"I see," said the man, nodding, having never checked his stride.
But all that he had seemed to see with his keen black eyes was the
lovely girl posed on the last step of the ornamental stairway. He almost
brushed against her as he strode by.
The Pond person's footsteps diminished up the long stairs. A moment
later a volley of hand-clapping, sounding very near, indicated his
arrival in the meeting-room. But his interruption and his irritating
stare had accomplished no mollifying purpose down in the court. But one
end, indeed, could justify the proud Miss Heth in lingering in a public
hall with the slanderer of herself and her family.
"Doesn't it occur to you," she said, hardly waiting for the intruder to
get out of earshot, "that so much preaching about other people's
business seems rather--odd, coming from you?"
Dr. Vivian now affected to look troubled.
"There was just that difficulty," said he, slowly, "that you might think
I was preaching. I'm not, this time, really--"
"Don't you know perfectly well you only said that in a--a horrid way to
try to make me feel uncomfortable?"
She paused for a reply; her excitement was growing. Her figure was
enveloped in a slim raincoat of fine gray; she wore a yellow straw hat
of an intriguing shape, and over it a white veil closely drawn to keep
the wet wind from her face. Now and then, as her eyes moved, a
descending black-and-gold eyelash became entangled with this veil; that
occurrence, in fact, took place at this precise moment, creating an
emergency situation of some consequence. It was a matter of considerable
public interest to see how it would all work out. However, the girl
merely raised an indifferent hand, and plucked the veil out a little.
The man V.V. looked hurriedly away.
He was saying: "I assure you I meant nothing of the kind. However,
doubtless it's natural that you should think so--"
"It seems _very_ natural to me--especially here in the new Settlement
building!... What about the _parable of the rich young man now_?"
He stood looking at her without a reply; one of his quaint looks, it
was.
However, Carlisle knew positively that he did not want to improve the
Works out of any fund he pretended to have, and was resolved to show him
no mercy now. She had really meant to spare him, and he, mistaking
magnanimity for weakness, had said what he had said. On his head be it:
his deceptive trusting look should not save him now.
"Why don't you say something?" she demanded.
The young man gave an embarrassed laugh.
"Well, to tell the honest truth, I don't seem to think of anything to
say--"
"Oh!... So the Settlement suggests _nothing_ to you--as to picking the
beam from your own eye?"
"Not at this moment, I think. In fact, I don't seem to grasp at all--"
"_Oh!_" said Cally, with a little gasp.
And then, stung on by his reckless hardihood, she struck to kill:
"How can you _look_ at me, and pretend that you're so anxious to help
other people's businesses, when you know you wouldn't even give to your
own Settlement--_not a cent_!"
The two stood facing each other, hardly a yard apart, their eyes
dead-level. V.V., as Henrietta Cooney called him, continued to look at
her, and though he was far from a florid young man, it seemed now as if
he must have been so, so much color did he have to lose. And Cally
discovered that the man had somehow managed to keep, over all these
brilliant weeks, that mysterious trick he had of making her feel unfair,
and even rather horrid and common, when she knew perfectly well she
wasn't. For the look on his unreliable face was that of one stabbed from
behind in a company where he had trusted, and his eyes seemed to be
saying to her quite distinctly: "Don't you worry about _me!_ Just give
me a minute or two, and _I'll_ be all right...."
But all that his actual voice said, in rather a remote way, was:
"What a terrific hypocrite you must think me!... I hadn't realized ..."
It was precisely the point that Carlisle Heth had been trying to
establish, for a long, long time. Yet now, in the moment of triumph, her
gaze suddenly wavered from his; and she heard herself, to her own secret
confusion, saying hurriedly and weakly:
"At least, I understood--some one _told_ me--you hadn't.... Of course
you--you _might_ have given something, and--this person not have
known...."
But Jack Dalhousie's friend only answered, in the same detached way:
"It's unpardonable, my detaining you this way. I'd no idea ... May I
show you the way up--"
"No--_no!_ Please wait!..."
He waited, silent. Carlisle, having paused long enough to take firm hold
of her consciousness of vast superiorities, resumed more strongly:
"Perhaps I ought to explain why I--thought that. I was told that the
whole thing had fallen through, when a--a wealthy subscriber stepped in
and secretly gave a very large amount--had bought the building for you.
