She was acutely aware that his question carried a new tone into the
discussion, that Hugo had criticised her for the first time. The tiny
crack in their perfect understanding yawned suddenly wider. And
distressed, and pitifully conscious that it was all her fault, Cally
flung herself instinctively across the breach. Her gaze still lowered,
she took Hugo's hand and pressed it to her smooth cheek: an endearing
thing, and done with a muteness more touching than any speech.
Canning was moved. She was not demonstrative by habit. He kissed the
cheek, for once almost as if she were a child. And he said that of
course she would have said so that night, except that she hadn't really
been certain of anything of the sort then. That feeling came now, born
of excessive sympathy and nervous shock. The mistake would be to accept
these feelings for her final judgment on such a very complicated and
serious matter.
So he was arguing the case for postponement of discussion once more,
with excellent good sense and an even more moving insistence....
If he had now but ceased his argument, turned, gathered her to his arms,
and adjured her by his overflowing love to entrust herself to him, it is
possible that within two minutes he might have had her weeping on his
breast, in complete surrender. Body and soul, she was sore with much
pounding: more than an hour ago, she needed sympathy and comfort now,
loverly occupation of the desolating lonely places within her. But
Canning argued, seeing nothing else to do, argued with a deepening note
of patience in his voice. And when he stopped at length, it was natural
that she should argue back: though she really meant this for her last
attempt to convey the dim light that was in her.
"I hate to seem so silly and obstinate, Hugo. I--I can't seem to explain
it exactly. But I really don't think that waiting would make any
difference--in my feeling. And don't you think, if I feel I ... couldn't
be happy till I--got this off my mind...."
Again he explained that this feeling was but a passing illusion, here
to-day, gone to-morrow.
Carlisle hesitated. But Canning, seeing only silence for his pains, said
with a little quickening of his tone:
"Tell me, my dear! Honestly, would such a thought as that--about your
happiness--ever have occurred to you if it hadn't been suggested to you
by Dr. Vivian?"
Natural as the inquiry was to Canning, it jangled oddly upon Carlisle.
She could not understand Hugo's recurrence to this man; it seemed
curiously unreasonable, quite unlike him and somehow quite unjust....
"Why, I don't know, Hugo. I--I seem to have had it on my mind a good
deal lately. Perhaps he first made me think of it that way--I
don't know."
"Don't you think perhaps we might have understood each other a little
better all along, if you had talked it over with me before you talked to
him about it?"
"Yes, I do now. I didn't seem to think.... It all happened so
unexpectedly--I never planned anything at all. And then I thought--I
hoped--you would think I was doing right."
"My dear girl, nobody in his senses could possibly think you were doing
right, and nobody who cared for you could want you to abandon yourself
to the impulses of a moment of nervous hysteria."
He rose and paced the floor, four paces to the room. A handsome and
impressive figure of a man he looked, his hands rammed into the pockets
of his beautiful blue-flannel coat, his fine brow wrinkled with a
responsible frown. He was seven years older than Carlisle, and, in the
absence of Mr. Heth (whom neither telephone nor telegraph, prayer nor
fasting, had yet been able to reach), he stood as her lawful protector
and the man of her family. He must save her from the effects of her own
hysterical moment, or nobody would. Clearer and clearer it had grown
that he had to do with a distracted creature who, in a state of shock,
had somehow passed under the influence of a man of the unscrupulous
revivalist type, and upon whom, in her present mood, all reasoning was
thrown away. Gentleness and firmness were the notes for dealing with a
flare-up. Well, gentleness had been tried in vain....
Carlisle looked at Canning as he paced, in the grip of a heart-sick
fear. The same comfortable, homely little room, with tight-closed door;
the same evening sunshine filtering in across the faded carpet; the same
situation, the same man and woman. But what was this new shape that
peeped at her from behind the familiar objects? A delusion and a snare
had been her first feeling of perfect unity. But was it conceivable that
she and Hugo might _quarrel?_...
That was the one thing that could not be borne; anything to avoid that.
She must give him his way, since he would not give her hers. She must
agree to put it off till to-morrow, and then to-morrow he would still
think she was unreasonable, and so they would put it off again, forever.
She thought of Jack Dalhousie, lying on his back, but with open eyes
which did not cease to question her; of poor Dr. Vivian, even now
awaiting her word with trusting eyes which did not question anything;
and she saw that to turn back now would be like a physical fracture
somehow, like breaking her leg, and that the moment she had said she
would, she would have to cry again, and afterwards she would be quite
sick. And then she looked at Hugo, who was so manly and sure, who _must_
be right, no matter how she felt now: and so began to nerve herself
to speak....
