Chapter X

A Beautiful New Year's Party, and who spoiled it, and how;
how Something is done, after all, for she tells the Man
plainly that he mustn't speak to her any more.

By eleven o'clock the festivities approached their height: even the ultra-fashionable had arrived, even the ultra-conservative had not departed for bed. The affair was none of your wholesale routs. Old Mr. Beirne, who had long claimed the eve of the New Year for the hospitable repayment of his social dues, had lived to see the list of his friends shrink fast as Old Years ticked out. Nevertheless, the scene now was indubitably inspiriting. Lively groups decorated all the purview. White shirt-fronts gleamed: white shoulders did the same. The fragrance of flowers filled the air, filled likewise with the gay hum of voices. From behind a coppice of shrub and palm Professor Wissner's band of select artists continually seduced the feet. Toward the dining-room regions rose the sounds of refined conviviality. Servitors moved about with trays. Mrs. Clicquot's product fizzed, for the proper ceremonious induction of another year.

It was a most enlivening ensemble, full of pleasant attractions to the senses; and through it moved Carlisle Heth, the most beautiful lady, with a look like that of a queen in a book. In that gay company she was the proudest figure, the object of all most captivating to the eye, save one; and that one, an Olympian in evening dress, sauntered splendidly at her side.

Mr. Canning to-night made his début in the local gay world. Constant as had been his attentions for a number of days, he had hitherto held steadfastly to his valetudinarian stand against general society. He had gambolled, indeed, but he had gambolled strictly _à deux_. In his present willingness to break through his invalid rules, and appear as her acknowledged squire before the flower of her world, Carlisle's heart had recognized the crowning proof of his interest. Small wonder if in prospect this victorious evening had been starred in her mind in purple and gold....

The shining pair had just arrived, lateness being reckoned very differently in Houses of Heth and Houses of Dabney. Their brilliant progress down the long gay room, stopped often for the giving and taking of greetings, left behind awake of _sotto-voce_ compliment. Cally Heth, though the familiar sight of every day, was a spectacle, or view, not easily tired of. In a company in which most had known each other from birth, her distinguished stranger and captive naturally drew even keener interest.

"Look, there he is!" whispered an excited debutante. "Oh, what a dream!..."

"I never saw Cally look better. If she were _only_ a little taller, what a match they'd make." (This was Cally's second-best friend Evelyn McVey, herself a tall girl.)

"Wissner ought to hit up that well-known snatch from' Lohengrin' ..."

"Certainly, Mrs. Bronson. Delighted to introduce you--introduce him, that is. Just a little later, though. Wouldn't have me interrupt _that_, would you?"

Thus faithful Willie Kerr, somewhat harassed by the responsibilities of being next friend to a crown prince.

Backbiting among the well-bred murmurs there was of course. Mrs. Berkeley Page, the hostile one who had made the remark about the Heths being very improbable people, naturally spoke in her characteristic vein. She made her observations to her great crony, Mr. Richard Marye, who plucked a glass of champagne from a beckoned lackey, and answered:

"Whoever conceived a Canning to be an anchorite?... My dear, why are you so severe with these very excellent and worthy people?"

"Is it severe," said the lady, "to refuse to be cozened by gay lips and dramatic hair?"

"Aspiration," mused her elderly friend, sipping comfortably, "is the mainspring of progress. Don't you admire onward and upward? What harm can a little climbing possibly do to you and me?"

"Oh, Mr. Dick! All the harm that the tail does when it begins to wag the dog. Don't you observe how these people set up their own standards, and get them accepted, whatever old fogies like you and me may say? They _unsoul_ us--that's what they do, and we may scream, but we can't stop them. Their argument is that money can do everything, and the intolerable part of it is that they _prove it_. Ah, me!--"

"Also, O temperament! O Moriarty! For my part, Mary, I'm a Democrat--"

"You're an old-fashioned Church of England man, and incidentally a great dear," said Mary Page. "And nothing on earth sickens you, and you know it, like this godless modern materialism...."

