"Yes, yes; come in. But this is rather serious. I confess I--don't see
how it's going to work out...."
The door opened and Kern tripped in with a little kick, and a flash and
tinkle of jewelry at neck and waist. She never merely walked when it was
possible to dance.
"My regular shirts," said the young man, standing on the floor and
brushing his hair with a worried hand, "have the buttons sewed on, of
course.... Seems to me O'Neill might have thought of this contingency."
Kern repressed a desire to giggle at Doctor's air of helplessness, and
controlled her itching feet. She was not wanting in the resourcefulness
of the poor.
"I'll get you studs, Mr. V.V.," said she, eagerly. "Less see
now--where'll I get 'em?... I'll get 'em at Lazarus's--that's where!
I'll have 'em here in five minutes, and right in your shirt."
Lazarus? Why, they shut up at six o'clock. Yes, but Willie Walter, he
slept behind the counter, and was abed right now, on account of getting
up so early. Just let her bang the door in the alley a couple of times,
that was all. Moreover, Walter being obliging, it agreeably developed
that the studs would come as a temporary loan, if desired. An evening's
wear out of them, and then back on the card and into stock again, the
same as new, and nobody the wiser. Lazarus would do the same.
"It's very nice of you, Corinne," said the young man, picking up the
suitcase again. "Something in pearl or plain gold, perhaps. Come
straight back now. I don't like at all for you to be running the streets
at night--"
"Maybe I won't come back at all," said Kern, improvising a barn dance
about the long office. "Maybe I'll run off with a count and go to Europe
on a steamer like, and have mand'lins played under my winder by
moonlight, and sit at a gool' writin'-desk all day and make up po'try."
"That would be rather hard on the count, wouldn't it?" said Mr. V.V.,
absently; and added at once: "What makes you do that?"
"Stitch in me side," said she, impishly. "Machineetis, _I_ call it. Like
'pendicitis, y' know? It's gone now. I don't get tired when I dance."
Kern had a quantity of dark brown hair, covered now by a picture hat
supporting a base red imitation of a willow plume; she put on the hat
every night nowadays, whether she was going out or not. By two years'
steady practice she was esteemed one of the best operatives in the Heth
Cheroot Works; but her new passion in life was to learn from Mr. V.V.
what it was to be a lady. Dearly as Kern loved beads, pins, buckles, and
all that shone and glittered, her particular desire for Christmas had
been a Netiquette and Complete Letter Writer, and this Mr. V.V. had duly
obtained for her, though it had run to a dollar and a quarter. The
little girl might have been any age or no age; she was unformed for her
years, somewhat elfin of countenance, and thin in the cheek. On one of
these cheeks, Dr. Vivian now laid the back of his hand, and told Kern to
stick out her tongue. She did it as she did everything (except
cheroot-making), like a game, sticking it out much farther than was
necessary and repeatedly winking her left eye.
Vivian set down the suitcase again.
"You go to bed," said he. "I'll attend to the studs."
Kern stuck back her tongue and unwinked her eye, with something like
consternation.
"I feel _very_ well, Mr. V.V.--honest! I'll get 'em and come straight
back, sir,--truly, truly!"
The young man reached for his overcoat. "I don't want you to go out
to-night. It's just the same as if you did it for me, because you want
to do it. That's what counts. Now go on to bed. You aren't well at
all, I fear."
Kern turned, much depressed. "It was me thought of Willie Walter. I
think you might lemme."
"You must do what I say, Corinne."
"Ain't I doin' it, no matter how hard it is, sir?"
"Don't call me sir, I've told you."
Kern sadly retired. However, she did not do exactly what Mr. V.V. said.
When, after forty minutes of storm and stress, he emerged from his
bedroom and shouted to Mrs. Garland to come and see him if she liked,
Kern, too, came running down the hall, still in her hat. Her interest in
the gay evening being so peculiarly strong, Vivian did not have the
heart to scold her very hard, especially as she cried ahead the promise
to go to bed the very minute he was gone. And it might be that he was
secretly rather glad to have his little friend see him in his
splendid regalia.
