Chapter VII

How the Great Parti, pursued or pursuing to Cousin Willie
Kerr's apartment, begins thundering again.

Bellingham Court was the very newest of those metropolitan-looking apartment hotels which the rapid growth and complicating "standards" of the city was then calling into being. It was on the most fashionable street, Washington, in one of the most fashionable parts of it. And it had bell-boys, onyxine vestibules, and hot and cold water in nearly every room.

It also had a fat black hall-porter in a conductor's uniform, and this functionary informed Mrs. Heth that Mr. Kerr was momentarily detained at the bank, but had telephoned orders that any callers he might have were to be shown right up. The Heth ladies were shown right up.

Willie's new apartment consisted of a sitting-room, a fair-sized bedroom, and a very small bath. About the sitting-room the ladies wandered, glancing disinterestedly at the Kerr Penates. Presently Mrs. Heth opened doors and peeped into what lay beyond.

"It's a good thing he's small," said she. "H'm, that thing looks like a foot-tub."

Carlisle, looking over her mother's shoulder, laughed. "You couldn't splash about much.... You shave at that, I suppose."

"I don't. One shaves. There's a better apartment he could have got for the same price, but manlike he didn't find it out till too late. What's this--bedroom?... Yes, there's the bed."

They stepped back into the sitting-room, and Carlisle, strolling aimlessly about, became a little silent and distrait.

It is possibly true, as crusty single-men affirm, that a certain solacing faculty inheres in beautiful ladies: the faculty, namely, of explaining all apparently unwelcome situations upon theories quite flattering to themselves. But Carlisle surely needed no such make-believe in this moment of rather excited expectancy.

Of course she knew well enough what inferences Evey and Mattie, for instance (in both of whom there was a certain amount of the cat), would have drawn from the fact that Mr. Canning, last month, had not seemed to follow up in anyway their very interesting meeting at the Beach. She alone knew the real circumstances, however, and it had become quite clear to her that Mr. Canning's demeanor was only what was to be expected. He was the proudest of men, and (that awful night at the Beach) she had expelled him from her presence like a schoolboy. Naturally he had been annoyed and offended--stung even into the rudeness of abandoning her in a summer-house to an entire stranger. How could you possibly wonder (unless feline) that he, great unsocial at best, had thereafter remained silent inside his fort?...

"How like a man," breathed Mrs. Heth, glancing at her watch, "to pick out this day of all others to be detained at a bank."

She had sat down in one of the bachelor chairs, to take her weight from her feet, which hurt her by reason of new shoes half a size too small. The sitting-room was pleasant enough in a strictly orthodox fashion, and was illuminated by an electric-lamp on the black centre-table. Mrs. Heth, who had helped Willie with his furnishings, had considered it the prettiest electrolier that fourteen dollars would buy in the town during the week before last. Carlisle had come to a halt before the bookcase. It was a mission-oak case, with leaded glass doors. For the moment it might be said to represent rather the aspirations of a bibliophile than their fulfilment, since it contained but seven books, huddled together on the next-to-the-top shelf. Carlisle swung open the door, and examined the Kerr library title by title: "Ben Hur," "The Little Minister," "Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" (from his loving Grandma--Xmas 1904), "Droll Tales," "Religio Medici" (Grandma again--Xmas 1907), "The Cynic's Book of Girls"--

Carlisle laughed merrily. "Willie has two copies of 'The Cynic's Book of Girls.'... I'd never thought of him as a divil with the women somehow."

"He could never get Helen Tellford to _look_ at him."

"'Religio Medici.' Is it religious or medical? It might be either, by my Latin."

"One of those faith-healing things, I suppose. Emmanuel Movement. I'd sit down if I were you.... Ah! There's Willie at last. Mind, Carlisle,--don't you hear the steps?"

"Well, we're invited to look at his things--aren't--"

Her careless voice died, as both together became aware that these could not possibly be the steps of a proprietor. The approaching feet halted decorously without, and instead of the door's bursting open there came only a manly knock upon it. Carlisle looked at her mother, and found that her mother was looking at her with quite a tense expression. This certainly was not the way they had wanted things to happen....