But who could smile more unaffectedly than Cally Heth at the bitter little peckings with which the dying order ever seeks to avenge itself on its brilliant supplanters? She passed on down the long room, stunning admirer in her train. High hope beckoned imminently to-night. By the subtle intuitions of her sex she had been notified that the steady approach of the symbol of her happiness consummate now quickened toward its shining end....

Mr. Hugo Canning, having returned for a week at most, had already remained for a fortnight. And it was obviously for her sake that he had lingered. Day by day, emerging from his Payne barricades, he had sought her out: loud his feet had thundered behind, with no more promptings of hers. Of the genuineness of his interest she could feel no trace of doubt: a score of "passages" since the interesting moment in Willie's sitting room rose to the eye of memory. And the prince of partis attracted her no less compellingly. On nearer view, he had revealed himself as full of a fascinating contrariety, various as a woman. Moods played up and down upon him, charming mysteriously. He could be distrait and silent, the portrait of distinguished boredom. And then, as by the turning of a sudden page, he was gay again, tender, witty, all ardors....

More than the strains of the lovesick waltz beat in the girl's veins to-night. For this present there was no hope even of connected conversation. In the midst of the gay company the invasions of privacy were constant.

"All these nice people, and all so eager to be friendly with you!" laughed Carlisle, with some want of naturalness, as she for the dozenth time detached herself and him from a little surrounding group. "And yet you've complained to me of _loneliness_!"

"There are times, Miss Heth, when one is never so lonely as in the midst of the crowd."

"Oh!... Then to save you from loneliness to-night I must remove you from the crowd?"

"You grasp my meaning. I want a lodge in some vast wilderness."

"That is rather rude, isn't it? Where should I come in?"

"You come into the lodge," said Canning, and smiled faintly.

Though the smile was faint, her eyes fell before it. When she raised them, they ran upon another interruption.

"This is Mrs. Mason, Mr. Beirne's sister. You will like to meet her, Mr. Canning."

"Delightful," murmured Mr. Canning.

Because of his consistent recluseness, foregone to-night for her pleasure, Carlisle had meant rather to exhibit Mr. Canning to enraptured eyes than to subject him to a flood of undesired introductions. But because she did not want people to refer to her as catty behind her back, some sharing of her honors was inescapable. A few of her dearest girl-friends, a handful of the more prominent young men, a somewhat larger sprinkling of the older people: these were all who received the golden benediction. Evey McVey was of course among the favored few, but Mattie Allen, as usual so late in the evening, was not to be seen. She was undoubtedly "off" somewhere, probably high up on the stairs, with the most interesting man she had been able to attach.

Canning accepted all the introductions with a charming courtesy, but Carlisle detected beneath his agreeable manner a faint undercurrent of stoic weariness. The cold weather had lately touched the troublesome throat: Mr. Canning spoke to-night with perceptible hoarseness. Carlisle assured him that he had won a permanent place in Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" (of which she had heard the other day), and invited him to partake of refreshments, for they had now at last reached the doors of the dining-room. He declined, as she had done, but accepted a glass of champagne from a bald-headed Greek who was pulling corks at a small table near by. On the point of pledging his lady's health, he was invaded again, this time by resolute Mr. Robert Tellford, who held the opinion that Carlisle looked an angel this evening, and was long since addicted to celestial society.

"The wine is excellent," said Mr. Canning, clinking glasses with Mr. Tellford.

"The rooms are warm," said Robert, in about that sequence.

"People are beginning to leave, I observe," said Mr. Canning.

"Others are just coming in, I note," answered Robert, doggedly.

Carlisle laughed. "To-morrow will be a fine day. You talk like people in a play. Let's all wish each other a happy New Year...."

"Duty is done," she added later, with a small sigh, when Robert had been persuaded to remove himself. "We can now give ourselves up to lives of the grossest selfishness.... Oh, oh, _oh!... How_ would sitting down appeal to you, Mr. Canning?"

"Ice-water to Tantalus, Miss Heth. And seats are about as probable."

"_Look!_"

She nodded dramatically toward the hall and her sudden discovery: Mr. Beirne's private lair, presumably; a pleasant little retreat on the other side of the house, luring the eye through a half-open door. A little to the back, and off the beaten track, this nook seemed to have escaped the irruption of guests altogether.

"My lodge, as I live!" said Canning, with interest. "And, for once, I really don't believe we'll find a spoony couple sitting in the best place. Let's advance casually, yet with lightning speed...."

They passed out of the drawing-room into the hall, the hum of various gaiety in their ears. No voices reached them from the rest-haven ahead. Carlisle was suddenly silent. A subtle and thrilling sense of expectancy possessed her, making talk somewhat difficult....

However, on the very threshold of privacy, her agreeable feelings met with a cool _douche_. A brazen couple _was_ already there, sitting in the best place. In this world of trouble there always, always was. The fact was disappointing enough, to say the least of it, but what made matters worse was that it was impossible merely to exclaim reprovingly, as one usually does, "Oh, there's somebody _here_!" and step back at once. Carlisle saw in the first glance that the girl in the best place was no other than her special friend Mattie Allen, already looking around over her shoulder, spying her. To withdraw from Mattie, under these circumstances, was simply not to be thought of.

She gave Canning a quick, backward, upward look which said, plainer than print, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Recomposing her features hastily, she stepped on in.

"Oh, _Mats!_ It's you at last! We've been looking everywhere for you. Mr. Canning was _so_ anxious to meet you...."

She ended dead. The intruding "couple" had risen together, turning; and Carlisle saw, with the suddenest and oddest little sinking sensation, that the male half of it, Mattie's astounding capture, was the lame physician from the slums, he whose face and words had become inextricably a part of the most disturbing memories of her life.

She, in her radiance, had met the slum doctor's eye with a shock of recognition; she looked at once away. She felt like one who has walked singing into a malicious trap. Why, oh, why, need the man have been ambushed here, of all places under the sun, obtruding his undesired presence and marplot countenance once again on her and Mr. Canning?...

However, if there was no withdrawing, neither was there the slightest break in the smooth outer continuity of things. Dear Mattie (already with a sheep's eye for the king among men in the doorway) had seized the conversation even before Carlisle left it hanging.

"Hello, darling Cally! Do come in and share our lovely little snuggery. Isn't it cunning?--don't you think we were awfully smart to find it? Oh, do you know Dr. Vivian?--Miss Heth."

"How do you do?" said Cally, without a second glance.... "_This_ is she, Mr. Canning--Miss Mattie Allen, whom you've heard so much about...."

Canning, hardly less piqued than Carlisle by the presence of strangers in his lodge, and unable to remember having heard the name Allen before in his life, of course rose gallantly.

"I hope Miss Allen won't think me impertinent," he said, most delightfully, "if I claim her as an old friend...."

Miss Allen's response acquitted him of all impertinence. It was she who then recalled an omission, and in her sweet artless way bade the two gentlemen be acquainted. Dr. Vivian (who could not exactly recollect the steps by which he had come to be duetting in his uncle's den with Miss Allen) looked as if he expected to shake hands with Miss Heth's handsome squire; but Canning, having shot him with a quick curious glance, merely bowed, in silence. Through the minds of both men (and also of Miss Carlisle Heth) had swept at the same moment a darting memory of their last meeting....

And then it was suddenly seen by all that Mr. Canning had been gathered in by his adroit old friend Miss Allen, and smartly withdrawn from the general society. And Cally was left to face alone the last man upon earth she wanted to see.

She, whose own plans had been so utterly different, had been on her guard against such a contingency as this; but Mattie's born gift for strategics had simply been too much for her. Mr. Canning had been surrounded and backed against a bookcase, as it were, before anybody realized what was happening to him....

"But oh, you're so dreadfully tall," she heard the voice of her gifted girl-friend, as from a distance. "I don't believe you can look far enough down to see poor little Me...."

