Charles thought that he understood everything now. In so far as he
built a theory on the cold Argument from Design, he understood, of
course, nothing whatever. The truth was that Angela had had other things
than Mr. Manford to think of to-day. That she had gone out in her
Fordette at all was only by the merest chance.
Trouble had come into the little house of the Flowers. As early as one
o'clock, Dr. Flower had preëmpted the family attention. Coming in from
the Medical School half an hour before his regular time, he had shut
himself in his office, without explanation; and there he sat all
afternoon, declining dinner with a shake of his head, and otherwise
strangely uncommunicative and withdrawn. Reminded that this was Friday,
which meant another lecture at half-past two, he only said in his
puzzling way: "Quite so. I have no stomach for the small talk to-day."
Mrs. Flower, stealing now and again to the dark office, doing her duty
as wife and mother, returned each time more concerned by her husband's
remoteness, less reassured by his grave statements that he was not sick,
in stomach or elsewhere. The two women spent a long and uneasy
afternoon. And at the critical moment of it--the moment when, a mile to
the west, Charles Garrott leaned out of his third-story window--Angela
sat anxious in her mother's bedroom, discussing whether or not they
should take the responsibility of calling in Dr. Blakie, on the next
block.
But Angela did not think that her father was ill, exactly: it was more
as if his increasing queerness had reached a sort of climax. And now, by
chance,--or was it destiny, in this its favorite mask?--he quite
suddenly got over his mysterious attack; and the deepening worry lifted
from her young shoulders. Of his own accord, her father emerged from the
office and his unusual aloofness together, and came walking upstairs to
the bedroom, speaking with his own voice--speaking, indeed, more freely
than was his wont. He said at once that his headache was better now:
this being his first reference to his head at all. As if struck by his
daughter's troubled expression as he entered, he smiled at her and
patted her cheek in the kindliest way; and then, becoming thoughtful,
unexpectedly produced a two-dollar bill from his trousers pocket, and
handed it to her with some characteristically strange words about her
dowry, words which afterwards she could never quite remember. There
followed some commonplace family talk, entirely reassuring.
And it was only then, in the certainty that everything was all right
again, that Angela allowed herself to recall her own affairs once more.
It was only then, with the thought that her recovered father very likely
wished to talk alone with her mother, that she left the bedroom and her
two parents together. At the door, she mentioned that probably she would
go out and get a little air, before it was time for supper.
The old clock in the dining-room downstairs had then just struck five.
However, very little more time could have elapsed before the relieved
young girl, hatted and coated, issued hurrying from the kitchen door,
toward the garage that had once been a shed. Yet another minute, and she
was rolling from the alley-mouth.
To snatch Mr. Manford from his wedding-coach: was this the calculation
that sent Angela forth in the fair eve of the disquieting day? Perhaps
such a raid and capture would not have seemed quite a crime to her, or
to any woman that ever lived. But nothing, of course, was further from
her thoughts. That she might conceivably meet Mr. Manford while she took
the air, and even exchange a few words with him, Angela did, indeed,
think, and hope. But this mild maidenly fancy was as innocent as it was
rightfully hers. Good reason she had to know that a little chat in
passing, if so be it should come about, would be no less acceptable to
Mr. Manford than to herself. Had he not told her by telephone this
morning that if he could find so much as a minute in this rushing day,
he would spend it in calling on her?
On the eleventh floor of the Bellingham, Donald stood hastily rolling
his new sweater into a brown-paper parcel. Now into Washington Street,
the little Fordette came curving and snorting toward him: toward him, no
doubt, in a spiritual, as well as a geographical sense. And still the
full depth of the young girl's design was simply this: that her new
principal friend, going off for a gay week-end among maidens more blest
by opportunity than she, might go with a last pleasant thought of her.
For Mr. Manford was Angela's principal friend now; there was no longer
the smallest doubt of that. On that day of culminating results last
week, when the unusual line of vehicles had stood before her door, the
stalwart engineer had definitely moved up to first place in her
thoughts. Not only had Mr. Manford called for an hour and three-quarters
that day, while Dan Jenney cooled his heels in the office, and then went
off for a walk alone: but then also he had first shown, by unmistakable
signs, that he was truly interested in her. Moreover, in the very same
moments, by a strange and rather exciting coincidence, she found herself
becoming almost certain that she was truly interested in Mr. Manford.
She must have been pretty certain, even then, for it was that night
after supper, just before she started off to the theater with Mr.