"Possibly it's only a tradesman," murmured Mrs. Heth, with hope; and she added in a commanding voice: "Come in."

The door opened, with a certain stately dubiousness. Full on the threshold stood Mr. Hugo Canning, no less: an impressive presence in loose motor-coat of black fur. Mr. Canning stood agaze; it was to be seen that he was taken considerably by surprise.

For the smallest known fraction of a second, the tableau held. Then action began, dashingly.

"Why, Mr. Canning!" cried Mrs. Heth, heartily, rising. "What a very pleasant surprise! So you're back with us again? Delightful!"

Mr. Canning came forward; he bowed with fine civility over the proffered hand, voicing great pleasure in this remeeting. And then his eye went flitting, with a certain interrogativeness, from mother to daughter.

"Such an agreeable coincidence," beamed the good little lady. "Or perhaps this is not your first visit here, like ours? When did you return? Carlisle...."

Carlisle, having forgotten more about the Great Game than her mother would ever know, was far from effusive. Advancing half a step from the bookcase, and offering the tips of white-gloved fingers, she said, smiling perfunctorily:

"How nice to see you. And Willie Kerr, our very delinquent host,--do you bring us news of him?"

"I'm told that he's unluckily detained downtown. But, indeed, it's charming to find you awaiting him too, Miss Heth."

Mrs. Heth sparkled, and declaimed of Willie's remissness. Canning stood in the middle of the floor, hat and stick under his arm, looking without pretences at Carlisle. Under the agreeable indifference of his seemingly amused eye, she felt her color mounting, which only brightened her loveliness. Perhaps it was not quite so easy to maintain the reasoning of beautiful ladies here on the firing-line, as in the maidenly cloister at home.

"Why are men the unreliable sex, Mr. Canning?" said she, laughing. "Here Willie begs us for days to visit him at his rooms--I believe he thinks there's something rather gay and wicked about it, you know, though mamma picked them out for him!--and assures us on his honor as a banker that he is in every afternoon by five at the very latest. So we inconvenience ourselves and come. And now--look!"

"At what, Miss Heth? I trust nothing serious has happened?"

"Ah, but our time is so valuable, you see. We must leave without even saying how-do-you-do. Don't you think so, mamma?"

"So it seems," said Mrs. Heth, and sank into a chair.

Canning smiled.

"Very pleasant little diggings he has here," he observed casually--"my first glimpse of them. I happened to be coming in town on business, and Kerr invited me particularly to drop in to see them, at half after five sharp."

"Really! How _very_ fortunate we are! But, oh, why didn't you come a little earlier and charitably help us through the wait? We've had nothing on earth to do but read and reread 'The Cynic's Book of Girls.'"

"Had I ventured to hope that you were to be here," said he, with a little bow--and was there the slightest, most daring stress upon the pronouns?--"you may be sure I should have arrived long ago."

Carlisle, dauntless, looked full at him and laughed audaciously.

"I recall you now as a maker of the very prettiest speeches. And the worst of it is--_I_ like them!... Mamma," she added, with fine, gay courage, "it is sad to go just as the guests arrive. Yet don't you think, really--"

"I'm afraid we must, my dear. Willie's evidently--"

But the need for tactics was fortunately at an end. If Carlisle had drawn it rather fine, it was yet not too fine. The door flew open, and in bounded Willie. Destiny climbed to the wheel once more.

Willie, though heated with hurry and worry, handled the situation loyally and well, expressing just the right amount of surprise at the coincidental assemblage, in just the right places. Of his detention at the bank (where, as we may infer from his long incumbency, he discharged a tellership to the complete satisfaction of the depositing public), he spoke in bitter detail.

"If you'll excuse the French, ma'am," he summed up, "a man might's well be in hell as ten cents out."

