Night-Thoughts on the Hardness of Religious Fellows,
compelling you to be Hard, too; Happier Things again, such as
Hugo, Europe, Trousseaux, etc.; concluding with a Letter from
Texas and a Little Vulgarian in a Red Hat.
The tireless William retraced the wet streets to the Dabney House in
ample time for Mrs. Heth, but the Chairman of the Finance Committee,
being in agreeable converse with fellow philanthropists, came home in
Mrs. Byrd's car instead, after all. Accordingly she did not say to
William, "Miss Carlisle decided not to come, Banks?"--which she liked to
call William for the English sound of it--and Banks, or William, did not
look respectfully surprised and say, "Yas'm, she came ..."
Arriving at home, the good little lady presently ascended to the third
floor, where she entered her daughter's room without knocking, according
to her wont. However, Carlisle had been ready for her for some time.
"You stayed," was mamma's arch conjecture, "to write a ream to Hugo,
dear fellow, I suppose?..."
"No, I went!" said Cally, now in the last stages of an evening toilette.
"Only when I got there, and peeped in, it all looked so dreary and
hopeless that my heart failed me, and I turned right around and came
back! Was it--"
"You did! How long were you there? There's a little too much powder on
your nose, my dear--there! Did you come upstairs?"
"Oh, no! I just slipped in for a moment or two and glanced about that
queer old court downstairs. Quaint and interesting, isn't it? How was
the meeting?"
"Most interesting and gratifying," said mamma, sinking into a rose-lined
chair. "We begin a noble work. You may go now, Flora. I am made a
governor, as well as chairman of the most important committee...."
She monologized for some time, in a rich vein of reminiscence and
autobiography, revealing among other things that she had rather broadly
hinted, to Mrs. Byrd and others, who was the anonymous donor of the
Settlement House; a certain wealthy New Yorker, to wit. However, it was
clear that she saw nothing amiss, nor did she say anything more germane
to her daughter's inner drama than, in the moment of parting:
"Rub your cheeks a little with the soft cloth. You look quite pale."
Carlisle rubbed faithfully, aware of a lump of lead where her heart
should have been. Later she went downstairs, and then on for dinner at
the McVeys'. Most grateful she was for this mental distraction; to-night
she would have played three-hand bridge with papa and Mattie Allen with
enthusiasm.
Evey's dinner, of course, was far ahead of three-hand. The McVeys were
very rich, far richer than the Heths (theirs had been the marriage of
McVey's Drygoods and Notions, Wholesale Only, and Herkimer's Fresh
Provisions), and were considered "not quite" by some people, though Evey
certainly went everywhere and was very refined. Accordingly, the
evening's viands were of the best and the table talk at least good
enough for all practical purposes. Carlisle, who was almost feverishly
animated, lingered till the last possible moment: Evey actually asked
her to spend the night, and she actually came very near doing it.
Escorted home in a maritime hackney-coach by young Mr. Robert Tellford
(whose heart had been lacerated by rumors that persistently reached
him), Canning's betrothed permitted Robert to linger in the library,
positively detained him in the library, till eleven-thirty o'clock:
courtesies which would have run like wine to the young Tellford head but
for the lady's erratic and increasing distraitness....
The bibulous metaphor is here reversible. It possessed mutuality, so to
say. Cally herself would drown trouble to-night with intoxicating
draughts of human society. But there came a time when this resource was
denied her; when the human bars closed, as it were; in short, when all
the society in reach must sorrowfully put on his tall hat and go. And
then there came the nocturnal stillness of the house, and then the
solitariness of the bedchamber, and after that the dark.
Now the question that had rumbled all evening cloud-like in the
background of her consciousness, swam and took shape in the midnight
shadows, dangling before the eye of her mind in gigantic and
minatory capitals: