"How can you _look_ at me, and pretend that you"re so anxious to help other people"s businesses, when you know you wouldn"t even give to your own Settlement--_not a cent_!"
The two stood facing each other, hardly a yard apart, their eyes dead-level. V.V., as Henrietta c.o.o.ney called him, continued to look at her, and though he was far from a florid young man, it seemed now as if he must have been so, so much color did he have to lose. And Cally discovered that the man had somehow managed to keep, over all these brilliant weeks, that mysterious trick he had of making her feel unfair, and even rather horrid and common, when she knew perfectly well she wasn"t. For the look on his unreliable face was that of one stabbed from behind in a company where he had trusted, and his eyes seemed to be saying to her quite distinctly: "Don"t you worry about _me!_ Just give me a minute or two, and _I"ll_ be all right...."
But all that his actual voice said, in rather a remote way, was:
"What a terrific hypocrite you must think me!... I hadn"t realized ..."
It was precisely the point that Carlisle Heth had been trying to establish, for a long, long time. Yet now, in the moment of triumph, her gaze suddenly wavered from his; and she heard herself, to her own secret confusion, saying hurriedly and weakly:
"At least, I understood--some one _told_ me--you hadn"t.... Of course you--you _might_ have given something, and--this person not have known...."
But Jack Dalhousie"s friend only answered, in the same detached way:
"It"s unpardonable, my detaining you this way. I"d no idea ... May I show you the way up--"
"No--_no!_ Please wait!..."
He waited, silent. Carlisle, having paused long enough to take firm hold of her consciousness of vast superiorities, resumed more strongly:
"Perhaps I ought to explain why I--thought that. I was told that the whole thing had fallen through, when a--a wealthy subscriber stepped in and secretly gave a very large amount--had bought the building for you.
So I--I naturally thought--"
"It was absolutely natural. In fact, it"s quite true.... Shall we go to the meeting now?"
But no, something in her required that he must state in plain words the fact that would justify her accusation, alleged by his eyes to be so unjust: namely, that it was (practically) a member of her family who had done this splendid thing for him. Yet she went rather further than she had intended when she said, glancing away over the queer dusky court:
"I will tell you. Some one gave us to understand--not he himself, of course,--that it was a friend of ours who had done this ... Mr.
Hugo Canning."
He made no answer.
An uncontrollable desire carried the girl yet further. She said, in a weakening voice:
"_Was it?_"
In saying this, she brought her eyes back fully to her victim. And if ever guilt was written large upon a human countenance, it was upon the face of V. Vivian at that moment. Brightly flushed he was, with an embarra.s.sment painful to witness. And yet, so strange is the way of life, the joy of victory once again seemed to slip from the clutch of Cally Heth. What house of cards was this she had pulled down upon herself?...
"Really, you must appreciate," the man was saying, in a light, dry voice, "I shouldn"t feel at liberty to betray a secret of that sort, even if I knew. I"m sorry, but--"
But the girl"s sickening sensations of falling through s.p.a.ce broke out in faltering speech:
"_Oh!_... Do you _mean_ ..." She halted, to steady herself, and took a fresh start, no better than the first: "Do you mean--that--"
"I mean only, Miss Heth, that I haven"t the slightest idea what this is all about. I thought," he said, in a voice of increasing hardness, "that we were talking of the Works. If, at another time, you can give me a few minutes--"
"Was it YOU?" said Carlisle, breaking through his defenses ... "Do you mean--it was YOU, all along?..."
"I mean nothing of any sort. Does it occur to you that these questions are quite unfair?--that they put me in a ..."
She demanded in a small voice: "_Did you buy this house for the Settlement?_"
Shot down with the pointblank question, the tall young man, whose coat was so extremely polished at the elbows, died game, saying with sudden gentleness:
"No, it was my Uncle Armistead."
And then there was no sound but the steady beat of the rain upon sidewalk and roofs ...
Upstairs, just a floor and a ceiling away, Mrs. Heth, craning her neck for the last time, perceived that Cally had decided not to come to the meeting; also that it was just as well, viewing the inclement weather.
Downstairs, almost directly beneath her, Cally stood front to front with the family enemy, her face quite white.
