"Oh, how nice!" said Carlisle.
"Let's stroll up to the Plaza and have tea."
They went out, turned east and came into the Avenue, where, the
afternoon being fine, one million people were methodically stepping on
each other's heels. However, these were people without existence, even
when they jostled into one.
The moment they were out of earshot of the listening clerk, Canning
said, looking straight in front of him:
"Haven't you missed me at all, Carlisle?"
"Oh, yes! I seem to have done hardly anything else."
"I've been learning your name, you see," said Canning, after five steps
in silence. "You won't mind?... Miss Heth would be a sham, after
thinking nothing but Carlisle all these weeks."
She said that she didn't mind. His presence here beside her seemed to
fill every reach and need of her being: here was what her soul had cried
for, through all the empty days. It did not seem that she could ever
mind anything any more....
"I'm very lucky to see you," she went on, quite naturally, "for I'm
going back home to-night. Your six months' sentence isn't quite up yet,
is it? Is it business that brings you?"
"What do you call business? Of course I've come," said he, "only to see
you."
He went on, after a glorious pause: "And this is the second time--or is
it the fourth or fifth? Did you happen to hear of me at Eva Payne's
in January?"
"Oh, yes! Only not till four hours after you were gone."
"You'd hardly guess, though, how I've been torn between my--wish, and
what it pleases me to call my pride.... I was in Florida and going on to
Cuba for February, at least, by special request of Heber. I thought I
should like to see you again before I got so far away. Only when I came
in sight of your door once more, I couldn't bring myself to knock...."
One interesting coincidence about the reasoning of beautiful ladies is
that it is sometimes right. Continuing as they swung up the crowded
street, Canning said:
"It seemed to me that ... However, that's no matter now. Unfortunately
I've the devil's own temper. To be packed off so, and then to surrender
without a condition--I needed more weeks of silent self-communion for
that. I've had them now, under pretty skies where the moon shines bright
o' nights. I believe the breezes have blown my humors away. I'm happy to
be here with you, Carlisle."
"I like it, too.... How on earth did you ever find me?"
"Kerr's been writing me notes from time to time, you know. In one of
them he mentioned that you were away from home. I wired him yesterday
from Tampa for your address."
"Dear Willie!" said Carlisle. "Do you know I'm mad to be at home again?"
They came to the shining hotel, and passed into the tea-room, which was
now rapidly filling up. The doorman greeted Mr. Canning by name. An
obsequious majordomo wafted him and his lady, with smiles, to the little
table of his choice. Many eyes were drawn to the young pair. He was a
man to be noticed in any company, but in presence and in air she was his
not unworthy mate. He himself became aware, even then, perhaps more than
ever then, that this provincial girl stood transplanting to a
metropolitan setting with unimpaired distinction....
"And tea-cakes, ma'am?" implored the loving waiter.
"Muffins," said Canning, and abolished him by a movement of his little
finger.
Carlisle would have preferred the tea-cakes, but she loved Hugo's lordly
airs.
He dropped his gloves into a chair, and there descended upon him a
winning embarrassment.
"Tell me now, for my sins and my penitence," he said in a low voice, his
strong fingers clasping a spoon, "that you have blotted away what
is past."
She said that she had blotted it all away.
He went on, with considerable loss of ease: "I suppose the accursed
dilettante habit has got into my blood. I needed these unhappy days and
nights, for my soul's good--"
"Oh, please!" said Carlisle, her eyes falling from his grave face.
"Let's not talk of it any more."
He stopped, as if glad to leave the subject; but after a silence he
added with entire continuity:
"Your spirit's very fine.... It's what I've always admired most in
women, and found least often."
The loving waiter set tea and muffins. Peace unfolded white wings over
the little table. A divine orchestra played a dreamy waltz that had
reference to a beautiful lady. Carlisle poured, and remembered from
Willie's apartment that Canning liked one lump and neither cream nor
lemon. He seemed absurdly pleased by the small fact. The topic of the
Past having been finally disposed of, the man's ordinary manner seemed
abruptly to leave him. His gaze became oddly unsettled, but he
perpetually returned it to Carlisle's face. He appeared enormously
interested in everything that she said and did, yet at the same time
erratically distrait and engrossed. He became more and more grave, but
simultaneously he gave evidences of a considerable nervous excitement
within....