All had happened at speed: the lines of division were still just forming. And Carlisle, of course, had no idea of tamely accepting such an unfair distribution of things. As to this man, Dr. Vivian, her attitude toward him now, after the Cooneys', was simply one of cool polished politeness. She had told him what she thought of him about the Works, and he had humbly apologized for the wrong he had done her at the Beach: that disposed of him forever, and altogether to her advantage. Cool polished politeness; but she did not intend to talk with him any more, of course, admitting him as a social acquaintance; and she was, in fact, just moving after Mattie and Mr. Canning, really opening her mouth to join in their pleasant chat, when--

"I wonder, do you know if there are any _marrons glacés_ to-night, Miss Heth," said the voice she had first heard in the summer-house--"with the little white jackets on them?"

The girl felt a number of things. From every point of view this inquiry, so queer yet so clearly social, so almost glaringly inoffensive, came as a surprise and an annoyance. He had merely asked that on purpose to detain her. Continuing to look at her two friends, so near and yet such worlds away, she said, coldly:

"I really do not know. I've not been in the dining-room."

"Then I may still hope," he answered, with the same air of friendliness, eager in its way. And, continuing his out-of-place remarks, he said: "I promised to bring some from the party to a little girl that--that I--well, I board with her mother, in fact. She seemed to have set her heart on _marrons_, though how she knew that such things existed passes imagination."

"I hope you'll find them, I'm sure."

"Oh, thank you," said the Severe Arraigner, quite gratefully, it seemed....

Through the open door of the pleasant little room, there floated in the continual murmur of voices and the sighing refrain of the waltz. As from a great distance, Carlisle noted that Mr. Canning found Mattie agreeably amusing. (What on earth did I he men see in her, with her baby airs and great pop-eyes?) But she was not thinking of her two special friends now. The flat brusquerie of her two remarks to the man had struck her own ear unpleasantly: they were neither polished nor courteous. Why was she so silly as to let this nobody, who had nothing whatever to do with her, so annoy and distract her at his pleasure? Above all, by what trick of his look had he made her feel, the moment his eyes fell upon her, that his apology had not settled the Beach episode, exactly, after all?...

The whole situation seemed to be growing intolerable; and suddenly it came over her that polished courtesy was not the note at all. Doubtless the trouble was that she could not forgive his remark in the summer-house, after all, no matter how generously she tried. What was needed now was to put the man down in such a way that he would take care not to come near her again....

Dr. Vivian, who seemed to hold fast to his one topic, was adding: "I don't want to disappoint her, of course, particularly as \ she's sick to-night. Just a little touch of fever, to be sure,--but she hasn't much constitution, I fear...."

Miss Heth made no reply; the pause threatened to become a silence; and then he said hastily, as if to save the conversation from total wreck:

"By the way, this child--Corinne Garland, her name is--is an operative in your father's factory, Miss Heth. She's been there over two years."

Cally's head turned. For the first time she looked fully at the Cooneys' poorhouse idol. And now she remembered that she had an annihilative weapon against him.... Had he led up to this subject on purpose?

"Oh!... She works at my father's factory?"

The young man's look was plainly not controversial; no, it was as if he were pleased that at last they had tapped a vein of common interest. In one glance Carlisle's trained eye, going over him, took in his sartorial eccentricities: in particular the "shined" shoes, the large brass shirt-studs, and the "full-dress-suit" (exactly that) so obviously made for a much stouter person. She saw that the man looked absurdly out of place here, at his own uncle's. Against this background of gaiety and glitter, of music, powder and décolleté gowns, he really looked quite like a stray from some other world: only the more so in that he himself appeared quite unconscious of any alienship.

Well, then, let him keep to his own world. That, in fact, was precisely what she desired of him....

"Yes, a buncher there, as they're called," he was quaintly explaining--"quite the best one in the shop, I'm told, though she's only eighteen years old. She has a record of 6,500 cheroots in one day--"

"But she has been taken sick at it, you say?"

