The inference was that, encountering Angela, accidentally (more or less), just after his second start, the youth had calculated that he still had time to spare; and so had consented to exchange the speedy limousine for the Fordette: quite probably in no spirit more serious than that of a venturesome lark. Charles"s remarks, at least, took these generous grounds, rea.s.suring as to the moment. And still a tinge of exasperation crept into his account of his wasted labors. And still something in him seemed to require that he should bring these small responsibilities home where they belonged, for once: leaving them on her doorstep, as it were, for her to jump over when she went away.
But his story, inevitably, was one of ungallant efforts to evade impending pursuit. And when, to point up his lesson, he guardedly suggested a connection between the natural ambitions of Miss Angela, and the two complete transplantations of her family, Mary Wing seemed to gather more of his purely private thought than he had intended. One of her intent interrogative stares brought him to an unintended pause. And she commented quietly, but rebukingly, he considered:--
"You seem to have changed your opinion of Angela since last week."
There, of course, he hardly cared to justify himself. He could not well explain what Angela"s resemblance to her mother had signified to him, and why he considered poor Dr. Flower the most magnificent romanticist in the world.
"I merely suggest," he said, with stiffening dignity, "that she does seem to be much interested in Donald--and he in her--now. I happen to know that he called on her twice the day he left for New York, and talked with her over the telephone this morning. But you mistake me, if you think I mean to criticize your cousin--personally. I hope I understand better than that how--all this--is as logical and mathematical as a natural law. How far in the other direction the education of women ought to take them ... that, of course, is not for me to guess.... My point is only that these--these perfectly logical ambitions--are strong enough to be taken seriously by those who mean to oppose them."
"Do you doubt that I take this seriously?"
"I have doubted it, I must admit.... Suppose this house-party comes to nothing, what do you mean to do?"
The former heroine of the write-ups did not answer him at once. She sat in a straight chair, half-sidewise, a considerable distance away; her arm was laid along the chair-back, her cheek sunk upon her hand.
Something in the pose made the caller think of Donald"s exaggerated statement, that he had never seen Mary so blue in his life.
When she spoke, it was not again to suggest, offhand, that he should save Donald by stepping in.
"You are right, of course," she said with a certain dignity herself. "I haven"t been thinking of it as seriously as I should--evidently. Now--if this doesn"t come to anything--I"ll need some time to plan about it."
"It"s going to be rather troublesome, I"m afraid. And you--I--"
"I"ll make it my chief interest, you may be sure."
Then the stiff caller, examining his shirt-cuff as if he had never seen such an object before, released his logical comment:
"But I"m afraid you haven"t left yourself a great deal of time, have you? Two weeks may prove rather a small allowance--for a difficult matter like this."
"Oh, I--hope there will be time enough. Meantime, I--"
"I hadn"t realized you were going so soon, you see. That will add to the difficulties, I"m afraid. Donald says you expect to leave on the 20th."
He meant his rejoinders to be unanswerable, and she seemed to find them so. Glancing up from his cuff in the silence, Charles found his famous friend"s eyes fixed upon him in a strange gaze, which her lids and lashes veiled at once. Had that look struck him from any other eyes in the world, he would have labeled it reproachful, without the smallest hesitation. But Mary was never reproachful: she scarcely thought enough of him for that; and, besides, the shoe was on the other foot, as she should know very well.
"I did say something of the sort last week, I believe--though no day was really settled on. But it was very nice of you," she went on naturally enough, but with too evident a wish to shift the conversation, "to take so much trouble about it to-day. I do appreciate all your interest in it--and I do believe it"s going to turn out right, too. Donald certainly left me with that feeling, this afternoon. So don"t let"s bother about it any more now," said Mary. "I"d much rather hear--some more about your writing. I hope you"ve gotten the book well started now?"
But Charles, unique among the writers of the world, did not want to talk about himself to-day. No, he had found the topic for him now.
"No!--I haven"t, I"m sorry to say. Your arrangements are all made, aren"t they? Judge Blenso tells me you"re going to live with Sophy Stein, who used to run the Pure Food laboratories here?"