Tilletts, that she had told Dan Jenney in the parlor, sadly but firmly,
that it could never be, and given him back his ring.
And since then, the shy girlish surmise had been further fed. One
pleasant happening continued to lead to another. When she had asked Mr.
Manford, half-jokingly, to send her some picture post-cards from New
York, for her collection, it was--again--purely from the instinctive
wish to know that she remained in her new admirer's thought, even when
he was far away. But he had sent her not only stacks of the loveliest
post-cards, showing the Flatiron Building, the Statue of Liberty, and
other well-known sights, but also the most beautiful book, called
"Queens"--a book of gorgeous pictures of American girls, all in color,
by one of the most famous artists in Chicago. Of course, common
politeness demanded that she should thank him--for "Queens," if not for
the post-cards--just as soon as he got back. And the resultant talk,
quarter of an hour over the telephone, had been just as satisfying as
possible....
Thus it was nothing less than a complete realignment of the coterie that
had taken place, this week. For if Mr. Manford had advanced rapidly in
the young girl's thought, even more rapidly, of course, had her old
principal friend dropped backward out of it. After the unattractive way
he had showed his pique that day, Angela had thought about Mr. Garrott,
indeed, only long enough to take a final position about him. That
position came simply to this, that if he was the sort of person who
expected to take liberties with you all the time, then he was not the
sort that she, Angela, cared to have anything to do with. She recalled
now her early premonition, that Mr. Garrott was a man of low ideals. And
she was glad to remember how she had put him in his place, the night he
had showed his real nature, and positively refused to compromise her
standards, simply to keep him on, as so many girls would have done.
Now, in the tail of the complicated day, Angela thought only, and with
right, of her engineer. Rapidly up the Street of the Rich she drove, and
alert she kept her eyes. But, in truth, the hope in her heart had been
but a slim one; and now, with each passing block, she felt it growing
slimmer. When she got as far as the Green Park, and saw the time by the
church-clock there, it dwindled away blankly to nothing: the worry about
her father had kept her in till too late, just as she had thought all
along. In short, her mind's eye was picturing Mr. Manford already seated
in his train, when he suddenly made her start and jump by appearing at
her elbow.
The meeting was his doing altogether. The maid scanned the sidewalks as
she proceeded; the man in a closed conveyance came skimming down the
middle of the highway. Nothing on earth could have been easier than for
him to skim on by her unseen, and nobody a whit the wiser. On the
contrary, he must have given the order to stop with instantaneous
alacrity. The very first Angela knew of Mr. Manford's nearness at all
was the sight of his head sticking out the door of a great car, just
ahead of her.
The door was open; the car was coming to a standstill; Mr. Manford was
signaling. Nimbly, with an inner leap of happiness, the girl complied
with his obvious wishes.
The two self-propelling vehicles, the big one and the little, stood side
by side in the middle of Washington Street, while passing chauffeurs
detoured around them with looks that cursed as they went. Between the
vehicles, on the asphaltum, stood Mr. Manford, dark head bared, speaking
sweet, hasty parting words: explaining what a terrible rush he had been
in since eight o'clock this morning, saying (and looking) how sorry he
was not to have been able to call. Eager manly words and self-conscious
manner, he was all that a girl could have wished. But then he stopped
himself, quite abruptly, as if he had recollected something, and put out
his hand with the solemnest look. "_Good_-bye!" he said, and seemed to
sigh, as if he never expected to see her again.
But Angela did not take Mr. Manford's hand. Possibly these two minutes
should have filled the round of her expectancy; possibly not. Now there
rose in her a graceful thought which the sight of her admirer in a
conveyance of his own had momentarily rolled flat.
Lifting her soft eyes to his, she said: "I wish--is there time for me to
drive you to the station? Or had you rather...?"
"By Jove!" said he, staring. "That _is_ an idea!"
The two normal young people gazed at each other through five seconds of
intense silence. When the man's gaze broke, it was only to fling it upon
the watch he had hurriedly jerked out. And that movement seemed to
settle everything. One glance was enough to satisfy the young
bridegroom that there was time. He so announced, and proceeded
accordingly.
Thus, for the second time in fifteen minutes, Eustace and the Big Six
were sent empty about their business. And Donald, dressed to "kill" the
Carson house-party, sprang to the wheel of Angela's Fordette.
"I'll hop her along," cried he, laughing with the excitement of the
thing, as he made the turnabout, "till she won't believe it's _her_!"
