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 to _look_ at 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! How _very_ fortunate 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--_I_ like 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's _nephew_!" echoed Carlisle Heth, without the slightest
strategy.
"Vivian? Who on _earth_, 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 this _very_ mild,
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, what _are_
the 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 present _tête-à-tête_ was
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. _Am_ I 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 remember _my_ suggesting, 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!... Was _that_ Vivian!"
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--and _I'm_ here
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 is
_some_ amusement 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:
"And _you_ know that kind-hearted girls are always awfully credulous....
I sweep you off your feet. My eyes _intoxicate_ you, drive you _mad!_ 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.