"Of course you understand," the enemy was saying, hurriedly and yet firmly too, "he gave me the money expecting it to be used for the public good. I"ve considered that I merely had it in trust, as a fund for--for these purposes, as I"ve explained. And this--well, you may easily imagine that it was the most perfect form of self-indulgence.... I"ve gotten so fond of this old place ... But I can"t imagine how we came to be talking of it, and I beg that you"ll forget the whole matter. I--my uncle would have been very much annoyed to--to have it known or talked about...."
Not in that singular experience in the c.o.o.ney parlor, not even in the memorable New Year"s moment in her own library, had Carlisle been swept with such a desire to dissociate herself from her own person, to sneak away from herself, to drop through the floor. Nevertheless, some dignity in her, standing fast, struck out for salvage; and out of the uprush of humiliating sensation, she heard her voice, colorless and flat:
"I"m sorry I said that. You make me ... quite ashamed...."
The flush deepened abruptly on the tall doctor"s cheek.
"_Don"t_ say that! Don"t you suppose I understand how absolutely natural it was?... Everybody"d have thought just the same, in your place...."
Carlisle had turned away from his translucent eye, finding it unbearable; she descended from the stair, took an irresolute step or two over the ruined floor of the once stately court. And then she halted, having really nowhere to go, staring fixedly toward the distant doors....
Mamma"s nearness could not help her now. Hugo"s fortifying love was no buffer against this extraordinary moment. All alone Cally stood with the contemned religious fellow who had unhorsed and disarmed her once again, and now there would be no more weapons. And there was a worse thing here than her mean looking for hypocrisy, and the discovery, instead, of a mad generosity, a princely folly. Bad enough all that seemed; very bad indeed: but Cally"s painful moment seemed to cut deeper yet.
After all the struggling, had it come to this? Was the author of the Beach opinion of her a man whom she must greatly admire?...
Behind her stood the stairway, which led on up to mamma and the embracing security of the victorious order. Behind her also stood the man, the royal giver of the granary where finer-feathered birds now made merry among the spoils. With what speech should Cally Heth, mocked and jeered by her feeble "I"m sorry," turn now and pa.s.s him?...
She heard the sound of his unequal footstep, and then his voice behind her, stirred with a sudden feeling:
"Why, it"s not a thing to be sorry about--how could you possibly have thought otherwise?... Don"t you suppose I realize what cause I"ve given you to--to distrust and dislike me? You"d be more than human if you could forgive and forget--what I said to you one night. How could you, when it was so unforgivable? And since then--"
"_Don"t!_" Carlisle said, in a m.u.f.fled sort of voice. And then, clearly and distinctly: "Don"t!... I can"t quite stand that!"
She turned on the old floor, with the sound of her own strengthening voice, and came again face to face with the man, V.V. There had seemed to come to her a light. And back into her smooth young cheek trickled that color so loved by her betrothed, who had not bought the Settlement House after all....
She was a brilliantly successful girl, the chosen wife of the most shiningly eligible of men; and he was a lame slum doctor in a worn-out suit, beneath her notice as a man altogether. And yet, as Hugo stood above her in all those material aspects which had always summed up her whole demand of life, so this man stood above her in some more subtle and mysterious way. And it had always been so: by bright swift flickers of intuition she had seemed suddenly to see that now. All the restlessness and discontent which the thought and sight of him had power to awake in her from the beginning came from just this; and she had never been able to put him down, no matter how she had chafed and denounced, because the final fact had always been that he, in his queer way, stood above her ...
And now, in this unsteadied moment, with all hope of bringing him down beaten finally to death, there had seemed to rise and beckon a finer way of bridging this gap between them. All that was best in the girl suddenly rose, demanding for once to be allowed to meet the shabby alien on his own reckless level.
"Look here," said Cally, with a kind of tremulous eagerness, "I want to tell you something...."
Yes, surely it was all a matter between herself and him: she could meet his eyes now with no sense that did not add to her curious inner exaltation. Had not these eyes said to her from the beginning that they would give her no peace till she came to this?...
"You were right to say what you did that night. A puff of wind blew the boat over after he got out. Mr. Dalhousie never knew I was upset."
The words dropped unafraid into a perfect silence. The girl"s manner was as simple, as undramatic, as possible. Yet, considering who these two were, considering the intentions with which she had entered his Dabney House not ten minutes before, no more startling words could have been devised by the wit of man.