But Canning had a new thought, a new argument, which now became
definite. Coming to a halt in front of her, he said in a businesslike
sort of way:
"Let's see now. You want to send word to Dr. Vivian this afternoon that
he is to tell Colonel Dalhousie that you feel you did his son an
injustice. Is that it?"
Checked in her drift toward yielding, Carlisle said that was what she
had thought.
"Well, let's imagine what would happen then. I said just now that for
you to do this would accomplish nothing, but it would of course raise a
cloud of doubt, of which the Colonel would probably make the very most.
He would not be so scrupulous about giving you the benefit of the doubt
as you feel, at the moment, about giving it to his son. He could make a
most unpleasant story of it."
Carlisle sat with lowered eyes, listening to the firm just tones. Very
lovely and desirable she looked in a "little" white dress which Hugo had
praised once....
"And malice would seize on this story and make it worse and worse the
further it travelled. If you stop to think a moment, you will easily see
what a sensation the scandalmongers can make out of the materials you
ingenuously wish to offer them."
He himself stopped to think; his keen mind flung out little exploring
parties over the prospect he hinted at, and they raced back shrieking
with vulgar horrors. Surely, surely his chosen bride could never have
contemplated this.
"Carlisle, have you reflected that you would be pointed at, whispered
about, till the longest day you live?"
She sat motionless, with averted face, and felt that she was slipping
from her last mooring. Was it conceivable that Hugo was persuading her
to hush it all up again--just because it was _easier?_... She and mamma
had done that and thought nothing of it. But, for this moment, at least,
it seemed horribly different to have such a thought about Hugo....
She said in a little voice: "But if it's right, I oughtn't to think
about consequences, ought I?"
Canning groaned.
"How many times must I tell you that it's not right, that it's
preposterous, that you yourself will say so to-morrow!..."
She made no reply, and then Canning, goaded on by his sense of strange
impotence, spoke the depths of his secret resentment:
"Really, I should have thought that the views of your future husband
would have more weight with you than those of a casual medical
missionary, known to be irresponsible and untrustworthy."
Cally gave him a look full of young reproach, rose with nervous
purposelessness, and went over to the empty hearthside. Much nearer now
peeped that startling shape. She leaned upon the mantel and tried to
think: of her duty to Hugo, of how natural it was that he shouldn't
understand, of how all this had begun. But unhappily the tone of his
last remark seemed to have set other chords quivering within her, and
all that she seemed able to think of was that it was cruelly unjust for
him to misjudge her so. He had promised to stand by her no matter what
happened, and besides Dr. Vivian wasn't irresponsible and untrustworthy.
The wild thought knocked that Hugo, now that he knew the truth about
her, had ceased to love her....
"Carlisle," said Canning, with more restraint, "isn't it reasonable for
me to think that?"
Her reply showed some signs of agitation: "Why, Hugo--of course ... You
must know your views have all the weight in the world with me. His
have none ..."
He came up to her on the hearthstone, raised her hand, and kissed the
little pink palm.
"Never mind--I'm sure that's true.... Now, my dear, we seem unable to
understand each other to-day, and trying to do so only throws us farther
and farther apart. We both need rest, and time for quiet thought. You
must let me decide this point for you. I am going to send word to Dr.
Vivian now that you will let him hear from you to-morrow morning."
He released her hand, and turned decisively away. At that moment, the
dim hall chimes began to strike six.
"Oh, no, Hugo! Please don't," she broke out, taking a little step after
him.... "_Please!_ I don't think I could bear it...."
Canning wheeled instantly, his virile face darkening and flushing.
"You don't?... My views don't seem to matter so tremendously, after
all!"
"Ah, Hugo dear! That hurts. How--"
"Tell me, Carlisle, did the idea of telling Colonel Dalhousie, for your
happiness, originate with you or with this man?"
Touched once more in her spirit by his singular obsession, she replied,
with constraint: "I don't remember, Hugo. Perhaps with him. But it
wasn't his saying so that made it true. It is the way I feel ..."
"That brings us back to the beginning again. I have done my best to
persuade you that this feeling is an hallucination."
Over and over this ground they went with quickening exchanges, Canning's
patience wearing sharper at each circuit, Carlisle growing steadily
whiter, but unluckily not more yielding. At last Canning said:
"You are going to trust your whole future life to me, Carlisle. It is
hard for me to grasp that you refuse to trust me in this, the first
thing I have ever asked of you. Tell me plainly that you mean to have no
regard for my wishes."