"Undoubtedly she has a temperature to-night," said he, in an intent sort of way, desirous of giving his information accurately. "I didn't stop to take it,' as perhaps I should have done--"

"And she caught her fever at the Works, you think?"

"Oh!... Well, of course I shouldn't say that. You know--"

"But of course the Works _are_ full of terrible diseases, and everybody who works there quickly catches something and dies?"

Then the unmistakable hostility of her tone caught his engrossed ear. Carlisle saw his expression change a little; only it did not change nearly so much as she meant it to. He gave an embarrassed little laugh....

"But oh, _please_," said the voice of Mats, near by, "do go back and tell me what _terminology_ means. You don't know how _terribly stupid _I am...."

"Of course, it isn't nearly so bad as that," said he. "Factory work is hard at best, you know. And conditions in it are never very good, rarely even so good as they might be, as it seems to me. But this little friend of mine that I--I mentioned, she's--"

"Why did you mention her to me at all?"

The tall young man in the fat-man's dress-suit gazed down. He pushed back his crisp hair....

It was true that one from the outskirts could rise now and gird up his loins: the scribes actually called before the flap of his tent. True, in the most technical sense, that is.... And yet--was the passing social moment a proper occasion to shout and preach at the unlessoned upon the grim subject of their moral opportunities in this so complex world? Where was even the solitude be hind the rubber plants which Kern had (practically) guaranteed? Was it kind, was it even well-mannered, to spoil a young girl's pleasure at an evening party with bitter talk of fire-escapes and overstrained floors? John the Baptist, God knows, should have been a gentleman....

But if any thoughts like this played through the alien's mind, he certainly wore no air of perplexity or hesitancy. He answered without pause, in quite a gentle way:

"Well, it just seemed to come in naturally somehow. We just seemed to drift into it...."

But it was no time for gentleness now. Carlisle Heth was whipping up her anger to destroy him. And all the time, a part of her (the largest part, it seemed) knew quite well that she was whipping it up: wondered why it didn't surge more spontaneously, as she had such a perfect right to expect....

"But conditions _are_ homicidal in my father's factory, are they not?"

"Oh," said the man ... "Well, as to that--of course opinions would differ somewhat as to what consti--"

"You seem to--to have more courage in your opinions when you're writing letters," she flung at him, bright cheeked.... "Are they homicidal?"

V. Vivian's eyes had fallen before her indignant gaze. It was only too clear by now that she hadn't forgiven him--what wonder?--and probably never would.... Still, when he raised his eyes again, the girl saw in them a look quite different from what she had meant to arouse there. The man was feeling sorry for her again....

"Miss Heth, I consider them homicidal. I'm sorrier than I can say to--to worry you with all this now. Some day if you could give me--"

"You mustn't say these things to me," said Carlisle, feeling her anger to be real enough now. "I won't permit them. And--"

"You don't imagine that I say them for pleasure," the tall doctor interrupted hurriedly. "I'm compelled to speak the truth, however disagreeable--"

"Indeed? I've not noticed that you feel bound by any necessity that way."

To that he made no reply at all. But she saw, by the look he wore, that he was doing his best to convict her once again of having said something unfair and rather cheap and horrid....

Turning from him, she delivered the coup de grâce, in a voice not quite so firm as she would have wished:

"I don't wish to talk to you any more. You must not speak to me again...."

And she added at once, to a more congenial audience: "Oh!"

"Oh, oh! Cally!" whispered Mattie Allen, turning simultaneously, and for the first time, from Mr. Canning.

And Mr. Canning said: "Ah!--what's happened?..."

In almost the same moment all three had become aware that the rattle of talk and laughter outside the little room had entirely died away. There had fallen upon the house of gaiety a strange silence, in which a pin-fall might almost have been heard, and the slow speaking of a single voice, the length of the house away, was heard most distinctly.

To neither of the two girls was this proceeding a mystery. They were familiar with the New Year's Eve rites, and Mattie, after a number of pretty _Sh-h-h_ gestures, whispered the explanation to Mr. Canning:

"They're reading out the Old Year. We must all go see it. It's so cunning and quaint...."