He stood under the chandelier in his decaying chamber, revolving himself
with complacence for the Garlands' inspection. It was O'Neill's old suit
that he had borrowed, which, as the Honorable Commissioner had pointed
out, really made a much better fit than the costly brand-new one just
from Begg's. At the first sight of their boarder in it, the two women
cried out with pleasure, likening him to dooks and dashing villains on
the stage, well seen by them from upper galleries of the past. But with
the dying of the first enthusiastic burst, Kern, the connoisseur, who
had herself been clasped by gentlemen's fulldressuits at union hops,
developed a more searching tendency. By the elbow she incited the doctor
to keep on rotating.
"There's _something_ wrong, sir, Mr. V.V., but I can't make out just
what it is."
"It's these shoes," said Mr. V.V., frankly. "I really ought to have
patent leathers to look like the rest of the bloods, but these'll do
very nicely, when I have them well shined up. I'll stop by the stand at
Ninth Street."
"This spot right in front of the coat don't look so _very_ good," said
Kern, scratching it with a small finger, which only whitened it up.
"Shuh, Kern! That!" said Mrs. Garland, who had seen the spot, but
decided to say nothing about it. "Why, hot suds and a drop ammonia'll
fade it out like sunshine, and nobody never know't was there. Wait till
I get my pan now, Doctor."
"I wisht the coat could set a little snugger round your neck, Mr. V.V.
But mercy, who cares, when you look so beautiful anyway! And you'll have
the most beautiful lady and set and talk to her, won't you, Mr. V.V.?"
"Stranger things have happened, my dear Corinne!"
"There'll be roses and violets and little pink lights and chicking salad
and conservatories and fountings all lit up. And what'll you and her
talk about, Mr. V.V., with the band playing kind of soft and settin'
behind some rubber-plants like?"
"Probably something for her own good," said Mr. V.V., with a close-set
mouth; leaving Kern to reflect that that was a funny way to talk at
a party.
Mrs. Garland rushed in with a steaming pan, and plumped down on her
knees at the unshone feet. The little girl prattled on. But the tall
doctor, on his own word, had relapsed abruptly into a brown study....
"It sags a little in front," Kern was saying. "Lemme just get my hand on
the buckle a minute. Mr. V.V., what makes you look so mad, kind of?"
The young man started a little.
"I was thinking," said he, "that life is hard at times."
"It's truth, Doctor.... Hadn't his negtie ought to be tightened up a
weeny bit, Kern, now?" said Mrs. Garland harshly, staring up from her
adoring position. "Not but _I_ think the shine of his gool'
collar-button ain't pretty...."
* * * * *
When Mr. V.V. and his gala raiment were gone, Kern skipped into his
bedroom and hastily tackled the marked disorder there prevalent. She
thought that an extra minute or so stolen for this purpose would not
really be so very wrong. Care of the rooms was strictly included in
the boarder's twenty dollars a month, but Kern was not thinking of it
that way exactly.
[Illustration: THERE'S _SOMETHING_ WRONG, SIR, MR. V.V.]
"Mommer, what makes him have that kinder sorry look all the time, I
wonder?" she said, when Mrs. Garland followed her in.
"Sorry, what you talkin' about? A pleasanter spoke gempman I never see.
Hand me them pants."
"I'll fold'em, mommer.--I don't mean speakin', but the look he's got,
just the same when he's laughin' and jokin' and all. It's the look he's
got, don't you notice, someway?"
"It's that foot o' his, I reckon. Pains him prob'ly. The mess he's left
things.... He'd ought to have a fulldressuit of his own, 'stead o'
borrowin' that fat O'Neill's."
"Mommer, if he had one, somebody 'd ask it off him. Like he gave Mister
his Sunday cutaway coat.... How'd he hurt his foot, mommer, jever
hear him say?"
"Berkler bone, _I_ hear."
They worked in silence for a time.
"I'm right tired to-night. Put 'em here in his clo'es-bag, mommer....
Don't seem it could be just his foot. Torm Hartman's leg's right off to
his hip, and he's got a fat look to him. Mr. V.V.'s sorry like he wanted
to do something, and something in him knewed all the time he
couldn't ever."
"Somep'n in him knewed--jever hear such foolishness! I'll take the broom
to this floor. You go along to bed now. Didn't I hear you promise him?"
"Mommer, I'm going. Only I druther of went to the party," said Kern.
X
A Beautiful New Year's Party, and who spoiled it, and how;
how Something is done, after all, for she tells the Man
plainly that he mustn't speak to her any more.
By eleven o'clock the festivities approached their height: even the
ultra-fashionable had arrived, even the ultra-conservative had not
departed for bed. The affair was none of your wholesale routs. Old Mr.
Beirne, who had long claimed the eve of the New Year for the hospitable
repayment of his social dues, had lived to see the list of his friends
shrink fast as Old Years ticked out. Nevertheless, the scene now was
indubitably inspiriting. Lively groups decorated all the purview. White
shirt-fronts gleamed: white shoulders did the same. The fragrance of
flowers filled the air, filled likewise with the gay hum of voices. From
behind a coppice of shrub and palm Professor Wissner's band of select
artists continually seduced the feet. Toward the dining-room regions
rose the sounds of refined conviviality. Servitors moved about with
trays. Mrs. Clicquot's product fizzed, for the proper ceremonious
induction of another year.
It was a most enlivening ensemble, full of pleasant attractions to the
senses; and through it moved Carlisle Heth, the most beautiful lady,
with a look like that of a queen in a book. In that gay company she was
the proudest figure, the object of all most captivating to the eye, save
one; and that one, an Olympian in evening dress, sauntered splendidly
at her side.
Mr. Canning to-night made his début in the local gay world. Constant as
had been his attentions for a number of days, he had hitherto held
steadfastly to his valetudinarian stand against general society. He had
gambolled, indeed, but he had gambolled strictly _à deux_. In his
present willingness to break through his invalid rules, and appear as
her acknowledged squire before the flower of her world, Carlisle's
heart had recognized the crowning proof of his interest. Small wonder if
in prospect this victorious evening had been starred in her mind in
purple and gold....
The shining pair had just arrived, lateness being reckoned very
differently in Houses of Heth and Houses of Dabney. Their brilliant
progress down the long gay room, stopped often for the giving and taking
of greetings, left behind awake of _sotto-voce_ compliment. Cally Heth,
though the familiar sight of every day, was a spectacle, or view, not
easily tired of. In a company in which most had known each other from
birth, her distinguished stranger and captive naturally drew even
keener interest.
"Look, there he is!" whispered an excited debutante. "Oh, what a
dream!..."
"I never saw Cally look better. If she were _only_ a little taller, what
a match they'd make." (This was Cally's second-best friend Evelyn McVey,
herself a tall girl.)
"Wissner ought to hit up that well-known snatch from' Lohengrin' ..."
"Certainly, Mrs. Bronson. Delighted to introduce you--introduce him,
that is. Just a little later, though. Wouldn't have me interrupt _that_,
would you?"
Thus faithful Willie Kerr, somewhat harassed by the responsibilities of
being next friend to a crown prince.
Backbiting among the well-bred murmurs there was of course. Mrs.
Berkeley Page, the hostile one who had made the remark about the Heths
being very improbable people, naturally spoke in her characteristic
vein. She made her observations to her great crony, Mr. Richard Marye,
who plucked a glass of champagne from a beckoned lackey, and answered:
"Whoever conceived a Canning to be an anchorite?... My dear, why are you
so severe with these very excellent and worthy people?"
"Is it severe," said the lady, "to refuse to be cozened by gay lips and
dramatic hair?"
"Aspiration," mused her elderly friend, sipping comfortably, "is the
mainspring of progress. Don't you admire onward and upward? What harm
can a little climbing possibly do to you and me?"