"Why, I do think, Willie," said Mrs. Heth, "that rather than take all that trouble, I should simply have paid the ten cents from my own pocket and said no more about it."

But even Willie, perfect host though he was, did not see his way clear at the moment to explaining the banking system to a lady.

"You might call it sporting pride, ma'am," he said, patiently, and proposed a little tour of the rooms.

The tour, in the nature of the case, was a little one, almost a fireside tour, and soon over. Willie simply did not have the material to spin it out indefinitely. Then refreshments were hospitably insisted on: tea--muffins--something of that sort, you know--and Willie cried down his order through the telephone, which had already been duly admired--one in every room, etc. Next from a hidden cubby he produced siphon-water, glasses, and a black bottle of Scotch. Needed it, said he--digging two hours for ten cents out.

"Like the quarters, hey, Canning? Gad, may move again. Man across the hall--bigger rooms--wants to sublet. Like you to look at 'em sometime, Cousin Isabel. Say, Cousin Isabel, by the bye," he added, expertly putting ice into three glasses, "ran down that chap V. Vivian for you, just now. Fact. Old Sleuth Kerr--catches 'em alive. He's Armistead Beirne's nephew--just turned up here--what d'you think of that?"

"Mr. Beirne's _nephew_!" echoed Carlisle Heth, without the slightest strategy.

"Vivian? Who on _earth_, Willie?" demanded Mrs. Heth, puzzled; and looked, not at Willie, but at Carlisle.

"Don't you remember?--chap that wrote that fierce slush attackin' the Works, month or so ago? That's the bird.--Got rye right here, if you prefer it, Canning.--Walked a block with him and old Beirne just now. Remember Amy Beirne--eloped with some inventor fellow--what's his name--oh, sure, Vivian, haha! Lived in Alabama. Here's regards."

Mrs. Heth now recalled the name, and also having asked Willie, long since, to identify it. However, she thought the topic just a little inopportune at the moment.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Beirne's nephew--well! I hope you made this _very_ mild, indeed, Willie? You know I rarely consent to.... He might be better employed, one would think, than vilifying the Works, but there's no accounting for tastes, as I always say."

"Just water with a dash, ma'am. Oh, he's one of these slumming chaps, seems--kind of a Socialist, y' know--"

"The Works?" queried Mr. Canning. "Ah, yes! Mr. Heth's--of course! Is a cigarette permitted?..."

Carlisle, who had been gazing into the fire and acquiring information, roused. "Oh, here's your tea, Willie!" said she. "How very good it looks!"

Unlike mamma, she did not in the least mind Mr. Canning's hearing mention of the Works, even under attack. Shame at trade was not in her: she was confidently proud of the great mute author of her brilliant being. And it was by this pride, dating back many years and untouched by any late personal impression, that no "attack" could gain standing in her mind. At seven, she had one day asked her father, "Papa, what _are_ the Works?"--and papa had smiled and answered, "It's the place where all our money comes from." To this day, her mind's eye called up a great white marble palace, something like the New York Public Library, only bigger, from the front of which, through an enormous cornucopia, poured a ceaseless flood of golden dollars....

"I've no patience with Socialism," said Mrs. Heth, rising. "Where do you want your things put, Willie? Divide all our property up equally with the lazy and drunken classes, to-day, and by to-morrow the hard-working, well-to-do people would have won every bit of it back again. I'm surprised everybody can't see that, aren't you, Mr. Canning?"

"I'm astonished at their blindness," said Canning, gazing at the floor. "Vivian is clearly off his chump at all points."

"That's right--screw loose," said Willie, genially. "Set 'em here, boy. From the feller's literary style, I'd expected a regular riproarin' fire-eater. Gad, no! Face like a child's, kinder cute-lookin'! Fact. Polite as peaches. You pour, Carlisle, will you?"

