V. V.'s Eyes Part 6

Exact definition of desire and a simple strength of purpose from which all aims of others bound back stone-dead: what brilliance of genius or quintessence of mother-wit can hope to outdo this immortal combination?

Echo, solitary, answers ...

Mrs. Heth's return to the upper regions, an hour later, trumpeted complete victory. The right note was struck; all was settled. Carlisle, it appeared, had trusted insufficiently to the virtue of the Heth name.

Of horrid gossip there had been, at the worst, no more than a bare hint or two, an attenuated suggestion. Malicious as the world was, few, indeed, had dreamed any justification of Dalhousie's blackguardism.

Already, it appeared, the hotel rang with objurgations of it, and him.

Still, Mrs. Heth had struck the note, and struck hard.

Carlisle was bidden to sleep, after her trying experiences, to regain her poise and color for the evening....

Alone again in the twilight bedroom, the girl snuggled beneath a pretty pale-blue quilt, and absently scrutinized her pink and very s.h.i.+ny little finger nails. After the excitement and strain of the last hour and a half, she felt that she was now at peace. Nothing at all was going to happen. n.o.body could say anything the least bit horrid about her, the least bit injurious to her position. She stood exactly where she had stood when she went out for the sail. She was not even going to have chills ...

She decided to dismiss it all from her mind and go to sleep, but her mind for a time refused to come into this agreement. Though that was exactly what she had meant not to do, the girl presently found herself thinking back over the whole occurrence, from the moment when she first saw Dalhousie in the water. In time vague doubts gathered and clouded her perfect brow. She became a little oppressed by the recollection of certain variations between what she had said and really intended to say to her mother upstairs, and what her mother appeared to have said to Rumor downstairs. For instance, she had never said that Dalhousie _literally_ upset her boat, or even that he was exactly _in_ the boat when it upset; and _never_ said that she had screamed again and again for his help when she found herself in the water. No, she had particularly avoided saying those things, for justly angry and excited though she was, she hadn't considered it right to say anything that wasn't strictly true. Mamma just jumped right on ahead, though, paying no attention to what you said.

The whole thing had happened very unfortunately, she saw that clearly now. Of course, she couldn't tell mamma that she and Jack Dalhousie had quarrelled terribly in the boat and he had looked as if he meant to strike her, for then mamma would have asked, How could you have had such a terrible quarrel with a man that somebody barely introduced to you once, a long time ago? And if she had said pointblank, No, I don't think I screamed, mamma would have asked, Why under heaven didn't you scream?--and all this would have meant stopping for a long explanation right there, just when there was so much else to think about, and mamma almost bursting a blood-vessel as it was.

Still, she wished now that it had all been started differently. In the excitement, of course, she had not had time to think out every single thing carefully and definitely. It occurred to her now, after some meditation, that she might simply have said to mamma: "He had frightened me so by getting into my boat, that when I upset and I knew I wasn't going to drown, I didn't want to call him back"....

Darkness crept into the white-and-cherry bedroom. Till now, what with nearly drowning and mamma and everything, she had really thought very little about it from Dalhousie's point of view. Now it came over her, rather dubiously, that what everybody seemed to be saying of him downstairs did put him in quite a disagreeable position. But then, of course, everybody was a little worked up and excited just now. In a day or two they would forget about it, and the whole thing would blow over.

Besides, he deserved the severest punishment for the way he had treated her; and as for anything he might say now (though as a gentleman he would hardly say anything and try to blacken a lady's character), of course n.o.body would listen to him for a minute.

And as far as that went, n.o.body would listen to her either. People never did. She regretted the whole occurrence as much as any one, but you could _never_ correct flying gossip; everybody knows that. People always arrange the little details as they want them arranged, according to what makes the most exciting story, and they never pay the smallest attention when you come in with a just, mathematical face and say: "You haven't got it quite right _there_. There's a little mistake _here_...."

Worry, clearly, was out of place. It never does any good, as all philosophers agree; and besides, it brings wrinkles in or near the forehead. Carlisle turned on her other side and snuggled with more relaxation beneath the pale-blue quilt. Drowsiness stole over her, seducing thought. Presently she slept, and dreamed of Mr. Canning.

IV

Mr. Hugo Canning, of the well-known Pursuing-s.e.x; how the Great Young Man pursued Miss Heth to a Summer-house, and what stopped his Thundering Feet.

Nor were the figments of sweet sleep too fanciful or far-flown. About eight-thirty o'clock, when Mrs. and Miss Heth stepped from a descending lift into the glaring publicity of the main floor, the first object that their eyes fell upon was Mr. Hugo Canning in the flesh. The second was Cousin Willie Kerr, even more in the flesh, trotting loyally at his side. At this precise instant, in short, the celebrated transient quitted the dining-room for the relaxations of his evening.

The coincidence of the moment was pure: one hundred per cent, as they say commercially. One takes it to mean that Destiny, having handled a favorite child somewhat roughly for a time, now turned back its smiling mother-face. The ladies Heth, having dined refinedly in their sitting-room, descended in search of cooling breezes, or for any other reason why. Over the s.p.a.ces of the great court, half lobby, half parlor, Miss Heth had seen the masculine apparitions an instant before they saw her: or just in time, that is to say, to be showing them now her flawless profile....

It is easily surmised that Miss Heth's manner in action was contained, her habit the very reverse of forward. One seeing her now would be cheaply cynical, indeed, to say or dream that, with reference to some such conjuncture as the present, this girl had left a happy home many hours before. Her presence shamed every unworthy surmise. With a lovely unconsciousness she was spied walking her innocent ways toward the piazza with mamma, even now girlishly unaware that an opposite and uproarious s.e.x was in headlong pursuit....