Carlisle felt ready to scream. How had this miserable misunderstanding
arisen? What was it all about? Her mind glanced back, but she could not
remember, could not begin to retrace the bewildering steps. Worse yet,
she hardly seemed to want to now, for Hugo could not possibly speak to
her in this way if he loved her as he had said.
She said in a small, chilled voice: "That's unjust, Hugo. I have every
regard--"
"So you say, Carlisle. But nothing else that you say supports it in the
slightest."
The girl made no reply. And then Canning struck out:
"My entreaties carry no weight with you, it seems. Well, then I forbid
you."
For the first time a tinge of color touched Carlisle's cheek.
"You forbid me?"
He had no sooner said the words than he regretted them. In the beginning
nothing of this sort had been within his dreams; had he foreseen the
possibility, it is probable that he would have given Carlisle her head
at the start without argument. But, once the position taken, he could
not bend back his pride to recede. And to him, too, came prodding
thoughts, of a bride who was revealing strange sides of her nature,
strange unlovelinesses....
"Good God!" broke from him. "With such excessive consideration for _two_
other men, haven't you an atom for the man you are to marry? Hasn't it
occurred to you that in a matter seriously involving my life as well as
yours, I have a claim, a joint authority with yourself?"
"Occurred to me? It has never been out of my mind."
"Yet you resent it, it seems. I say that I forbid your doing something
so full of painful consequences to us both, and you show that you resent
it ... Don't you?"
"It's a surprise to me that you would want to use your authority in such
a way. But--"
"Then you must have failed to grasp that this act of folly you
contemplate, over my entreaty and command, would bring an entirely new
element into the situation ..."
Carlisle looked at him without shrinking now. "A new element into the
situation? I don't understand. How do you mean?"
"Carlisle! Be frank! You know the effects of all this. Have you the
right, when I have sought one girl for my wife, to offer me
quite another?"
Pink deepened on the girl's cheek.
"I don't think I have.... Well, Hugo, you are free...."
"_Don't say that!"_ cried Canning, in a voice thick with a chaos of
feeling. "It's unendurable ..."
He turned abruptly away.
Of the two, in that disruptive moment, Canning was far the more visibly
perturbed. If women think with their emotions, Carlisle's emotions,
rebelling at long overstrain, had now run away with her. She was never a
docile girl, as her mother well knew. To Canning she had dealt the
ultimate unbelievable buffet. Through all her incredible obstinacy,
through all his knowledge of the capabilities of her spirit, he had
hardly doubted that one hint of betrothal restiveness would be
sufficient to bring her to her knees. Now he seemed to wear her words
like a frontlet, branded in the mantling scarlet of his brow. The young
man felt himself falling through space....
The same familiar little room, but now with a new face. Twilight began
to steal into it. On the cheerless hearthside, the lovers stood, and
each knew that words once spoken live forever. And looking at each
other's faces each knew, and could not change it, that the lover was not
uppermost in them now. They were two human beings spent with long
arguing, two wills hopelessly at the clash.
In the sudden break-up of the trusted and reliable, Canning's polished
style had been torn from him. He owned, laboriously and at some length,
that this serious disagreement between them was terribly disturbing to
him. How would it be later, if she refused now to show any regard for
his urgent requests? Was it unreasonable for him to expect his chosen
wife to consider the responsibilities entailed by his name and position,
to share his ambition to hold both above the stings of malice and
unmerited scandal?
At another moment, both the manner and matter of Hugo's remarks would
have touched Carlisle profoundly. But she was beyond thinking of Hugo
now. All that her fluttering heart could feel was that when he had
promised to stand by her through all time, he had meant only to stand by
her as long as she did everything as he told her....
"No, Hugo, it is reasonable. That is what I say. I am unreasonable. I
don't seem able to help it to-day."
And Hugo, with the last remnant of his unconquerable incredulities, for
the twentieth time mentioned another day. A post-mortem flicker of
reargument started: started, but went out, quickly extinguished by the
perilous fascination of the personal. Unspoken thoughts pressed in upon
them as they circled, lifelessly reiterating. These thoughts grew
rapidly louder; and Canning, striving to keep his bitter hostility from
his tone, gave voice:
"Of course the truth is--though I am sure you don't realize it
yourself--this man has somehow got you under his influence ... A sort of
moral hypnosis ... to compel you to do what is against your nature ...
and will bring you great harm."
At what conceivable point had the grounds of discussion become so
completely metamorphosed?
"No, that isn't true. I'm not doing--"
"I suggest that in your interest ... Otherwise I should be unable to
account for the predominant part you have allowed him to play in this."