"Oh, Mr. Dick! All the harm that the tail does when it begins to wag the
dog. Don't you observe how these people set up their own standards, and
get them accepted, whatever old fogies like you and me may say? They
_unsoul_ us--that's what they do, and we may scream, but we can't stop
them. Their argument is that money can do everything, and the
intolerable part of it is that they _prove it_. Ah, me!--"
"Also, O temperament! O Moriarty! For my part, Mary, I'm a Democrat--"
"You're an old-fashioned Church of England man, and incidentally a great
dear," said Mary Page. "And nothing on earth sickens you, and you know
it, like this godless modern materialism...."
But who could smile more unaffectedly than Cally Heth at the bitter
little peckings with which the dying order ever seeks to avenge itself
on its brilliant supplanters? She passed on down the long room, stunning
admirer in her train. High hope beckoned imminently to-night. By the
subtle intuitions of her sex she had been notified that the steady
approach of the symbol of her happiness consummate now quickened toward
its shining end....
Mr. Hugo Canning, having returned for a week at most, had already
remained for a fortnight. And it was obviously for her sake that he had
lingered. Day by day, emerging from his Payne barricades, he had sought
her out: loud his feet had thundered behind, with no more promptings of
hers. Of the genuineness of his interest she could feel no trace of
doubt: a score of "passages" since the interesting moment in Willie's
sitting room rose to the eye of memory. And the prince of partis
attracted her no less compellingly. On nearer view, he had revealed
himself as full of a fascinating contrariety, various as a woman. Moods
played up and down upon him, charming mysteriously. He could be distrait
and silent, the portrait of distinguished boredom. And then, as by the
turning of a sudden page, he was gay again, tender, witty, all
ardors....
More than the strains of the lovesick waltz beat in the girl's veins
to-night. For this present there was no hope even of connected
conversation. In the midst of the gay company the invasions of privacy
were constant.
"All these nice people, and all so eager to be friendly with you!"
laughed Carlisle, with some want of naturalness, as she for the dozenth
time detached herself and him from a little surrounding group. "And yet
you've complained to me of _loneliness_!"
"There are times, Miss Heth, when one is never so lonely as in the midst
of the crowd."
"Oh!... Then to save you from loneliness to-night I must remove you from
the crowd?"
"You grasp my meaning. I want a lodge in some vast wilderness."
"That is rather rude, isn't it? Where should I come in?"
"You come into the lodge," said Canning, and smiled faintly.
Though the smile was faint, her eyes fell before it. When she raised
them, they ran upon another interruption.
"This is Mrs. Mason, Mr. Beirne's sister. You will like to meet her, Mr.
Canning."
"Delightful," murmured Mr. Canning.
Because of his consistent recluseness, foregone to-night for her
pleasure, Carlisle had meant rather to exhibit Mr. Canning to enraptured
eyes than to subject him to a flood of undesired introductions. But
because she did not want people to refer to her as catty behind her
back, some sharing of her honors was inescapable. A few of her dearest
girl-friends, a handful of the more prominent young men, a somewhat
larger sprinkling of the older people: these were all who received the
golden benediction. Evey McVey was of course among the favored few, but
Mattie Allen, as usual so late in the evening, was not to be seen. She
was undoubtedly "off" somewhere, probably high up on the stairs, with
the most interesting man she had been able to attach.
Canning accepted all the introductions with a charming courtesy, but
Carlisle detected beneath his agreeable manner a faint undercurrent of
stoic weariness. The cold weather had lately touched the troublesome
throat: Mr. Canning spoke to-night with perceptible hoarseness. Carlisle
assured him that he had won a permanent place in Foxe's "Book of
Martyrs" (of which she had heard the other day), and invited him to
partake of refreshments, for they had now at last reached the doors of
the dining-room. He declined, as she had done, but accepted a glass of
champagne from a bald-headed Greek who was pulling corks at a small
table near by. On the point of pledging his lady's health, he was
invaded again, this time by resolute Mr. Robert Tellford, who held the
opinion that Carlisle looked an angel this evening, and was long since
addicted to celestial society.
"The wine is excellent," said Mr. Canning, clinking glasses with Mr.
Tellford.
"The rooms are warm," said Robert, in about that sequence.
"People are beginning to leave, I observe," said Mr. Canning.