And so he did, as old Charlie Garrott, passed unnoticed on the next
corner, could have testified, and did. Ten full blocks Donald proceeded
toward his train at a wholly honorable, indeed dangerous, celerity. And
then his single-mindedness began imperceptibly to yield.
It was, indeed, touch-and-go with Mary Wing's male cousin, here at the
turning-point of his life. Had he not forgotten his sweater--well, who
knows? Now as the station grew steadily nearer, now as the pretty and
familiar voice spoke at his side, one thing was leading to another, and
his nervous fidgeting increased.
It occurred to Donald, not for the first time, that he was being rushed
about a great deal here lately, with never a minute he could call his
own. Managed around all the time--that was about the size of it, here
lately: railroaded along into things, with no chance at all to stop and
think quietly what he wanted to do.... Then, in a quiet stretch before
the turn at Ninth Street, he looked down at the beguiling soft creature
beside him, whom he had come to know so easily, so quickly, and so well.
His gaze rested upon the rounded girlish bosom, rising and falling with
tender young life, at the neck fair as a lily where the V of the thin
white waist liberally revealed it, at the big eyes of a woman looking
back at him so dark and sweet. And he was surprised at the sensations
the look of these eyes now had power to draw up out of him. How? Why?
Had absence made the heart mysteriously fonder? Or was it something in
the intimacy of this swift adventure together--her sharing his dash for
the train like some one who belonged to him?...
"I wish I didn't have to run off this way," he muttered, restively,
after a long silence.
"I'll miss you," said she, and the dark eyes fell.
He found the simple reply oddly stirring, arresting, and significant. He
was going to be away only three days, and she, this dear, different
fellow-being whose gentle weakness already seemed to depend on him, was
going to miss him. At some risk, for they now bounced through the
traffic of Center Street, he looked down at her again. And once again
the sum of all Donald's observations was this, that Angela was a
Woman....
No jawing here about the isms of the day, Browning--Tosti--no,
Tolstoy--those chaps; no arguing back at you over things a man, of
course, knows most about. No; this girl was all Woman....
"I suppose," said she, all at once, "there isn't a train just a little
later you could take?"
By singular chance, the thought of the later train had that second
knocked at Donald's own mind. Marveling at the coincidence, he
hesitated, and answered weakly:--
"Well, there's sort of a train at 7.50--a local. But--this is the train
they're expecting me by."
She made no reply. Glancing down, he got no answering glance: she was
looking, large-eyed and wistful, into empty space. Her silence, that
look, seemed in some subtle way to lay hold on whatever was best in the
young man, compellingly. Beyond his understanding, they seemed to
envelop Donald with a sudden profound pressure, immensely detaining.
Now, over lower roofs, the station clock-tower, two blocks away, shot
suddenly up into the fading sky before them. They saw together that it
was twenty minutes past five.
"Oh, hurry!... You've caught it, haven't you?"
The speech, for some reason, pressed more than the silence. He answered,
shortly: "Remains to be seen." Down the long hill, the little Fordette
raced and rattled. The young man's hard breathing became noticeable. And
the broad entrance of the station was but half a block away when, with
abrupt violence, he threw out his clutch and jammed on his brake.
"I've missed it!" said he, in a voice that brooked no argument.
Tommy's valuable gift had stopped with a hard bump. Angela did not mind
the inconvenience. Her eyes were rewarding her principal friend. Her
heart seemed to turn a little within her. Into her cheeks flowed the
sweet warm pink.
Together, the two normal young people laughed, suddenly, a little
unsteadily. Then, with gayety and some suppressed excitement, they sat
discussing an important point, viz.: what to do with their two hours'
holiday, before the later train?
It was quickly decided that they should go home. Angela's Home was the
one intended; Donald it was who decided the point, as befitted the man.
He flung out a commanding hand to notify whom it might concern that he
purposed to face about, yet again. And the faithful Fordette, which had
set forth with so frail a hope, turned and snorted homeward with the
great victory of its career.
Angela sat with shining eyes. She would not have been a woman, she
would not have been human but a plaster saint on a pedestal, if her
natural happiness had not had the added poignancy of a triumph among her
sisters. Just how far Mr. Manford considered himself interested in Miss
Carson, she had never yet been able to determine exactly; but that
beautiful damsel's position in the scheme of things she, of course,
understood perfectly. If her own intuitions had lacked, there were the
plain hints Cousin Mary had given her only the other day. Hence, since
last week, it was impossible to view Miss Carson other than as a rival,
an enemy almost, and one possessing all the odds. For Miss Carson was
rich and prominent, with powerful family connections behind and around
her, and every possible opportunity and advantage: while she,
Angela,--as we know,--had practically not a single rich relation on
earth, and not one soul to help her but herself. And still--here was Mr.