"And yet, Hugo, he was right in saying that I couldn't be happy if I
didn't tell the truth. And you don't understand that even now."
"I fear I've always been dull at these camp-meeting metaphors."
Now they had struck the greased road, and easy was the descent to
Avernus. Carlisle said, all weakness gone from her:
"Well, I don't ask you to understand any more. You feel that I'm not the
same girl--"
"I didn't say that! I asked ... if you had the right--now--to make
yourself a--different girl. By that--"
"I'm afraid I've already made myself a different girl from what you
thought. You knew that when mamma told you what I had done...."
Why couldn't he say that he wanted her twenty times over, no matter what
she had done? It would have been easy to say that half an hour ago.
Canning's reply was: "I've said again and again that you've done
nothing. All this malicious scandal cannot touch you unless you yourself
wilfully start it."
"You seem to care less about what I am, than about what people might
think I am. And yet," she added, her hand upon her heart and her breath
coming quicker and quicker, "you wonder that I let somebody else tell me
what I am."
The deliberate reference to the revivalist fellow stung Canning like the
flick of a glove in his face.
"Dr. Vivian? He has not my disadvantage of laboring to save his
affianced's name from everlasting disgrace."
"Perhaps he doesn't find disgrace where you seem to look for it."
"It is cheap to be prodigal with other men's belongings. What is this
man to you?"
"Hugo!--Hugo!" broke from her. "I can't bear this!... You must leave
me."
"If I go," said Canning, trembling, "I do not return."
"It is what I wish," said Carlisle.
And her other hand came to her heart, to his glittering pledge upon her
finger....
Canning stood watching her, paling and purpling. How they had come to
this he knew no more than Carlisle; and no more than she could he force
his steps backward. In truth, the deeps of him had never so passionately
desired her as now, yearning beyond reason or understanding to the
untamed spirit. And yet ... What did he know of her, whom he thought he
knew so well? She had flirted with a young drunkard, fraternized with a
low crank, inextricably involved herself in the scandals of a suicide.
Taxed with these things, she was wantonly rebellious, contemptuously
indifferent to his wishes. Lovely and wild she stood there. And yet ...
He heard his hoarse voice saying: "Think, Carlisle. You are sure that
this is what you wish ..."
"You leave me no alternative."
"Oh, but I have ... I do."
"Not one that I can accept."
"Then you force me to say good-bye."
"Good-bye."
His legs could not have heard the marching-order; he remained rooted
where he stood. Ebbings and flowings of color mottled his handsome face.
"One last word ... Is it to come to this? We stand ... at the final
parting of the ways. Think ... This is what you wish?"
If he still hoped for impossible reconciliation, or if merely some
instinct moved him to put the burden for the breaking upon her, Carlisle
did not know. She was past arguing now.
"This is yours."
On the pink palm he had kissed such a little while ago she held out the
glorious diamond he had given her in the first radiance of the
engagement. Canning saw no way of escaping the offering; he accepted it
with a stiff bow, dropped it in the pocket of his coat. But it was a
business to which even he quite failed to impart any dignity.
He looked blindly about for his hat and stick, remembered that he had
left them outside, turned and faced his love again. Between them passed
a long look.
"Then ... this is good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Cally again.
And then Hugo opened the door of papa's study and went away. And in a
moment there was the sound of the front door shutting.
Was it over, then? Was the parting of lovers so brief, so final?...
Cally started, as from a trance. She ran out of the study and through
the dark library to the drawing-room and the front windows. Just in
time, she stood behind the curtains, and caught a last glimpse of
Canning's receding back. Brave and dear it looked, departing.
Over and over she said to herself: "He's gone ... Hugo's gone ... He has
thrown me over ..."
Gone was the prince of lovers. Calamity fell upon calamity. It would be
better to be dead. And suddenly all that was hard and resisting in the
girl broke with the taut strain, broke with a poignant bodily throe, and
she fell face downward into a great chair, weeping with wild abandon.
Here, within two minutes from the shutting of the door, her mother found
her.
* * * * *
So the beginning at the Beach touched its farther end. It touched with
the shocks of cataclysm, whose echoes did not soon cease to reverberate.
The word of the Lord came to Jack Dalhousie's father, and he would not
suffer in silence. Mr. Heth arrived at the House at ten o'clock that
night; it was the best he had been able to do, but it was too late for a
family reunion by an hour. The two women had fled away to New York,
probably on the very same train that bore back Hugo Canning. And behind
them Rumor of the triple head had already risen, roaring an astonishment
and a proverb.