"He"s the one person," said Cally, resolutely, "I could not possibly talk to about it."
Henrietta, falling back on the thought she had set out with, laughed good-naturedly.
"Then, I suppose, you"ll want to fly at once. He"s due here at any minute, you know--in fact, he"s half an hour late now--"
"Here!... Is he coming here this afternoon?"
This time her start was without concealment. Hen looked genuinely surprised.
"He"s our doctor--I told you the other day ... But he doesn"t bite, my dear! You look as if I"d said that a grizzly bear and three mad ogres were loping down the steps."
"I never think of him as a doctor somehow," said Cally, recovering, with a little laugh. "So I couldn"t imagine--"
"Second largest practice in town--only I"ll admit that his not charging any fees has something to do with it. In fact V.V."s patients usually borrow anything that"s loose, including his hats, suits, and shoes ...
Cally, it"s like a play, for I believe there he is now ..."
True enough, a firm but unequal footstep just then sounded on the c.o.o.neys" wooden steps outside. But Hen sat still, a far-away look in her eyes.
"Did you hear what Pond said, Cally, the first time he saw V.V.?--"Who"s that man with the face like a bishop that never grew up?"... Do you know, I never look at him without remembering mean things I"ve done and said, and wishing I hadn"t ..."
She rose as the bell rang, started toward the door, hesitated, turned in the middle of the floor.
"I"d naturally ask him in here, Cally, while I went up to see if things are ready for him upstairs. Of course, if you"d rather not see him ..."
Cally had risen too. The two girls stood looking at each other.
"No," said Cally, "I"d like to see him. Only I can"t speak to him about the Works. I cannot."
"No, no--of course not, dear, if you don"t feel like it."
Hen went out to open the door. Greetings floated in....
Cally stood at the parlor window, staring out into the shabby street.
Over the way was the flaring sign of an unpained dentist, making promises never to be redeemed, and two doors away the old stand of the artificial limb-maker. Cally looked full at a show-window full of shiny new legs; but she did not see the grisly spectacle, so it did not matter.
The unexpected encounter was deeply disturbing to her. There stirred in her the memory of another night when she had similarly met the slum doctor in this room, between engagements with Hugo Canning. That night he had asked her forgiveness for calling her a poor little thing, which she was, and she had charged him with wicked untruthfulness for calling the Works homicidal, which--she said it in her secret heart--they were.... How history repeats itself, how time brought changed angles!
Strange, strange, that in the revolving months it had now come her turn to apologize to Mr. V.V. in the c.o.o.ney parlor. Only she could not make her apology, no matter how much she might want to....
"... Stop a minute," Hen was heard to say, "and pa.s.s the time of day ..."
Unintelligible murmuring, and then: "D"you know who it was that invented stopping and pa.s.sing the time of day?" said the nearing voice of Mr.
V.V., gayer than Cally Heth had ever heard it. "Take my word, "t was a woman."
"To make things pleasant for some man!--and we"ve been doing it ever since.... Cally Heth"s here ..."
The two came in. Cally, turning, held out her hand to the c.o.o.neys"
physician, with a sufficiently natural air and greeting....
They had not met since the afternoon at the Woman"s Club, a day which had brought a strange change in their relations. But then, each of their meetings seemed marked by some such realignment, and always to his advantage. Again and again she had put this man down, at first with all her strength; and each time when she turned and looked at him again, behold he had shot up higher than ever.
So Cally had just been thinking. But now that V. Vivian stood in the room, and she looked at him, she was suddenly reminded that he was her good friend nevertheless. And something like ease came back to her.
When Hen had disappeared to make the sick-room ready (or for whatever purpose she went), Cally said:
"I hope Chas isn"t really going to be ill?"
"Oh, there"s no trouble at all with him," replied the young man, "but to make him stay in bed. It"s all come down to a touch of sore throat, a little sort of quinsy. We were rather afraid of diphtheria, the other night."
"My cousins are having more than their share, just now. So many, many invalids.... I hope you"ve been well, since I saw you last?"
"Oh, thank you!--I"ve the health of a letter-carrier. At least, I a.s.sume they"re naturally healthy, though as a matter of fact I"ve had three or four postmen on my list ... I"m afraid I interrupted you and Henrietta?"
"Oh, no!--Or rather, I imagine she was only too glad to be interrupted.... I was telling her all my troubles, you see."
"Have you troubles? I"m sorry."
The man spoke in a light tone, such as is suitable for friendships. Yet he must have felt a throe then, remembering his articles: now so soon to go to the "Chronicle" office and the print that cried aloud. And the girl"s case, had he but known it, was like his own, only more so.
Beneath the cover of her casual talk, she was aware of thought coursing like a palpitating vein under a fine skin, threatening to break through at any minute....
"Oh, so many," said Cally.
They had remained standing, for to ask the doctor to sit down had not occurred to her. The girl glanced toward the window.
"And what do you suppose Hen"s prescription was?... That I should take them all to you."
There was the briefest silence.
"But, of course, you didn"t want to do that?"
She hesitated, and said: "Yes, I do want to ... But I can"t."
That was the utmost that she meant to say. But then, as she glanced again at the lame alien whom time had so beautifully justified, more of her inner tide overflowed suddenly into speech.
"Do you know--I feel that I could tell you almost anything--things I wouldn"t tell Hen, or anybody.... Oh, I could, I don"t know why. You don"t know for what a long time I"ve thought of you as my confidant, my friend.... Only, you see--these troubles aren"t all my own...."
She stopped rather precipitately, turned away a little; stood twisting a glove between her fingers, and doing her best to show by her look that she had not said anything in particular....
The thoughts of these two were over hills and dales apart; and yet, by the nature of what was between them, they followed hard on the same trail. V.V. was far from possessing the c.o.o.neys" detective gift. He saw only that this girl was troubled about something; and if his own thought never left the Heth Works, it was only because this was the point where his connection with her troubles cut him deep.
So in his ears chirped the voice of his now familiar: "Who appointed _you_ a judge of people like this? Who knows better than you that they"re doing the best they can? Tear up that stuff!..."
But aloud he said only: "I understand that, of course. And I"m grateful for the rest you say."
And Cally, five feet away from him, was learning that in some matters the business logic of it didn"t help very much, that what counted was how you felt about them in your heart. If something terrible should happen at the Works _now_, if the building did fall down some day, collapsing with all those girls--did she think she could look again into this man"s eyes and say: "Well, _I_ had nothing to do with it?..."
But neither were her thoughts for publication; and she bridged the brief gap in the conversation with a not particularly successful smile, designed to show that of course n.o.body was taking all this very seriously.
"But why expect to do what we want? No one can," said she. "You don"t mind my fidgeting about the room this way, do you? I seem a little out of humor to-day--not myself at all, as I was told just now...."