If this pursuit--to be doggedly literal--appeared to lag for a moment, if it did not seem to start with that instant _elan_ which one had a right to expect, be sure that there was a complication of sound reasons for that. Kerr, in the circ.u.mstances, was the appointed leader of the chase; and Kerr hesitated. Canning's desire to avoid the local society and be left free to outdoor exercise and sleep was, in truth, only too well known to him. And to-night, worse luck, the distinguished visitor appeared even less socially inclined than usual: annoyed when the select little party he had expected from northerly haunts had been found represented at the Beach by a telegram instead; increasingly bored by the desolate air of the all but empty hostelry. "When's the next train out of this h.e.l.l-hole?"--such was Mr. Canning's last recorded remark up to this not uninteresting moment.

Kerr, when he saw Mrs. and Miss Heth over the distance, merely made a genial exclamation, and then gazed. He was nearing forty, was Willie, short and slightly bald, with an increasing appreciation of the world's good things and as much good nature as his round figure called for.

Canning's acquaintance he had by the chance of a lifelong friends.h.i.+p with Mrs. Allison Payne. By reason of a native clannishness and certain small obligations of a more material nature, he was more than ready to share his privileges with his brilliant cousins. But....

"So that's the drowned lady," said Canning's voice, rather moodily, at his elbow.... "Well, then, I know her."

"Dandy girl, Carlisle," exclaimed Willie, instantly. "Great little piece of work...."

One hundred feet away, opportunity unconsciously receded toward the piazza. Willie, having hesitated through no unfaithfulness, plunged with no want of tact.

"Got to speak to 'em a minute--make inquiries--cousins, y' know. D' ye mind?"

"My dear chap, why should I?"

"Awright--just stop and say howdedo," said the plump diplomatist. "Won't take a minute...."

And Canning, perceiving then that Kerr expected to make this stop in his company, said with an a.s.surance not unbecoming to his lordly bearing: "If you please. And don't start anything, for pity's sake. I'm for bed in fifteen minutes."

So it all fell out, according to the book. So it was that the pursuing feet were free to thunder. So Mrs. Heth heard the voice of the leal one, subdued from a distance: "_Howdedo, Cousin Isabel! How're you an'

Carlisle this evening_?..."

And so the maid turned, startled from her other-worldly dreams....

He was the greatest parti that had ever crossed her path, that was ever likely to cross her path. But Miss Heth faced him with no want of confidence; received his greeting with a charming bright negligence. One saw readily that such a matter as "making an impression" was far indeed from this maid's mind. If doubts, a vague uneasiness relative to the afternoon, still fretted the hinterlands of her mind (and they did), she was much too well trained, too resolute withal, to let them appear troublously upon the surface. Moreover, the nap of forty minutes, not winks, had been like the turning of a new leaf; and she was fortified, woman-wise, with the knowledge that she looked her best. Over her shoulders there clung a s.h.i.+mmering scarf, a pretty trifle all made of the scales of a silver mermaid. It was observed, however, that the gray crepe-de-chine quite justified its choice....

The meeting of four had been effected in one end of the wide garish s.p.a.ce: among the loungers of the lobby, all eyes were turned in that direction. There were salutations; the introduction of Mr. Canning to Mrs. Heth; inquiries after Miss Heth's health. Quite easily the square party resolved itself into two conversational halves. Mrs. Heth, it was clear from the outset, preferred Willie Kerr's talk above any other obtainable at that time and place. She was, and remained, absolutely fascinated by it....

"It seems quite unnecessary," Mr. Canning was saying--but he p.r.o.nounced it "unne's'ry"--"to ask if you are any the worse for the ducking...."

"Oh, no--I'm quite well, thank you. We've suffered nothing worse than the spoiling of all our plans in coming here!"

The man's look politely interrogated her. "Oh, really? I'm sorry."

"We came, you see, to be very quiet. And we were never so frightfully noisy in our lives."

He smiled; made his small distinguished bow.

"You've reason to feel annoyed on all scores then. At any rate, it's charming to find you as our fellow guest."

And his eyes flitted from her toward Kerr, and then turned briefly upon mamma, and her strange little downy mustache.

Carlisle now perceived the disinterestedness, if not the faint weariness, in Mr. Canning's manner; she saw that he had forgotten the five minutes at the Country Club. The strong probability was, moreover, that he thought the worse of her for allowing herself to be nearly drowned in so vulgarly public a way. However, she was untroubled; she thought him, for her part, adorable to look at and of a splendid manner and conceit; and aloud she inquired, with her air of s.h.i.+ning indifference, if Mr. Canning was not delighted with the Beach in October.

"Well, you know, I think I've been here before"--he said _bean_, most deliciously--"only I can't be quite sure. It seems to me a most agreeable place. Only, if it isn't indiscreet to inquire, what does one do in the evening?"

"Usually, I believe, one goes to bed directly after dinner. If one does this, and dines extremely late, the evening slips by quite nicely, we find."

"But the afternoons? Wouldn't they perhaps loom a thought long at times, waiting on for dinner?"

"There's napping provided for the afternoon, you see. And many other diversions, such as reading, walking, and thinking."

"Perhaps one should arrange to spend only afternoons at the Beach. You make them sound simply uproarious."

"We're a simple people here, Mr. Canning, with simple joys and sorrows, easily amused."

Mr. Canning looked down at her. However, Carlisle did not meet his gaze.

Having already, in a quiet way, given him two looks where they would do the most good, she was now glancing maidenly at mamma, who conversed vice-presidentially of her a.s.sociated Charities policies.