"Could I forget my Beach supplanter, my giver of colds in the head?
What's wrong with the fellow anyway?"
"Everything," said she. "Let's go into the library."
"Why should he remind me of a camp-meeting funeral, I wonder?" mused
Canning, following behind--"or is it something I read in the book
of Job?"
The girl answered with a vague laugh. Mr. Canning's odd but evident
antagonism to the man she herself had such cause to dislike was
agreeable to her, but the topic was not. She had had enough of the
Vivians of this world for one night. She led the way through the dark
drawing-room, and at the switch beyond the door turned the light into
two soft-tinted dome-lamps. The library was massive rather than
"livable"; it had books, which is more than can be said for some
libraries; but they were chiefly books in stately sets, yards and yards
of them just alike: a depressing matter to the true lover. However, it
was at least solitude; solitude enveloped with an air of intimacy
vastly agreeable and compensatory. It did not seem so certain now that
the golden evening was ruined past hope....
"You and he seemed to be having a terribly earnest discussion," said
Canning. "Of course I did my best to eavesdrop, but Miss Allen was so
charming I caught only a word now and then."
"He was lecturing me about how my father ought to run his business. He
always does...."
She replenished the dying fire with a soft lump, and poked it
unskilfully, all but stabbing the life out of it. Canning, standing and
staring half-absently into the soft glow, did not offer to relieve her
of the poker. They knew each other very well by now.
"Only don't let's spoil our little party by talking about him," she went
on--"he rubs me the wrong way so. And do please take off that polar
overcoat. It positively makes me _shiver_...."
"Lecturing appears to be the fellow's specialty.... Well!"
He threw his overcoat, stick, and white gloves on the fire-settle,
turned and glanced down at her. After the long and broken evening, he
looked somewhat fatigued. Carlisle, already seated, was just beginning
to unbutton her left long glove.
"Fine hours, fine hours these, for even a play sick-man! Yet I linger
on...."
"You must stay," said she, "till the last person has gone from Mr.
Beirne's."
The mantel clock stood at twenty minutes past twelve. With a little
laugh she reached up and turned its small commemorative face to
the wall.
"Or," she added, becoming grave, "are you really quite tired out with
being with me?"
"I was hardly thinking that," said Canning.
He dropped into a chair and stared into the fire. Carlisle glanced at
his face in profile; a virile and commanding face it was, and to her,
singularly attractive.
"My thoughts were running in the contrary direction," said Canning. "Do
you remember my saying long ago that once I began to gambol, I was
never satisfied till I had gambolled all over the place? I suppose I
need a guardian, but unluckily I have one. Miss Heth, I've some sad
news--sad for me, I mean. I must go south to-morrow."
Carlisle turned her head with a little start.
"To-morrow! Oh, _no_!"
"No--you're right! I _can't _go to-morrow! The day after at the
farthest, or I suppose Heber'll be down after me with a couple of
sheriffs."
"But I don't understand," she said, hurriedly. "What's happened? I--I
hoped you would stay till the end of the week at least."
Canning's gaze remained upon the fire.
"So did I, though of course I've known I'd no business hanging on the
skirt of Mason and Dixon's line this way. I might almost as well be in
my office at home--tackling the pile of work that's been rolling up
while I go on with this invalid's mummery.... Well, Heber's found me
out, as of course the clever beggar would. He's been thinking, you see,
that I was in Pineburst, at the least. I had a red-headed telegram from
him this afternoon ordering me to move on to Palm Beach instanter, or he
would bring my revered parents down on me like a thousand of brick--no
small matter, I assure you.... Palm Beach--Havana, perhaps!--till winter
breaks!... A happy New Year message, isn't it?"
"It's very sad for me," said Carlisle, looking away from him.
"Well, I can't say that I feel exactly hilarious about it, you know."
There fell a brief silence, in which the crackling of the large new coal
became noticeable.
"Duty is a hard word, Miss Heth," said Canning. "A thousand times I've
wished that I wasn't an only son--my family's one hopeful. But I am,
alas.... And hence the little rest-cure...."
"Yes, it's hard," she answered. And instead of going on as some girls
would, "Don't you think you could _possibly_ stay a little
longer?"--she added, in tones of comforting: "But of course you will
enjoy Florida immensely. You know you'll find agreeable people, and
plenty of fun--"
"Of course! It is my particular delight," said Canning, in his hoarsened
voice, "to stay in an attractive place just long enough to fall in love
with it, and then be whipped away like a naughty schoolboy."
Carlisle slowly drew off her glove.
"I'm glad you've liked it here," said she.... "Shall you stop again, on
your way back home?"