The folding-table was set. The tea-things were tenderly arranged upon it by the dusky waiter. The little company moved and shifted. Host Kerr surveyed the pleasant scene with no little secret pride of proprietorship. His room--his tea the ripping-looking girl was serving on his patent table--his hireling just backing out of the door.... However, his also was the manifest duty in the premises; and, bestirring himself, he fetched tea and cakes for Mrs. Heth and invited her to sit with him beside the mission-oak bookcase.

Canning had dropped into a chair near the fireplace, one yard from the tea-table. He wore without concealment the air of waiting to be entertained. Carlisle poured, and thought that in ten minutes, or at most fifteen, this would be all over: if the present _tête-à-tête_ was to lead to another, and so on through a gorgeous climacteric sequence, it was now, or it was never. Here was an exciting thought, with stage-fright possibilities to some; but Carlisle, confident through her many testimonials, merely smiled prettily and asked Mr. Canning if he would not take one or more of the cunning little pink cakes. It appeared that Mr. Canning would; pink, he said, was his color.

"I believe we parted rather suddenly," said Carlisle, continuing to smile a little to herself, "the last time I had this pleasure. Do you remember?"

He desired to know if she could possibly conceive his memory to be so short.

"I was immensely mortified," said she, "to learn that I had given you a cold--it was a cold, wasn't it?--or whooping-cough?--by keeping you so long in the night air that evening. I've worried so about it all these weeks. _Am_ I too late to inquire?"

"I kick myself to have gone away leaving you anxious," said Canning, with entire gravity. "The attack, as it chanced, was transitory. There was no coughing--whooping or otherwise. The trouble was purely localized, in the head, and--"

"In the imagination, might one almost say?"

"In the head. You must have heard somewhere of cold in the head? A well-known though unfashionable complaint, throughout the north. I, on the other hand, was much troubled about you, whom I was compelled, by your command, to leave to the mercies of the nocturnal caller. However, Kerr assured me, before I was obliged to go away, that you had come through alive and uninjured."

"Ah, but did I?"... She added, after a brief pause: "Should you call a biting lecture on one's shortcomings from a strange man no injury?"

"But surely, speaking to that topic alone, my supplanter could not have spun it out for two hours, while I, luckless one, tramped alone on the piazza."

"Two hours?... As I say," Carlisle laughed at him, nibbling a little pink cake, "I like your pretty speeches."

The fire crackled merrily. The masculine paraphernalia stood, convenient. Canning stretched out an indolent but man's sized hand and refilled his glass. From across the room Kerr's voice sounded, conveying enthusiasm founded on the solid rock of patience:

"And this little poem about roses and how cold your nose is--I must really show you that, ma'am. Spicy, you know! And the witty picture!"

"I'll compromise on an hour," said Canning. "And what hideous foibles did the visitor charge you with to banish me that long?"

"With being quite heartless."

"Oh."

"With having nothing inside to be kind with. For these reasons he felt quite sorry for me."

"Ah! Is it possible that you could remember _my_ suggesting, just a thought before him--"

"I do remember. But, you see, this man is quite crazy. I suspected it then, but I know it now, for you said so not five minutes ago."

Canning looked at her.

"Your words," said Carlisle, "were that he was off his chump at all points. I hope mamma isn't listening, for she doesn't like me to use slang, and will not believe me when I say the men teach it to me."

"Oh!... Was _that_ Vivian!"

Carlisle nodded. "It makes it all quite interesting, doesn't it? To be felt sorry for by a man who writes really wicked attacks on one's father's perfectly lovely business. Only I knew all along he wasn't really quite right.... I hope you've had a very happy trip?"

"Thank you. I don't believe I have, particularly."

"Oh, I'm sorry!... Have you suffered at all from the blues, since you got well of the cold and escaped at midnight from your little fort?"

Canning continued to look at her.

"I've felt lonely," said he, "when the moon shines bright."

"You?"

A knock fell upon the door, making all look up; and Kerr bustling forward, first opened the door, and then stepped out into the hall. He returned in a moment, his round face puckered dubiously.