So conversation of all sorts was summarily suspended. Even whispers sounded loud in the sudden hush. The four young people moved toward the door. For a moment they had almost the air of a company of friends. Young Dr. Vivian, who was nobody's friend, stood back for Miss Heth to pass out; but, seeing that she lingered beside her gallant, he turned again silently after Miss Allen, who beckoned to him _sh-h_ingly, whose property he seemed mysteriously to have become....

The alien passed out of sight, limping. If his only party that year had gone rather badly with him, it was not less so with another. Behind him in the firelit den, Carlisle looked up at Canning, color coming back into her cheek, her breast rising and falling. The sight of him, all to herself again, was more than balm to a wound, more than harbors to storm-swept mariners.

"Is there _any_ rest for the weary!" she whispered. "Oh, me! Let's _go home,_ right after this!"

Canning, who also wore a faint air of persecution for righteousness' sake, took her gloved hand, and she did not withdraw it.

"Do you know," he answered, with a little smile, "that's the cleverest thing I've heard said to-night...."

"We can have a little party all to ourselves," said Carlisle, rather tremulously. "It's been so _horrid_ to-night...."

* * * * *

They opened the back door to let the Old Year out. They flung wide the front doors to let the New Year in. They lowered all lights to the dimness of obsequies. The gay company, standing, ranged the long room in a ghostly half-light, and old Mr. Beirne, from his immemorial post between the tall windows, read from a great book "The Dying Year," in a voice as slow and solemn as he could make it. The stately lines brought home with a certain force, rather emphasized by the festive contrast, the certain passing of all mundane things. Here was another milestone left behind, and you and I would pass this way no more. Over the long loose dim ring, your eye fell upon a familiar and friendly face, fallen suddenly a little sad; and memory stirred of the many times you had looked at that face, and with it wonder of what another year might bring to you two. Would you stand here like this, friends good and true, with hearts tuned to the same feeling, a twelvemonth from to-night? There was felt a quick, childlike impulse for hands all round and such a singing of "Auld Lang Syne" as would have brought the police on the run.

By long practice and the most accurate chronometric reckoning, old Mr. Beirne timed his proceedings to a decimal. The last line of the slow-read poem died in a deafening uproar without. Every bell in the city, it seemed, every whistle and chime, every firecracker and penny-trumpet and cannon (there was but one), to say nothing of many an inebriated human voice, hailed in a roaring diapason the birth of a new year. At Mr. Beirne's the outer tumult was echoed in the manner of the well-bred. The doors were shut, with the infant inside; the lights flew up; glasses clinked, merry healths were pledged, new fealties sworn by look alone. Gaiety overcame silence. All talked with one voice.

Carlisle Heth descended the stairs in a carriage-robe of blue-and-fur, giving and taking lively good-nights. Canning, already mufflered and overcoated, stood awaiting her near the door: over many heads she caught sight of his splendid figure and her heart leapt a little. If it had been horrid for her to-night so far, no one would have guessed it, looking at her. Her shining loveliness upon the stairs attracted considerable attention; even her best girl-friend Mattie Allen noticed it, spoke of it to Evey McVey....

And then at the foot of the steps, she ran right into Jack Dalhousie's friend once more, the lame stranger whom she had just finally disposed of.

Encountering the man's eyes by mischance, she would of course have looked away at once, but her glance was trapped by the expression on his face. He was smiling; smiling straight at her. An odd smile it was, and complicated; not without diffidence, but certainly not without hope; quite an eager smile, confiding somehow, by the gift he had. It was as if he was saying that of course he knew she hadn't really meant what she said back there; and that he, for one, would never let a hasty word or two cut him off from the hope of being good friends yet.

Having thus by a trick captured her attention, he made a pleased sort of gesture toward the breast-pocket of his fat-man's coat, and, while she passed silent within a foot of him, said quite eagerly:

"_I--I got the marrons!_"