If Carlisle noticed these eccentricities at all, she could have had no
difficulty in diagnosing them, having observed them in the demeanor of
young men before now. The case was otherwise with Canning, to whom his
own unsteadinesses were a continuing amazement. Heart-whole he had
reached his thirtieth year, and his present enterprise had furnished him
with the surprise of his life. He was, indeed, a man who had lately
looked upon a miracle. He had watched three humiliating rebuffs turn
under his eye, as it were, to so many powerful lodestones. He himself
hardly understood it, but it was a truth that no degree of cunning on
the part of this girl could have so captured his imagination as her
spirited independence of him (in mamma's vocabulary, her flare-up). A
man who held himself naturally high, he had been irresistibly magnetized
by her repulses of him. Rebuffed, he had sworn to go near her no more,
and had turned again, an astonishment to himself, and tamely rung
her bell....
Canning looked and looked at Carlisle across the little table, and it
was as if more miracles went on within him. Not inexperienced with the
snarers, he had learned wariness; and now, by some white magic, wariness
seemed not worth bothering for. If marriage was to come in question, his
dispassionate judgment could name women clearly more suitable; but now
dispassionateness was a professor's mean thumb-rule, too far below to
consider. Of a sudden, as he watched her loveliness, all his instincts
clamored that here and now was his worthy bride: one, too, still
perilously not broken to his bit. But ... Was it, after all, possible?
Was it conceivable that this unknown small-capitalist's daughter, rated
so carelessly only the other day, was the destined partner of his high
estate?...
"I can't bear to think of your going to-night," he exclaimed suddenly,
with almost boyish eagerness. "You know this town is home to me. I can't
explain how perfect it seems to be here with you."
She mentioned demurely her hope of his return to the Payne Fort in a
month or so: a remark which he seemed to find quite unworthy of notice.
"Stay over till to-morrow, Carlisle! Let's do that! And we'll take the
day train down together."
"Goodness! With my tickets all bought? And my trunks packed since
morning?"
Canning glanced hurriedly at his watch. "I can arrange about the
tickets in three minutes. As for the trunks, Mrs. Willing's maid will be
only too glad to unpack them for you. Do--do stay."
She laughed at his eagerness, though at it her heart seemed to swell a
little.
"And if they've already gone to the station?"
"I can put my hand on ten men who will drive like the devil to bring
them back."
"And if my mother confidently expects me for breakfast to-morrow?"
"I will write the telegram to her myself." He added: "Ah, you can't
refuse me!"
Cally said: "I'm afraid you are one of the terrible masterful men that
we read about, Mr. Canning. But--perhaps that's why I shall be glad
to stay."
He thanked her with some unsteadiness, and said: "Where shall we
dine?... And we could be excused from dressing, couldn't we? I can't
bear to lose sight of you, even for an hour."
Of course he had his way there, too. In adjoining booths they did their
telephoning, he to somebody or other about the reservations, she to
leave a message for Florrie Willing. Later they dined in a glittering
refectory, just opened, but already of great renown....
* * * * *
It was an unforgettable meal. So long as she lived, this evening
remained one of the clearest pictures in Carlisle's gallery of
memorabilia. Before the dinner was half over, Canning's immediate
intentions became apparent to her. Doubts and hesitancies, if he had had
any, appeared to recede abruptly from his horizon. With the serving of
dessert, the words were spoken. Canning asked Carlisle to be his wife.
He did it after an endearingly confused preamble, which involved his
family and his natural pride in upholding and continuing the traditions
of his house. Critically speaking, his remarks might have been
considered too long and too much concerned with the Cannings; but of the
genuineness of his love, Carlisle could not entertain a doubt. As she
and mamma had planned it, so it had fallen out. She accepted Hugo with
her eyes while an affectionate servitor offered her some toasted
biscuit. She accepted the biscuit, too.
It was later agreed that the betrothal should not be announced for the
present, except to the parents of the contracting parties. Canning had
argued strongly for a day in June, but Carlisle at length carried her
point that the interval was quite too short. It was now the 20th of
March, The final decision, reached on the train next day, was that
Canning should join Mrs. and Miss Heth abroad, in June or July, and the
formal announcement of the coming alliance should be made then, from
London or Paris. The wedding itself would take place early in October.