Again her brief look seemed to thrust upon him like a hand, and again her reply glanced off:--
"Yes--I was planning to live with her. You knew her, didn"t you, when--"
"I was going to say--if everything is arranged, perhaps you wouldn"t need to start so early.... Of course, the idea of your friends here would be that you should wait till the last day."
As she neither approved nor rejected this amiable suggestion, Charles said: "How does that idea appeal to you?"
To his surprise, instead of answering his question, Mary rose abruptly and went over to her desk. He then a.s.sumed that she wished to show him some letter bearing on her arrangements for her new life. But it seemed that her movement had no such object. She merely stood there a moment, fingering her papers in an irresolute sort of way; and then, without a word, she moved a little farther, and stood, looking out of the window.
He said, at once with bewilderment and with increasing constraint: "Or possibly you don"t wish me to know when you are going?"
Then Mary Wing turned in the dying light, and said, not dramatically at all, but in her quietest everyday voice:--
"No, I don"t mind your knowing. I"m not going."
And still the authority on women did not understand.
"Not going--when?"
"I"ve decided not to accept the appointment."
And, sitting down, suddenly and purposelessly at her desk, the young woman of the Career added in a rather let-down voice: "I haven"t told anybody at all yet. I just decided--last night."
Then came silence into the twilight sitting-room, surely a silence like none here before it. In the Wings" best chair, the caller sat still as a marble man, while the little noises from the street grew loud and louder. And then, quite abruptly and mechanically, he began to rise, exactly as if an unseen spirit were lifting him bodily by the hair. And he could feel all the blood drawing out of his face.
"Not going to accept the appointment," he echoed suddenly, in a queer voice.
And then, as if so reminded that his tongue possessed this accomplishment, he all at once burst out: "Why--but--why! You _have_ accepted it! It was settled!--long ago! _Not going!_--what do you mean?
Why, what"s happened?"
The young woman seated so inappropriately at the desk, gazing so meaninglessly into pigeon-holes, made no reply. And now Charles Garrott was walking toward her, walking as the entranced walk, fascinated, staring with fixed eyes that had forgotten how to wink.
"What"re you talking about? I don"t know what you mean! Why, what"s happened--what"s gone wrong?"
Mary Wing grew restless under his questionings; she spoke with obvious effort: "Nothing"s happened--nothing"s gone wrong. I say, I simply decided that I wouldn"t--take the position, after all. I decided I would refuse it. So I was writing to Dr. Ames--to explain ... That"s all I can say."
But the man standing over her looked more spellbound than ever.
"Explain!--explain what?... Why--you can"t put me off like this--can you?" said he, all his stiffness so shattered by her thunderbolt, all his struggle but for some effect of poise. "You _must_ know--I"m tremendously interested. And--I"m obliged to feel that something pretty serious has happened to make you--"
"No!--nothing has happened at all, I"ve said. I a.s.sure you--nothing."
"But ... You can"t imagine how absolutely in the dark ... Do you mean you"ve found something else you"d rather do--here?"
"I suppose that"s one way of putting it--yes.... Why, I simply say that when the time came--I wasn"t able to do it, that"s all.... No, I didn"t want to do it--that must have been it. Of course, people always do what they really want most."
"You didn"t want to do what?... You know, that"s just what I don"t quite understand."
"But I"ve just told you," she protested; and there stopped short.
She had overcome the brief weakness which had seemed to seize her when, for the first time, she heard her intention declared aloud, the spoken word, it may be, imparting to it the last irrevocable stroke. She, the competent, would not be incompetent with her own great affair. And now, as if she reluctantly acknowledged some right he had to understand, she seemed to force herself to speak again, in a voice from which her self-control had pressed all tone.
"I mean that, when the time came, I couldn"t pick up and go away--for good--no matter what was at the other end. I mean I wasn"t willing to.
I"d rather not."
She took a breath; and then tone came into her sentences, but it was only a sort of light hardness.
"I suppose it all came down to this--that I wasn"t willing to leave mother--in the way I should have to leave her. I didn"t want to. It was not possible ... And I"m afraid that"s all I can say."