"Others are just coming in, I note," answered Robert, doggedly.
Carlisle laughed. "To-morrow will be a fine day. You talk like people in
a play. Let's all wish each other a happy New Year...."
"Duty is done," she added later, with a small sigh, when Robert had been
persuaded to remove himself. "We can now give ourselves up to lives of
the grossest selfishness.... Oh, oh, _oh!... How_ would sitting down
appeal to you, Mr. Canning?"
"Ice-water to Tantalus, Miss Heth. And seats are about as probable."
"_Look!_"
She nodded dramatically toward the hall and her sudden discovery: Mr.
Beirne's private lair, presumably; a pleasant little retreat on the
other side of the house, luring the eye through a half-open door. A
little to the back, and off the beaten track, this nook seemed to have
escaped the irruption of guests altogether.
"My lodge, as I live!" said Canning, with interest. "And, for once, I
really don't believe we'll find a spoony couple sitting in the best
place. Let's advance casually, yet with lightning speed...."
They passed out of the drawing-room into the hall, the hum of various
gaiety in their ears. No voices reached them from the rest-haven ahead.
Carlisle was suddenly silent. A subtle and thrilling sense of expectancy
possessed her, making talk somewhat difficult....
However, on the very threshold of privacy, her agreeable feelings met
with a cool _douche_. A brazen couple _was_ already there, sitting in
the best place. In this world of trouble there always, always was. The
fact was disappointing enough, to say the least of it, but what made
matters worse was that it was impossible merely to exclaim reprovingly,
as one usually does, "Oh, there's somebody _here_!" and step back at
once. Carlisle saw in the first glance that the girl in the best place
was no other than her special friend Mattie Allen, already looking
around over her shoulder, spying her. To withdraw from Mattie, under
these circumstances, was simply not to be thought of.
She gave Canning a quick, backward, upward look which said, plainer than
print, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Recomposing her features hastily,
she stepped on in.
"Oh, _Mats!_ It's you at last! We've been looking everywhere for you.
Mr. Canning was _so_ anxious to meet you...."
She ended dead. The intruding "couple" had risen together, turning; and
Carlisle saw, with the suddenest and oddest little sinking sensation,
that the male half of it, Mattie's astounding capture, was the lame
physician from the slums, he whose face and words had become
inextricably a part of the most disturbing memories of her life.
She, in her radiance, had met the slum doctor's eye with a shock of
recognition; she looked at once away. She felt like one who has walked
singing into a malicious trap. Why, oh, why, need the man have been
ambushed here, of all places under the sun, obtruding his undesired
presence and marplot countenance once again on her and Mr. Canning?...
However, if there was no withdrawing, neither was there the slightest
break in the smooth outer continuity of things. Dear Mattie (already
with a sheep's eye for the king among men in the doorway) had seized the
conversation even before Carlisle left it hanging.
"Hello, darling Cally! Do come in and share our lovely little snuggery.
Isn't it cunning?--don't you think we were awfully smart to find it? Oh,
do you know Dr. Vivian?--Miss Heth."
"How do you do?" said Cally, without a second glance.... "_This_ is she,
Mr. Canning--Miss Mattie Allen, whom you've heard so much about...."
Canning, hardly less piqued than Carlisle by the presence of strangers
in his lodge, and unable to remember having heard the name Allen before
in his life, of course rose gallantly.
"I hope Miss Allen won't think me impertinent," he said, most
delightfully, "if I claim her as an old friend...."
Miss Allen's response acquitted him of all impertinence. It was she who
then recalled an omission, and in her sweet artless way bade the two
gentlemen be acquainted. Dr. Vivian (who could not exactly recollect the
steps by which he had come to be duetting in his uncle's den with Miss
Allen) looked as if he expected to shake hands with Miss Heth's handsome
squire; but Canning, having shot him with a quick curious glance, merely
bowed, in silence. Through the minds of both men (and also of Miss
Carlisle Heth) had swept at the same moment a darting memory of their
last meeting....