"It's Johnson," he explained--"chap across the hall, with the better apartment. Wanted to show it to me now. He's living down the river, and's going off in half an hour. H'm. Well, guess I better let it go till the next time he's in."

"Don't mind us, old chap," said Canning, without hesitation.

"If you wanted mamma to look at it with you, Willie? Perhaps--"

Mrs. Heth was already on her feet.

"Nonsense, Willie! Of course get the man while he's here--and _I'm_ here too! Across the hall?--it won't take us five minutes--"

"All right'm--thank you," agreed Willie, with evident pleasure. He added, smiling roguishly: "You two be trusted five minutes without a chaperon?"

Carlisle laughed dazzlingly.

"Five years, Willie. Mr. Canning is absolutely safe."

Mrs. Heth, saying archly that they would not absent themselves quite so long as that, glided out. Willie followed, engrossed in Johnson. The door was left half open. Johnson was presented. Their voices died away across and down the hall....

A momentary silence fell upon Mr. Canning and Carlisle, thus deserted in the Kerr sitting-room. It appeared to embarrass neither. Having risen, Canning stood at the mantel, sipping his Scotch and looking down at her. Carlisle went on cutting bread and butter, or something of that sort. She felt agreeably excited. In the manner of the shining passer-by she had observed just that progressiveness noted on the occasion of their two other meetings: faintly ironic boredom yielding slowly to passive interest, passive interest warming steadily....

She had taken off her coat, at Kerr's solicitation; she sat with lowered lashes, the glow of the fire upon her cheek. To what measure she engaged and intrigued the eye, Mr. Canning had had seven weeks to forget. No dull wit, we may suppose, in appreciation of feminine masterpieces, he seemed to see it suddenly with some force now, standing and sipping the pleasurable Scotch. And he began to speak in a voice not previously heard in Kerr's apartment.

"Lonely, Miss Heth, when the moon shines bright--blue, too, now that I think of it.--You are good enough to ask if I've had a happy trip. Happy!... Weeks of moping from dull place to duller, months ditto staring one in the face, and for this present--the rural villa of one's estimable cousins, with the sun and the stars for company. Really does it seem such a trifle to you to be plucked up by the ears from one's environment, transplanted bodily league on league, and set down on an empty road four miles from nowhere?"

"Nowhere? You are cruel, Mr. Canning. Four miles travelled in the right direction might bring you to a good deal. Only mountains never really come to Mahomets, not in life."

"Ah, but I'm no Mahomet in these months, alas! to scale mountains or not as the whim strikes me. If I were!... But no, no!--my sentence, you see, is expressly to avoid all mountain-climbing with whatever else is pleasant--to play the invalid, to rest, breathe deep, sleep and coddle. And for excitement--it is my revered mother's own suggestion--why, write a book if I like--my impressions of the New South, or any other reason why! Write a book! What have I to do with writing, think I, of a long morning or a longer night! I'm no scrivening professor, but blood and flesh.... You couldn't imagine the number of times I've been tempted to chuck all the mild climate tomfoolery, and cut away for lights and home!"

Carlisle gazed up at him, her chin upon her ungloved hand. Was there pose in these depictions of Mr. Hugo Canning as a morose recluse? She thought not: his light bitterness rang true enough, the note of a man really half-desperate with ennui. And she read his remarks as a subtle sign of his confidence, an acknowledgment of acquaintance between them, a bond....

"But you can't do it, I suppose?--if your health demands that you put up with us a little while longer?"

"I seem rude?--of course. But my meaning is quite the contrary.... May you, Miss Heth, never know the sorrows of the transplanted and the idle--"

He broke off, staring with apparent absentness.

Much interested, Carlisle said, toying with her teaspoon:

"I didn't think you rude at all. It seems to me perfectly natural that you should be both bored and blue--especially if you don't feel quite well.... But surely a little mild pleasuring during rest hours isn't forbidden as injurious to throats?"

"A little?"

