Judge Blenso, in the bedroom, received the friendly information, and then his message from Mrs. Herman, with only a cold "Very well!" He stood at a long board, balanced on two distant chair-backs, listlessly pressing the trousers he didn"t have on; his instrument being a patent electric-flatiron, which consumed quant.i.ties of current, which indeed fairly gave the measure of his landlady"s adoration. Catch Mrs. Herman letting Two-Book McGee use so much as an electric curling-iron in the Second Hall Back!
"And Judge," added Charles, conciliatingly, "please don"t bother to take that ma.n.u.script to the express-office--I mean "Bandwomen"--unless you really want the walk."
"Very well! I hear you! Good gad, very well!" said the Judge.
Charles shut the door, regretfully. It had been like this between them for some weeks now. Even his generosity in quietly yielding the name of his own only novel produced no softening effect on his secretary"s cold bored disapprobation.
He put on hat and overcoat, descended two flights, picked up the box of things for Mary, and went out upon his errand. He walked slowly, down Mason Street to Olive, and at Olive turned south.
For the second time, Donald had contrived to force his hand in regard to Mary: he was conscious of resenting that. Still--of course he had never meant to let the old friendship end in estrangement, and doubtless the casual pretext of the box was better than the formal "call" next week he had had in mind. To appear as Mary"s cheerer-up now was, indeed, considerably beyond him. Nevertheless, he was well aware that what Donald had told him in this connection had made an instant difference in his feeling, made him readier to be friends again. If only she had felt and realized all this in the beginning, if only she had showed him so that day over the telephone....
Still, feeling wasn"t enough, unfortunately. There was this whole business about Donald, for instance. In one way he could think of that almost pleasurably. Mary seemed to suppose that if she but arranged a house-party and gave Donald a sound talking to in advance, the whole thing was settled, down to the orange-blossoms. It required him to revise her crude plannings, put in the omitted _finesse_, and deliver Donald safely at the station. But Charles, pacing gravely toward the unpremeditated meeting, large box under his arm, found his thought of the episode continually seeking deeper levels. If, two weeks from now, Donald was still not engaged to Helen, whose was to be the responsibility of pushing him on? Not Mary"s, evidently. Was not this youth, in fact, but one more of those countless intimate obligations which strong women must "hack away," when resolved to lead their own lives? Donald was the apple of Mary"s eye. Normally speaking, she was ready to do anything for him. But it seemed that even Donald, if he crossed the trail of the Career, would have to look to himself.
Or, more probably, he, Charles, would have to look out for him.
At the corner of Washington Street, pausing, the meditative young man consulted his watch; he shifted the box for the purpose just as Donald had done a few minutes earlier. It was quarter past five, exactly.
Donald would be at the station now, without doubt, safe on the train.
Well, here was one thing he had done for Mary, at any rate, as he should not fail to indicate to her. And thus, insensibly, his thought slipped into the pleasurable vein again, the superior, masterful vein, and his mind composed the light ironic sentences with which he should make known to Mary her remissness and his own subtle services.
Stepping down from the curb in this brown study, he all but walked into a motor-car whirring by: a car that was stealing the wrong side of the street, and cutting close to the sidewalk at that. Charles stopped and stepped back, just in time. And then, all in the same breath, his ears, his eyes, and his nostrils telegraphed his brain what car, and whose, this was. It was the Fordette, none other, going at an unprecedented speed, now curving back dangerously to the side where it belonged. On a cloud of the dark smoke it sometimes emitted, Angela"s girlish laugh came floating back to him distinctly. But Charles"s gaze was fixed on the figure of the man who sat at Angela"s side and held the Fordette wheel; and his eyes all but started from his head as he perceived that it was Donald....
Yes, it was poor Donald fast in the Home-Making conveyance: Donald, s.n.a.t.c.hed, she alone knew how, from his wedding-coach.
XX
The famous Secretary sat at her desk in the well-kept sitting-room. She sat in the midst of doc.u.ments and letters; large white sheets of her Education League writing-paper lay before her, the topmost sheet nearly filled with her neat chirography. Oblivious to small happenings in the world without, the Secretary was deep in her distinguished correspondence. But her desk, as it happened, stood in the window, and the Secretary, after all, was not so immersed in her affairs but that she looked out into the Park now and then, sometimes for whole minutes together. She looked, too, into the quiet street before the house. And so it was that her eyes, in time, fell upon the familiar figure of Charles Garrott; striding all at once into her range, turning swiftly in at her door, vanishing again into her vestibule, scarcely five feet from where she sat.