So I--I naturally thought--"
"It was absolutely natural. In fact, it's quite true.... Shall we go to
the meeting now?"
But no, something in her required that he must state in plain words the
fact that would justify her accusation, alleged by his eyes to be so
unjust: namely, that it was (practically) a member of her family who had
done this splendid thing for him. Yet she went rather further than she
had intended when she said, glancing away over the queer dusky court:
"I will tell you. Some one gave us to understand--not he himself, of
course,--that it was a friend of ours who had done this ... Mr.
Hugo Canning."
He made no answer.
An uncontrollable desire carried the girl yet further. She said, in a
weakening voice:
"_Was it?_"
In saying this, she brought her eyes back fully to her victim. And if
ever guilt was written large upon a human countenance, it was upon the
face of V. Vivian at that moment. Brightly flushed he was, with an
embarrassment painful to witness. And yet, so strange is the way of
life, the joy of victory once again seemed to slip from the clutch of
Cally Heth. What house of cards was this she had pulled down upon
herself?...
"Really, you must appreciate," the man was saying, in a light, dry
voice, "I shouldn't feel at liberty to betray a secret of that sort,
even if I knew. I'm sorry, but--"
But the girl's sickening sensations of falling through space broke out
in faltering speech:
"_Oh!_... Do you _mean_ ..." She halted, to steady herself, and took a
fresh start, no better than the first: "Do you mean--that--"
"I mean only, Miss Heth, that I haven't the slightest idea what this is
all about. I thought," he said, in a voice of increasing hardness, "that
we were talking of the Works. If, at another time, you can give me a few
minutes--"
"Was it YOU?" said Carlisle, breaking through his defenses ... "Do you
mean--it was YOU, all along?..."
"I mean nothing of any sort. Does it occur to you that these questions
are quite unfair?--that they put me in a ..."
She demanded in a small voice: "_Did you buy this house for the
Settlement?_"
Shot down with the pointblank question, the tall young man, whose coat
was so extremely polished at the elbows, died game, saying with sudden
gentleness:
"No, it was my Uncle Armistead."
And then there was no sound but the steady beat of the rain upon
sidewalk and roofs ...
Upstairs, just a floor and a ceiling away, Mrs. Heth, craning her neck
for the last time, perceived that Cally had decided not to come to the
meeting; also that it was just as well, viewing the inclement weather.
Downstairs, almost directly beneath her, Cally stood front to front with
the family enemy, her face quite white.
"Of course you understand," the enemy was saying, hurriedly and yet
firmly too, "he gave me the money expecting it to be used for the public
good. I've considered that I merely had it in trust, as a fund for--for
these purposes, as I've explained. And this--well, you may easily
imagine that it was the most perfect form of self-indulgence.... I've
gotten so fond of this old place ... But I can't imagine how we came to
be talking of it, and I beg that you'll forget the whole matter. I--my
uncle would have been very much annoyed to--to have it known or talked
about...."
Not in that singular experience in the Cooney parlor, not even in the
memorable New Year's moment in her own library, had Carlisle been swept
with such a desire to dissociate herself from her own person, to sneak
away from herself, to drop through the floor. Nevertheless, some dignity
in her, standing fast, struck out for salvage; and out of the uprush of
humiliating sensation, she heard her voice, colorless and flat:
"I'm sorry I said that. You make me ... quite ashamed...."
The flush deepened abruptly on the tall doctor's cheek.
"_Don't_ say that! Don't you suppose I understand how absolutely natural
it was?... Everybody'd have thought just the same, in your place...."
Carlisle had turned away from his translucent eye, finding it
unbearable; she descended from the stair, took an irresolute step or two
over the ruined floor of the once stately court. And then she halted,
having really nowhere to go, staring fixedly toward the
distant doors....
Mamma's nearness could not help her now. Hugo's fortifying love was no
buffer against this extraordinary moment. All alone Cally stood with the
contemned religious fellow who had unhorsed and disarmed her once again,
and now there would be no more weapons. And there was a worse thing here
than her mean looking for hypocrisy, and the discovery, instead, of a
mad generosity, a princely folly. Bad enough all that seemed; very bad
indeed: but Cally's painful moment seemed to cut deeper yet.