And then it was suddenly seen by all that Mr. Canning had been gathered
in by his adroit old friend Miss Allen, and smartly withdrawn from the
general society. And Cally was left to face alone the last man upon
earth she wanted to see.
She, whose own plans had been so utterly different, had been on her
guard against such a contingency as this; but Mattie's born gift for
strategics had simply been too much for her. Mr. Canning had been
surrounded and backed against a bookcase, as it were, before anybody
realized what was happening to him....
"But oh, you're so dreadfully tall," she heard the voice of her gifted
girl-friend, as from a distance. "I don't believe you can look far
enough down to see poor little Me...."
All had happened at speed: the lines of division were still just
forming. And Carlisle, of course, had no idea of tamely accepting such
an unfair distribution of things. As to this man, Dr. Vivian, her
attitude toward him now, after the Cooneys', was simply one of cool
polished politeness. She had told him what she thought of him about the
Works, and he had humbly apologized for the wrong he had done her at the
Beach: that disposed of him forever, and altogether to her advantage.
Cool polished politeness; but she did not intend to talk with him any
more, of course, admitting him as a social acquaintance; and she was, in
fact, just moving after Mattie and Mr. Canning, really opening her mouth
to join in their pleasant chat, when--
"I wonder, do you know if there are any _marrons glacés_ to-night, Miss
Heth," said the voice she had first heard in the summer-house--"with the
little white jackets on them?"
The girl felt a number of things. From every point of view this inquiry,
so queer yet so clearly social, so almost glaringly inoffensive, came as
a surprise and an annoyance. He had merely asked that on purpose to
detain her. Continuing to look at her two friends, so near and yet such
worlds away, she said, coldly:
"I really do not know. I've not been in the dining-room."
"Then I may still hope," he answered, with the same air of friendliness,
eager in its way. And, continuing his out-of-place remarks, he said: "I
promised to bring some from the party to a little girl that--that
I--well, I board with her mother, in fact. She seemed to have set her
heart on _marrons_, though how she knew that such things existed passes
imagination."
"I hope you'll find them, I'm sure."
"Oh, thank you," said the Severe Arraigner, quite gratefully, it
seemed....
Through the open door of the pleasant little room, there floated in the
continual murmur of voices and the sighing refrain of the waltz. As from
a great distance, Carlisle noted that Mr. Canning found Mattie agreeably
amusing. (What on earth did I he men see in her, with her baby airs and
great pop-eyes?) But she was not thinking of her two special friends
now. The flat brusquerie of her two remarks to the man had struck her
own ear unpleasantly: they were neither polished nor courteous. Why was
she so silly as to let this nobody, who had nothing whatever to do with
her, so annoy and distract her at his pleasure? Above all, by what trick
of his look had he made her feel, the moment his eyes fell upon her,
that his apology had not settled the Beach episode, exactly,
after all?...
The whole situation seemed to be growing intolerable; and suddenly it
came over her that polished courtesy was not the note at all. Doubtless
the trouble was that she could not forgive his remark in the
summer-house, after all, no matter how generously she tried. What was
needed now was to put the man down in such a way that he would take care
not to come near her again....
Dr. Vivian, who seemed to hold fast to his one topic, was adding: "I
don't want to disappoint her, of course, particularly as \ she's sick
to-night. Just a little touch of fever, to be sure,--but she hasn't much
constitution, I fear...."
Miss Heth made no reply; the pause threatened to become a silence; and
then he said hastily, as if to save the conversation from total wreck:
"By the way, this child--Corinne Garland, her name is--is an operative
in your father's factory, Miss Heth. She's been there over two years."
Cally's head turned. For the first time she looked fully at the Cooneys'
poorhouse idol. And now she remembered that she had an annihilative
weapon against him.... Had he led up to this subject on purpose?
"Oh!... She works at my father's factory?"