"Of course you think we haven't much to offer, but really there is _some_ amusement to be had here. Really! Perhaps a little gambolling now and then--"

"My curse," said Canning, turning his dark eyes down upon her, "is that I can't learn when to stop. Once I begin, I am never satisfied till I've gambolled all over the place."

Carlisle's eyes fell before his gaze. "This," said she, drawing on a glove, "is a small place."

"You appear to invite me to gambol?"

"I? Oh, no! These are matters that men decide for themselves."

"Possibly the fact is that you invite without desiring to do so."

"Then what," said she, suddenly laughing up at him, "should I have to think of your rudeness in declining my invitation all these days?"

She rose on that, looking about for coat and furs.

"But you must not think of going," said Canning, instantly.

The thundering of his feet grew very audible now.

"The instant mamma comes back. She is staying a long time, isn't she? Do you realize that we've been here hours and hours, and that it looks like midnight outdoors?"

"Still, it would be a satisfaction to finish one conversation with you. We seem to remain all beginnings."

"What end is there to such conversations as this, Mr. Canning?"

"Conversations end in many ways, Miss Heth. I have known them to end like journeys."

The man left the fire, advanced to her side, took the modish wrap from her hands. But he did not at once offer to hold it for her. He stood two feet away from her, and a gleam came into his eyes, faint and a little cold.

"But I wonder," said he, musingly, "if what two men told you in a summer-house one night isn't quite true, after all."

"That I have no heart, you mean?"

"And don't know the meaning of being kind. Easter lilies are pretty on a tomb, but they were never my favorite flowers."

"No," she said, "it is not true. My heart is here"--she touched the place--"it is large--and I am, oh, very, very kind."

"You are rather adorable, you know," said his abrupt voice. "Here is your coat."

She was warm to the eye, animating, of an exquisite figure. Her nearness released a faint fragrance. She slipped her left arm into the sleeve he offered, and looking up at him, half over her shoulder, said with a mocking little laugh:

"And _you_ know that kind-hearted girls are always awfully credulous.... I sweep you off your feet. My eyes _intoxicate_ you, drive you _mad!_ Go on. I've told you that I like your pretty speeches."

"I do not always stop with speeches--you wild, sweet thing...."

So Mr. Canning; and with that speech he did in fact stop most abruptly, and at once turned a step away. In the sharp brief silence, Carlisle put on her other sleeve for herself.

From the hall, almost at the door, it seemed, had sounded the brisk approaching voices of Mrs. Heth and Kerr; presumably also of Johnson. Destiny, having had its way with their absence, was returning them upon the dot. In the sitting-room, talk of such matters as Miss Heth's wild sweetness necessarily came to a sudden conclusion.

The big man lounged with folded arms. His look was slightly annoyed.

"One more beginning, and you have your way again, after all! This becomes a habit," said he, with his faint ironic note. "Miss Heth, I am as you say quite dull and safe: the dullest of all creatures, a play valetudinarian, bored to ill-manners at times, as you have observed, by large overdoses of my own society. Could you take pity on me? Could you and Mrs. Heth give me the pleasure of dining with me, and Kerr, at the Arlington, perhaps,--or wherever else you may prefer,--on the first evening you can spare for deeds of mercy?"

Carlisle looked at him, buttoning her glove. Her lips smiled; but in truth she was a little unsteadied by the exciting moment just passed through, by the buoyant sense of triumph welling up within her. Were not all men, however exalted or difficult, alike her playthings at her pleasure?

"Of course I shall first beg," added Mr. Canning, "to be permitted to pay my respects to you and Mrs. Heth--might I say to-morrow afternoon at five?"

"We shall be so glad to see you, if you care to come," said Carlisle, looking away from him. "As to dining, that would be very nice, of course,--but are you sure your health would--"

"Oh, confound my health!" cried the great hermit. "Promise me now that you will never speak the word in my presence again."

"I promise.... Only really--if my invitation to gambol should lead you to--"

"You are as God made you, Miss Heth. It's not your fault that you invite."

He gave her a look, and, turning, swung wide the door for the chaperon.