The man's eyes turned from the fire full upon her face. His voice
changed a little.
"What do you think?"
"I only know what I hope," said she; and her gold-and-black lashes fell.
The firelight played upon her half-averted face, twisted shadows into
the sheen of her hair, incarnadined her smooth cheek. Whiter and softer
than swan's down gleamed her round bare shoulder, her perfect neck.
Canning's blood moved. He turned more fully and leaned toward her, his
elbow on her chair-arm.
"Could you think that all these happy days with you have meant so little
to me?... You've a poor opinion of me, indeed. Didn't I say in the
beginning that you did not know how to be kind?"
At his tone, the girl's breath came faster. She sat in silence pulling
her long gloves between slim little hands.
"You are hard, Miss Heth," said Canning, slowly. And he added, with that
touch of unconscious pride with which he always spoke of the Cannings,
their position and serious responsibilities in the world: "When I compel
myself to think of my duty toward my father and my family, I make
sacrifices which ought, I think, to win me your approval. I've a place
to fill some day.... But since you ask, I shall think also of myself. I
shall come again to the old Payne fort."
She gave him a look which said that she was not really unkind. And
Canning immediately possessed her ungloved hand in both of his. Her
heart flattered at his touch; her hand seemed to feel that this indeed
was where it belonged; but, on the whole, training and intuition
appeared to indicate a contrary view. There was a moment of stillness,
of acquiescence, in which she became aware that he bent nearer. And then
Carlisle rose, with a natural air, taking the hand along with her,
incidentally as it were. Standing by the fire, looking down into it,
she said:
"The town will be empty without you."
Behind her, Canning had risen too, with a sort of sharpness. He was
silent. And then it was borne in upon her that the proud young man was
moving toward his trappings, to go....
"Your friendly words are much appreciated," said he, smiling. "But I
observe that I've overstayed horribly."
The girl regarded him. Hardly since the first moments in Kerr's
apartment, had she heard that ironical note in Mr. Canning's voice; and
yet she understood at once, and was not alarmed. Gently as she had
removed herself, he had felt himself rebuffed; and he could be abrupt at
his pleasure.
Nothing good could come out of this horrid evening, but there would be
another. And in her heart, besides, she did not believe that he would go
away day after to-morrow....
"Perhaps you'll drive with me to-morrow afternoon?"
"Oh, I'd like to so much," she said, naturally, as if nothing had passed
between them. "And I'm so sorry about to-night, really. You've been such
a saint, and all for me. You deserve a beautiful reward, a big medal, at
least, and instead, an icy five-mile ride--"
"Reward!" said Canning, wheeling, still smiling a little. "What under
heaven does the inconsequent sex know of reward? Up they trip, and with
one flip of a little high heel kick a man's settled plans topsy-turvy.
And for this upsetting he must thank his stars if he gets in return one
kind smile a week. Punishment, not reward, strikes me as the
feminine idea...."
"I think," she said, a little embarrassed, "the only person I've really
punished to-night is Me."
And she felt a twinge, half regret, half compunction, which was not
tactical at all. After all, this man had been extraordinarily nice to
her, and she was letting him go feeling that she did not
appreciate it....
She offered him her left hand to say good-night, and invested the
gesture with a sweet air of penitence.
"But don't speak as if you were displeased with me, just when I'm so sad
about your going away.... _Are_ you displeased with me--or do you like
me very much?"
"I am displeased with you, and I like you very much."
As the small hand lingered with him, warming by contact, the man's clasp
tightened. He brought up his other hand and folded it over it.
"I'll miss you dreadfully--you know that.... Very, _very_ much? That's
the largest amount of liking known, isn't it?"
"Then that's the amount ..."
Outside sounded the blasts of horns and the wheels of departing guests
from Mr. Beirne's: 'low on the sand and loud on the stone.' In the
soft-lit room no sound broke the nocturnal stillness except the
mechanism of the clock, pushing busily toward the three-quarter mark.
Carlisle was looking up at Canning with eyes full of unpremeditated
sweetness. Into Canning's face the blood leapt suddenly. Without other
warning, he leaned back against the heavy table, and took her almost
roughly in his arms.
"I'm mad about you, you lovely little witch. Do you hear? It grinds my
heart that I must leave you...."
The turbulence of the sudden demonstration swept the girl from her
moorings. If she had seemed to invite it, it yet came quite
unexpectedly. For the moment she stood still in Canning's embrace,
yielding herself with a thrilled passivity, as one who, with a full
heart, touches high destiny at last. And in that moment her cheek, hair,
eyes, then at last her lips, felt the sting of his Catullian
endearments....
But the moment of bliss in culmination passed with fainting quickness.