The young man's look was plainly not controversial; no, it was as if he
were pleased that at last they had tapped a vein of common interest. In
one glance Carlisle's trained eye, going over him, took in his sartorial
eccentricities: in particular the "shined" shoes, the large brass
shirt-studs, and the "full-dress-suit" (exactly that) so obviously made
for a much stouter person. She saw that the man looked absurdly out of
place here, at his own uncle's. Against this background of gaiety and
glitter, of music, powder and décolleté gowns, he really looked quite
like a stray from some other world: only the more so in that he himself
appeared quite unconscious of any alienship.
Well, then, let him keep to his own world. That, in fact, was precisely
what she desired of him....
"Yes, a buncher there, as they're called," he was quaintly
explaining--"quite the best one in the shop, I'm told, though she's only
eighteen years old. She has a record of 6,500 cheroots in one day--"
"But she has been taken sick at it, you say?"
"Undoubtedly she has a temperature to-night," said he, in an intent sort
of way, desirous of giving his information accurately. "I didn't stop to
take it,' as perhaps I should have done--"
"And she caught her fever at the Works, you think?"
"Oh!... Well, of course I shouldn't say that. You know--"
"But of course the Works _are_ full of terrible diseases, and everybody
who works there quickly catches something and dies?"
Then the unmistakable hostility of her tone caught his engrossed ear.
Carlisle saw his expression change a little; only it did not change
nearly so much as she meant it to. He gave an embarrassed
little laugh....
"But oh, _please_," said the voice of Mats, near by, "do go back and
tell me what _terminology_ means. You don't know how _terribly stupid
_I am...."
"Of course, it isn't nearly so bad as that," said he. "Factory work is
hard at best, you know. And conditions in it are never very good, rarely
even so good as they might be, as it seems to me. But this little friend
of mine that I--I mentioned, she's--"
"Why did you mention her to me at all?"
The tall young man in the fat-man's dress-suit gazed down. He pushed
back his crisp hair....
It was true that one from the outskirts could rise now and gird up his
loins: the scribes actually called before the flap of his tent. True, in
the most technical sense, that is.... And yet--was the passing social
moment a proper occasion to shout and preach at the unlessoned upon the
grim subject of their moral opportunities in this so complex world?
Where was even the solitude be hind the rubber plants which Kern had
(practically) guaranteed? Was it kind, was it even well-mannered, to
spoil a young girl's pleasure at an evening party with bitter talk of
fire-escapes and overstrained floors? John the Baptist, God knows,
should have been a gentleman....
But if any thoughts like this played through the alien's mind, he
certainly wore no air of perplexity or hesitancy. He answered without
pause, in quite a gentle way:
"Well, it just seemed to come in naturally somehow. We just seemed to
drift into it...."
But it was no time for gentleness now. Carlisle Heth was whipping up her
anger to destroy him. And all the time, a part of her (the largest part,
it seemed) knew quite well that she was whipping it up: wondered why it
didn't surge more spontaneously, as she had such a perfect right to
expect....
"But conditions _are_ homicidal in my father's factory, are they not?"
"Oh," said the man ... "Well, as to that--of course opinions would
differ somewhat as to what consti--"
"You seem to--to have more courage in your opinions when you're writing
letters," she flung at him, bright cheeked.... "Are they homicidal?"
V. Vivian's eyes had fallen before her indignant gaze. It was only too
clear by now that she hadn't forgiven him--what wonder?--and probably
never would.... Still, when he raised his eyes again, the girl saw in
them a look quite different from what she had meant to arouse there. The
man was feeling sorry for her again....
"Miss Heth, I consider them homicidal. I'm sorrier than I can say to--to
worry you with all this now. Some day if you could give me--"
"You mustn't say these things to me," said Carlisle, feeling her anger
to be real enough now. "I won't permit them. And--"
"You don't imagine that I say them for pleasure," the tall doctor
interrupted hurriedly. "I'm compelled to speak the truth, however
disagreeable--"
"Indeed? I've not noticed that you feel bound by any necessity that
way."
To that he made no reply at all. But she saw, by the look he wore, that
he was doing his best to convict her once again of having said something
unfair and rather cheap and horrid....
Turning from him, she delivered the coup de grâce, in a voice not quite
so firm as she would have wished:
"I don't wish to talk to you any more. You must not speak to me
again...."