After all the struggling, had it come to this? Was the author of the
Beach opinion of her a man whom she must greatly admire?...
Behind her stood the stairway, which led on up to mamma and the
embracing security of the victorious order. Behind her also stood the
man, the royal giver of the granary where finer-feathered birds now made
merry among the spoils. With what speech should Cally Heth, mocked and
jeered by her feeble "I'm sorry," turn now and pass him?...
She heard the sound of his unequal footstep, and then his voice behind
her, stirred with a sudden feeling:
"Why, it's not a thing to be sorry about--how could you possibly have
thought otherwise?... Don't you suppose I realize what cause I've given
you to--to distrust and dislike me? You'd be more than human if you
could forgive and forget--what I said to you one night. How could you,
when it was so unforgivable? And since then--"
"_Don't!_" Carlisle said, in a muffled sort of voice. And then, clearly
and distinctly: "Don't!... I can't quite stand that!"
She turned on the old floor, with the sound of her own strengthening
voice, and came again face to face with the man, V.V. There had seemed
to come to her a light. And back into her smooth young cheek trickled
that color so loved by her betrothed, who had not bought the Settlement
House after all....
She was a brilliantly successful girl, the chosen wife of the most
shiningly eligible of men; and he was a lame slum doctor in a worn-out
suit, beneath her notice as a man altogether. And yet, as Hugo stood
above her in all those material aspects which had always summed up her
whole demand of life, so this man stood above her in some more subtle
and mysterious way. And it had always been so: by bright swift flickers
of intuition she had seemed suddenly to see that now. All the
restlessness and discontent which the thought and sight of him had power
to awake in her from the beginning came from just this; and she had
never been able to put him down, no matter how she had chafed and
denounced, because the final fact had always been that he, in his queer
way, stood above her ...
And now, in this unsteadied moment, with all hope of bringing him down
beaten finally to death, there had seemed to rise and beckon a finer way
of bridging this gap between them. All that was best in the girl
suddenly rose, demanding for once to be allowed to meet the shabby alien
on his own reckless level.
"Look here," said Cally, with a kind of tremulous eagerness, "I want to
tell you something...."
Yes, surely it was all a matter between herself and him: she could meet
his eyes now with no sense that did not add to her curious inner
exaltation. Had not these eyes said to her from the beginning that they
would give her no peace till she came to this?...
"You were right to say what you did that night. A puff of wind blew the
boat over after he got out. Mr. Dalhousie never knew I was upset."
The words dropped unafraid into a perfect silence. The girl's manner was
as simple, as undramatic, as possible. Yet, considering who these two
were, considering the intentions with which she had entered his Dabney
House not ten minutes before, no more startling words could have been
devised by the wit of man.
"He never knew," repeated Vivian, in a voice suddenly mechanical.
No doubt it was by his good fortune alone that he had avoided any
alarming change of expression, as he listened to the announcement which
seemed to shake and stagger his visible world. The girl was soaring upon
her unimagined moment of spiritual adventure. But V. Vivian stood like a
man turned to stone, gazing blind into a void....
Presently, out of the general chaos the young man's dazed mind stirred;
leapt to life. Thought shook him through like waves of pain. It came
upon him first, with crushing force, that this sweet-voiced girl with a
face like all the angels had after all coldly lied, murderously lied,
and maintained her lie through many months. Hard upon that, blotting it
out, there swept the juster knowledge that, no matter what she had
done, truth had triumphed at last; what was good in her had overcome her
poor weakness. Lastly, he thought of Jack Dalhousie who, from the
clouds, had received his release from prison. Yes, old Dal could come
home now....
"He never knew," said V.V., in his curious voice. "I'm so glad ... This
clears him ... I never understood how he could have ... I'm so glad
to--have it settled...."
If he was so glad, his face libelled him past forgiveness. But Cally
Heth still soared, too high in the unplumbed blue to note, even now,
what house was this she had destroyed.
"I really didn't realize at all at the time," she said, with the same
simplicity. "It all happened so quickly, and it was so bewildering, and
I didn't have time to think. The story about him just seemed to spring
up of itself, and then it grew and grew all the time. I've worried a
great deal about it, all along...."
A kind of passion came into the man's face, and he said:
"Thank God, there's still time to make it all right."