The willing ear heard not. Unsteadied intuitions began to work again,
chilling the girl's blood with the knowledge of wrong here, of glaring
omission. And the more her gallant murmured, it seemed, the wider gaped
the sudden lack....
"You've been so good to me--so dear, so sweet--charmed away my hours as
no one else could. Darling!... It's hard to be the stranger and the
passer-by! I know you'll forget me, only too soon.... How can I tell you
how grateful I am for all you've given me, in sweetness and
happy days?..."
How, indeed, since this was the utmost of his wish of her?
The girl's blood warmed again with a leap, overflowing upon her fine
skin. Understanding now came to her, with crushing force. Her knight
made for her a pretty summary of an episode that was past. There was to
come no coronation of words to ennoble these caresses: Mr. Canning, at
parting, desired to thank her for her sweetness. And this was the high
moment toward which she had been dancing on the fleece-pink of clouds
through many days....
And then his arms about her were suddenly a burning and a torture; she
felt a blush sweep her from head to foot, enveloping her as in a garment
of fire, shaking her with a wild mysterious shame. And she took herself,
almost with violence, from the enfolding embrace.
All tenderness, Canning came after her, Pan and his fleeing nymph....
"You darling, I've frightened you! Forgive my roughness. You can't know
how your utter adorableness throws me off my guard...."
She turned to the mantelpiece, and, laying a rounded arm upon it, buried
her face from his view.
Canning had come near, intending a gentler caress; but something in the
dead unresponsiveness of her bowed figure abruptly allayed that
intention. The complete repulse, the girl's silent emotion, had
surprised him, indeed, like a box on the ears. Well he knew the
feministic curve of advance and recoil. Yet he found himself
unexpectedly, profoundly, stirred.
"I'm a brute," said he, presently, with an odd ring of conviction. "You
go to my head like drink sweeter than was ever brewed. I've had a hard
fight all these days to keep my hands off you...."
Carlisle raised her head and turned. Canning had expected to see her
face stained with tears, or, more probably, flaming with (at least
half-feigned) anger. His heart turned a little when he saw how still and
white she was.
"You must go now, please," she said, in rather a strained voice, not
looking towards him; and by some strange and subtle process of
association she fell into words which she had used within the hour to
another: "I don't wish to talk with you any more."
The man's handsome face flushed brightly. He said in a throbbing voice:
"I can't let you dismiss me this way. I can't endure it. Have I offended
so--"
"I can't talk with you any more now. I must ask--"
"But you won't be so cruel! If I've offended, won't you make some
allowance for my temptation? Am I a snow-man, to come so near and be
unmoved? Am I to be a monk, because I live under sentence in a
monastery? You ..."
To do him justice, he did not look in the least like either of these
things. However, Carlisle missed his look. Standing with lowered eyes,
she said again, colorlessly:
"Please leave me now--I beg you--"
"But I can't leave you this way!" said Canning. "It's impossible! You
misjudge me so--"
"Then I must leave you," said Carlisle; and started to go past him.
But Canning blocked her way, his face, troubled with deep concern, more
handsome and winning than she had ever seen it. Only she still did not
see it. He thought, with a whirling mind, that this was carrying the
thing rather too far; but he saw with chagrin and a curious inner tumult
the entire uselessness of more argument to-night.
"I am heartbroken," he said, a little stiffly, "that I've brought you
somehow to think so hardly of me. Your thought does a great wrong to
the--respect and deep devotion I feel and shall feel for you." He
wobbled the least bit over these words, as if himself conscious of a
certain inadequacy, but went on with his usual masculine decisiveness:
"Now it must of course be as you wish. But to-morrow I shall make you
understand me better."
He picked up hat, coat, and stick, defeated, yet not spoiled of his
air. But as he turned to go, and looked at her for his formal bow, he
was all at once aware that she wore a wholly new dignity in his sight, a
subtly enhanced desirability. Unexpectedly her marble loveliness shot
him through and through, and he said in a low throbbing voice:
"You darling--darling! How can I bear to part from you like this?
Forgive me _now_, Carlisle ..."
But Carlisle's only response was to move away toward the hall.
A moment later the front door shut, rather hard. Carlisle's second
impassioned parting within an hour was over. She switched off the tall
newel-post lamp, and went upstairs in the dark.
* * * * *
She was a long time in going to sleep. Not since she had the fever, as a
little girl, was the great god of forgetfulness so elusive to her
wooing. Not since the night at the Beach, and never in her life before
that night, had the merry imps of thought so strung her brain upon a
thumbscrew. Now came Self-Communion, rarest of her comrades, and perched
upon her pillow.