Manford at her side.
They stepped up on the verandah of the home; and the girl remembered the
anxiety of the afternoon. But, listening as she opened the front-door,
she heard from above the distinct murmur of her mother's voice, talking
to her father, and knew again, with fresh relief, that all was well. Mr.
Manford having accepted an invitation to stay to supper, she disappeared
briefly to confer with Luemma--bribing Luemma with the promise of her
old black skirt, in short, to go out and purchase certain extras, in
honor of the guest. Returning again, she found her guest standing in the
dark hall exactly where she had left him, motionless, a strange absorbed
look on his masculine face. And as he met her eyes, there in the dimness
by the hatstand, some of the fine color seemed to ebb from his cheek.
They went into the parlor, and sat down on the dented sofa; and her
conquest, still, was but part of a day that had belonged to another. But
now it quickly became clear that matters had taken a headlong jump,
beyond all calculation.
It was, indeed, as if the man himself was profoundly reacted upon by
those proofs of his own interest which had so stirred the maiden.
Unknown to any one, he had missed his train and important engagements
for nothing else than to be here with this girl: and it was as if the
fact of itself thrust her far forward in his imagination, wrapped her
about with a new startling significance. Men didn't do these things for
any girl that came along. Or, possibly, the heady sensations were but
the cumulative results of a slower process, and the friendly vehicle now
resting at the door had done its decisive work before to-day. At any
rate, Angela soon observed that Mr. Manford's behavior was quite
embarrassed and peculiar; and of course, in the womanly way, his
manifestations reacted instantly upon her. The more peculiarly
interested Mr. Manford showed himself to be in her, the more peculiarly
interesting she found him. Stranger still, the more she found him
advancing, the more it was in her mind to retreat. Or, no--not in her
mind; it was, of course, much deeper than that. This reluctance could be
nothing else than the ancient virginal recoil, somehow remembered,
strange latter-day reminiscence of old flights through the woods.
Instinctively, Angela talked commonplaces. The man's replies showed that
he hardly listened to her. As she recounted how her father had missed a
lecture for the first time to-day, he interrupted brusquely:--
"What's that ring you're wearing?"
Oh, that; oh, an old family ring, she explained, that her mother had
given her on a birthday once. He must have seen it a dozen of times. Mr.
Manford said, on the contrary, that he had never seen it before in his
life. So--was it the voluntary lingering, perhaps, a backward look
through the leaves, as it were?--Angela lifted her hand for him to see.
The hand was tightly clasped at once. "Where's that other ring--the one
you were going to wear till--you know?" Oh, that one? She had given
that one back to the person it belonged to. When? Oh, last week. Why?
Because she knew then that she could never care for him. "Does that mean
you know somebody you--you care for more?" She said that _that_ wouldn't
mean anything so very much; and thereupon made an effort to withdraw her
hand.
"There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to
burn of itself." Put otherwise, Angela saw that Mr. Manford wasn't even
glancing at her ring. However, her proper gesture to recover it
accomplished no more than her commonplaces. For the cells and tissues of
the gentleman, too, harbored ancestral memories, masculine recollections
of agreeable old captures. And the touch and cling of the warm soft
_her_ had seemed to set them all to singing, drawing him, drawing him.
So far from recovering that hand of hers, in fine, the fleeing maiden
abruptly lost possession of the other one.
Thus in the storied way, there approached the second Occurrence on a
Sofa. It may have been only the last recoil; it may have been that that
other occurrence, fruitless contact with the low ideals of man, had
permanently injured the womanly trustfulness. There was, at least, a
kind of terror among the mingled sensations, as Angela beheld the second
event resistlessly approaching.
"Oh, please!... You mustn't ..."
And--so sardonically does life twine joy with sorrow in its willful
tangle--it was as she spoke these words that Mrs. Flower, standing at
the head of the dark stairs, first called Angela's name. However, that
call died unheard. The mother's voice was low, the daughter, for her
part, could be conscious of nothing but that this dear and imperious Mr.
Manford was a very difficult person to resist. Perhaps something in her
had been against resistance from the first; but now, over his
inconclusive endearments, the pardonable inquiry sighed from her:--
"Oh, why do you do this? Tell me."