Though thus aware that she was about to have a caller, Mary did not at once spring up to go and welcome him. She sat, entirely motionless, her permanently questioning gaze fixed on the spot where the caller had pa.s.sed from view. The ringing of the bell scarcely seemed to penetrate her consciousness. But then, in a moment, she dropped her pen quickly, and rose. Standing, she locked her two hands together before her, very tight, released them again, pa.s.sed out into the hall, and opened her front door.
"Good-afternoon! This is an unexpected pleasure," said she, in her natural voice, or very near it. "Come in!--or can you?"
Her visitor looked full at her from the vestibule, unsmiling.
"Oh, certainly--if you"re not too busy! It"s what I am here for. How do you do to-day?"
"That"s nice! You don"t often honor us, and--I feared you had merely stopped to leave that package."
"Ah, yes!--the package! Some things Donald got for you--I suppose you know? He asked me--"
"Oh! I"m afraid that was very much of an imposition--and I was really in no hurry for them at all."
She thanked him, relieved him of the pretextual box, laid it on the hall table, and, with inevitable but extreme infelicity, continued:--
"You saw Donald to-day, then?"
A small silence preceded his controlled reply "Oh, yes!--I saw him."
"I"ve just packed him off to a house-party at the Kingsleys"--to make love to Helen Carson. But perhaps he told you?"
In the large mirror overhanging the table, the eyes of the once excellent friends briefly encountered. She was puzzled by the quality of his grave gaze.
"He did mention a house-party, I believe. But--"
Turning away toward the sitting-room, Mary filled the pause with a little laugh: "But you think he won"t make love to Helen, perhaps?"
The grave young man, following her, did not burst forth, even then. His restraint seemed curious, even to himself. Crossing Washington Street just now, he had been full enough of plain speech, for this young woman"s good. "I"ve had quite enough of this!" he would say to her. "I can"t and won"t give up my afternoons, my life, to playing nurse to Donald. If you are satisfied to have him marry Miss Angela, well and good. If not--" and then a last warning, far sharper, far more direct, than the other. But then as he waited upon her steps, and then as he looked at her in the door, the springs of this trivial anger had seemed mysteriously to subside and dry up. No doubt the Career-Maker"s own look had something to do with that. Her face in the afternoon light was seen to be thin and tired; he thought he detected faint circles under her eyes, a slightly pinched look about her nostrils. But beyond all that, beyond any question of "sympathy," or cheering-up, it seemed that the affair itself had suddenly shrunk in importance. Donald"s folly, Angela"s little foibles, seemed to matter less to Charles as he found himself looking again at the departing heroine of his write-ups.
So he discharged his bolt with restrained formality: "It isn"t that. I was only wondering whether or not you had packed him off, as yet."
"Oh!--but haven"t I?... I don"t understand."
"I happened to see him a minute ago, driving on Washington Street with your cousin--Miss Angela."
It was clear that the topic had lost no interest for Mary, at any rate.
She stopped short in the middle of the floor, utterly taken aback.
"_Donald!_--as you came here?"
And, instantly recovering from mere astonishment, her capable gaze flew to the little watch on her wrist.
Charles rea.s.sured her, as dryly as possible: "However, they were headed toward the station, and going as fast as they could. I think he will make his train."
"But--it"s not possible, I"m afraid! His train goes at five twenty-two--it"s just that now!... Ah, how _could_ he!"
Producing his own valued chronometer, the young man compared it with the educator"s small trinket.
"I believe you"re a little fast, aren"t you? I"m five-eighteen. And it was just quarter past when I saw them, for I looked to see. That gave him seven minutes--"
"Yes--well!--but Angela"s little car is so slow--"
"Oh!--it can go fast enough for practical purposes--I"ve observed.
Besides, Donald may have telephoned and found that the train was late."
"Yes--that"s true."
Mary Wing looked toward the window, characteristically composed again, but evidently concerned enough.
"Well, I hope so. It would be too stupid of him to miss it, after all ... I can"t think how he happened to be with Angela--at the last minute this way."
"How, indeed? But sit down, do, and I"ll tell you why it seems particularly--mystifying to me. I hope," the formal caller added, with a glance toward the busy-looking desk, "I"m not interrupting?"
The General Secretary said no, with some brevity.
In sentences less copious and biting than he had sketched out on the corner, Charles recited the history of his futile afternoon. He could not, indeed, believe it possible that Donald, having donned the solemn bridegroom look for Helen Carson, would deliberately throw it off again for the sake of a short drive in the Fordette: which, to say the least of it, could be had at any time at his desire. Nor was Donald really a born fool, who would miss a train through sheer childish carelessness.