, after all."
"That I have no heart, you mean?"
"And don't know the meaning of being kind. Easter lilies are pretty on a tomb, but they were never my favorite flowers."
"No," she said, "it is not true. My heart is here"--she touched the place--"it is large--and I am, oh, very, very kind."
"You are rather adorable, you know," said his abrupt voice. "Here is your coat."
She was warm to the eye, animating, of an exquisite figure. Her nearness released a faint fragrance. She slipped her left arm into the sleeve he offered, and looking up at him, half over her shoulder, said with a mocking little laugh:
"Andyouknow that kind-hearted girls are always awfully credulous.... I sweep you off your feet. My eyesintoxicateyou, drive youmad!Go on. I've told you that I like your pretty speeches."
"I do not always stop with speeches--you wild, sweet thing...."
So Mr. Canning; and with that speech he did in fact stop most abruptly, and at once turned a step away. In the sharp brief silence, Carlisle put on her other sleeve for herself.
From the hall, almost at the door, it seemed, had sounded the brisk approaching voices of Mrs. Heth and Kerr; presumably also of Johnson. Destiny, having had its way with their absence, was returning them upon the dot. In the sitting-room, talk of such matters as Miss Heth's wild sweetness necessarily came to a sudden conclusion.
The big man lounged with folded arms. His look was slightly annoyed.
"One more beginning, and you have your way again, after all! This becomes a habit," said he, with his faint ironic note. "Miss Heth, I am as you say quite dull and safe: the dullest of all creatures, a play valetudinarian, bored to ill-manners at times, as you have observed, by large overdoses of my own society. Could you take pity on me? Could you and Mrs. Heth give me the pleasure of dining with me, and Kerr, at the Arlington, perhaps,--or wherever else you may prefer,--on the first evening you can spare for deeds of mercy?"
Carlisle looked at him, buttoning her glove. Her lips smiled; but in truth she was a little unsteadied by the exciting moment just passed through, by the buoyant sense of triumph welling up within her. Were not all men, however exalted or difficult, alike her playthings at her pleasure?
"Of course I shall first beg," added Mr. Canning, "to be permitted to pay my respects to you and Mrs. Heth--might I say to-morrow afternoon at five?"
"We shall be so glad to see you, if you care to come," said Carlisle, looking away from him. "As to dining, that would be very nice, of course,--but are you sure your health would--"
"Oh, confound my health!" cried the great hermit. "Promise me now that you will never speak the word in my presence again."
"I promise.... Only really--if my invitation to gambol should lead you to--"
"You are as God made you, Miss Heth. It's not your fault that you invite."
He gave her a look, and, turning, swung wide the door for the chaperon.