"A little?"
"Of course you think we haven"t much to offer, but really there is _some_ amus.e.m.e.nt 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, b.u.t.toning her glove. Her lips smiled; but in truth she was a little unsteadied by the exciting moment just pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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.
VIII
Supper with the c.o.o.neys: Poor Relations, but you must be Nice to them; of Hen c.o.o.ney"s friend V.V., as she irritatingly calls him; also relating how Cally is asked for her Forgiveness, and can"t seem to think what to say.
The Heths" poor relations, the c.o.o.neys, lived in a two-story frame house on Centre Street, four doors from a bas.e.m.e.nt dry-cleaning establishment, and staring full upon the show-window of an artificial-limb manufactory, lately opened for the grisly trade.
The interval between the families of Heth and c.o.o.ney was as these facts indicate. If Thornton Heth had married an ambitious woman, and he had, his sister Molly had displayed less ac.u.men. The c.o.o.ney stock, unlike the Thompson as it was, deplorably resembled a thousand other stocks then reproducing its kind in this particular city. The War had flattened it out, cut it half through at the roots, and it had never recovered, as economists count recovery, and wouldn"t, for a generation or two at the least. Accursed contentment flowed in the young c.o.o.neys" blood. They had abilities enough, but the sane acquisitive gift was not in them. They were poor, but unashamed. They were breezy, keen, adventurous, without fatigue. They claimed the gasoline-cleaning establishment as their private garage, challenging any car under six thousand dollars to beat the expensive smell. A large and very popular group of family jokes centred about the plant of the legman.
Carlisle Heth "came to supper" with the c.o.o.neys, as agreed, on the Thursday following the magic afternoon at Willie"s apartment. The week intervening had been, as it chanced, one of the most interesting and t.i.tillating periods of her life; by the same token, never had family duty seemed more drearily superfluous. However, this periodic, say quarterly, mark of kinsman"s comity was required of her by her father, a clannish man by inheritance, and one who, feeling unable to "do"
anything especial for his sister"s children, yet shrank from the knocking suspicion of sn.o.bbery. In the matter of intermealing, reciprocity was formally observed between the two families. Four times per annum the c.o.o.neys were invited in a body to dine at the House of Heth, Mrs. Heth on these occasions speaking caustically of her consort"s relatives, and on Christmas sending gifts of an almost offensively utilitarian nature.
The noisy cousins filled the dingy little parlor to overflowing; this, though Mrs. c.o.o.ney and Hen, having rushed out for the welcome, had at once rushed back to the preparations for supper. For it appeared that Hortense was absent once again, having asked to "git to git" a night off, to see her step-daughter allianced to a subst.i.tute Pullman porter.
The two ladies, however, were only gone before, not lost, and through the portieres joined freely in the conversation, which rattled on incessantly in the c.o.o.ney style.
Carlisle sat on the rusty sofa, listening absently to the chatter. Her unaspiring uncle-in-law, the Major, who was vaguely understood to be "in insurance" at present, parted his long coat-tails before the Baltimore heater, and drifted readily to reminiscence. Louise and Theodore (as the family Bible too stiffly knew Looloo and Tee Wee) sat together on a divan, indulging in banter, with some giggling from Looloo--none from grave Theodore. Chas informally skimmed an evening paper in a corner, with comments: though the truth was that precious little ever appeared in any newspaper which was news to the keen young c.o.o.neys....
"And I said to Hen," observed Major c.o.o.ney to his fashionable niece, having now got his short history of the world down as far as the "80s--"now stop your whining around me, Miss. If you"ve got to whine, go down to the cellar and stand in the corner. Well--"
"Why could she whine in the cellar, father? That point isn"t clear, sir," said Tee Wee"s deep voice.
"Because it was a whine-cellar!" cried Hen, through the portieres.
There was mild laughter at this, rather derisive on the part of all but the Major; but when Chas, glancing up from his paper, remarked crisply: "Aw, Miss Mamie! Like to speak to you a minute, please!"--the merriment seemed mysteriously to acquire a more genuine ring. Carlisle politely inquired who Miss Mamie was.