All was plain now, by one instant of merciless illumination. She
sufficed to beguile Mr. Canning's leisure for an invalid sojourn far
from his normal haunts, but apart from that she had no existence for
him. He could see her daily, monopolize her time, for these things
happened to amuse him; he could make love to her, lead her in a hundred
subtle ways to feel that her companionship was sweet to him; and then he
could board a train and ride handsomely away, and woe is the word to the
conquered. And by this freedom that he felt, and in particular by the
license of his prodigal kisses, it appeared that she read the heart of
his secret opinion of her.
Never again should he show her this opinion, at least: he should board
his train with no more sight of her. On this her thought was
crystal-clear from the beginning. That such short shrift to Mr. Hugo
Canning was suicidally impolitic, she naturally had no difficulty in
realizing; the dread of reporting the affair to mamma had already shot
through her mind. But for the moment these things seemed oddly not to
matter. She was clearly in the grip of one of those mysterious
"flare-ups" which her mother disliked and objected to so intensely: to
such lengths borne by her recoil from Mr. Canning's familiarity. She had
met the common fate of beauty. Flaming young men had kissed her before
now. But none had kissed her without the desire of her love, none as the
fair price exacted for a couple of weeks' lordly attentions. By their
lightness, as by their passion, Canning's kisses had seemed to sear and
scar. They had given her body to be burned. For this was the fulness of
his desire of her, her favor to wear in his button-hole; and his thought
stabbed at her, beneath his gallant's air, that by now he had fairly
earned it.
In the dark as it was, the memory of her moment of revelation had turned
the girl's face downward upon her pillow. How, oh how, had he come to
image her on so low a plane? How did it come to be that men should have
slighting opinions of _her_, of all people, and so slap them across
her face?...
It was the first time that such a thought of herself had ever risen
before her mind, though in a sense not the first time she had had a
pretext for it. Her painful meditations included brief note of Vivian,
the eccentric stray across her path who had once considered her
deserving of pity as a poor little thing. He, of course, was only an
unbalanced religious fanatic, whose opinions were not of the slightest
consequence to anybody, whom everybody seemed to take a dislike to at
sight (except ignorant paupers like the Cooneys), and whose ideal type
of girl would probably be some hideous dowd, a slum-worker, a Salvation
Army lassie, perhaps. Yet this man had felt sorry for her at the Beach;
he had done it again to-night.... And if he was quite out of her world
of men, was of course not a man at all as she counted men, the same
could not possibly be said of Mr. Canning, a man of her own kind in the
royal power....
The thought of herself as vulnerable and vincible to the hostile sex had
come upon the girl, fire-new, with disruptive force. It was pulling out
the pin which held her life together. For if she was a failure in the
subjugation of men, then she was a failure everywhere: this being the
supreme, indeed, you might say the only, purpose of her life....
Below in the still house, the soft-toned chimes rang two; and, almost on
the heels of that, it seemed, three. Step by step, Carlisle went back
over all her acquaintance with Canning from their first meeting; and
gave herself small glory. She had pursued him to the Beach; she had
pursued him to Willie's apartment; and on both occasions, and since, she
had used her arts to lure him into reversing the pursuit. A dozen times
she had sought to lead him, so it seemed now, further than he ever had
the slightest idea of going. Was it really a wonder that he, whose
experienced eyes observed everything, had seen in her merely his ready
plaything? Repulsed, he could wear an air of genuine tenderness, but
never doubt that in his heart he was laughing at her, and had a
right to....
And she herself ... Were these the pangs of unrequited love that tore
her breast? In her desire to land the great catch, by hook or by crook,
when had she paused to consult her heart about the glittering prospect?
What else did it all mean but that she, calculating, had offered herself
to him at the price of his hand, name, and enduring complement of
happiness, and he, lightly responding, had rated her as worth, at most,
only his counterfeit coin. Why else should the memory of the moment
downstairs continually return to her like an affront?
She was of her world and time, not unsophisticated; but it chanced that
she possessed a mind natively maiden. Through all her vigil, through all
her questioning and novel self-criticism, her mind's-eye picture of
Canning, as his arms went round her, ran like a torturing motif. The
portrait became detestable to her. She hated him, she would hate him
forever as the man who had cruelly revealed to her that love and his
base brother can speak with the same voice and hand.
And next day, when a box of glorious and penitent blossoms was followed
within an hour by Canning's card and presence at her door, the girl's
resolution to see him nevermore held staunch. It held to deny him a
second time on the afternoon following. After that it was subjected to
no more tests. And the social columns of another morning made it known
to the general public that the Paynes' distinguished house-guest had
departed for points south.