V. V.'s Eyes Part 72

"Oh, ma'am, all say it's the nicest place to work in town. Yes, ma'am ... And some of 'em has rich fathers and needn't work at all anywhere, but they just go on and work at the Works, yes, ma'am, because they druther ..."

That, by a little, drew the long-bow too hard. Cally saw that the small three-years' buncher, through politeness or otherwise, was speaking without reference to the truth. And hard upon that she had another thought, striking down the impulse to cross-examine further. What an undignified, what a cowardly way, to try to find things out! What a baby she was, to be sure!... V. Vivian knew about the Works, though it was certainly no affair of his. This frail girl, who did look rather sick now that you stopped and looked at her, knew all about it. Only she, her father's daughter, knew nothing, wrapped in her layers of pretty pink wool ...

The lady came abruptly to her feet.

"I'm glad to hear it," said she ... "But I 'm afraid I must go on now.

Some one is waiting for me outside."

"Oh!--yes, ma'am!"

Kern had risen with her, though she had not learned that from the Netiquette. Much it would have amazed her to know that the heavenly visitor was regarding her with a flickering conviction of inferiority....

"Good-bye, then. I hope you'll soon get your strength back again.... And I'm very glad I saw you."

And then there was her hand held out; not lady to lady, of course, but still her lady's hand. Poor Kern, with her exaltation and her pangs, felt ready to go down on one knee to take it.

"Oh, ma'am!" she stammered. "I'm the glad one ..."

Miss Heth smiled--oh, so sweet, almost like in the Dream--and then it was all over, and she was walking away, with the loveliest rustle ever was. And Kern stood lost in the thronging aisle, staring at the point where she had disappeared and giving little pinches to her thin arm--just to make certain-sure, y' know ...

This till the voice of Miss Whirtle spoke in her ear:

"Say, Kurrin, I like that! Whyn't you ask me to shake hands with your swell dame friend?"

And Miss Heth, out in the crowded street, was heading toward Morland's with an adventurous resolution in her mind.

It had needed but a touch to make up her mind here, whether she realized it or not; and this touch the girl Corinne had given her. Now, too, impulse met convenient opportunity. For two weeks she had been thinking that if she _did_ ever happen to go to the Works, she would make a point of going in some offhand, incidental sort of way, thus proving to herself and the public that she had not the slightest responsibility for whatever might be going on there. (How could she possibly have, no matter what Mr. V.V. thought, with his exaggerated sympathies for the poor?) Now here was Hugo waiting, perfectly fitted, to her need. What could be more natural and incidental than this? She would simply be showing her father's factory to her friend, Mr. Canning....

And perhaps Cally had an even deeper feeling of Mr. Canning's admirable suitability in this connection. Somewhere just above the line of consciousness, did there not lie the subtle thought that, if what she saw at the Works _should_ have power to work dangerously on her own sympathies, Hugo, with his strong worldly sense, his material perfection, his whole splendid embodiment of the victorious-cla.s.s ideal, would be just the corrective she needed to keep her safe and sane?...

When she was seated in the car beside him, and he was tucking the robe around her, Cally inquired with a deceptive air of indifference:

"You don't care particularly where we go, do you, Hugo?"

"The point seems of no importance whatever, now that I've got you."

"Then," said she, smiling, "I shall take you first to the Heth Cheroot Works."

Canning's face, which had been buoyant from the moment his eyes discovered her in the crowd, betrayed surprise and strong disapproval.

That, surely, would give his afternoon a slant different from his plannings....

"I bar the Works. I feel all ways but sociological to-day. Let's go to the country."

"Afterwards," said she, with the same lightness, clear proof of the casual nature of the proposed excursion. "We'll simply pop in for a minute or two, to see what it looks like--"

"But you can't tell what it looks like, even--"

"Well, at least I'll have seen it. Do give me my way about this.

_You'll_ enjoy it ..."

And leaning forward on that, she said to his hired driver: "Take us to Seventeenth and Ca.n.a.l Streets."

The shadow of disapprobation did not lift from Hugo's face.

"I had no idea," he said, boredly and somewhat stiffly, "that you took your new-thought so seriously."

Cally laughed brightly. "But then you never think women are serious, Hugo."

It was on the tip of her tongue to add: "Until it's too late." But she held that back, as being too pointedly reminiscent.

XXVIII

A Little Visit to the Birthplace of the Family; how Cally thinks Socialism and almost faints, and Hugo's Afternoon of Romance ends Short in the Middle.

The car came to a standstill, and Cally was reminded of another afternoon, long ago, when she and Hen c.o.o.ney had encountered Mr. V.V.

upon this humming corner. This time, she knew which way to look.

"There it is.... Confess, Hugo, you're surprised that it's so _small_!"

But Hugo helped no new-thoughter to belittle honest business.

"Unlike some I could mention, I've seen factories before," quoth he.

"I've seen a million dollar business done in a smaller plant than that."

Actually Cally found the Works bigger than she had expected; reaction from the childish marble palace idea had swung her mind's eye too far.

But gazing at the weather-worn old pile, spilling dirtily over the broken sidewalk, she was once more struck and depressed by something almost sinister about it, something vaguely foreboding. To her imagination it was a little as if the ramshackle old pile leered at her: "Wash your hands of me if you will, young lady. I mean you harm some day...."

But then, of course, she wasn't was.h.i.+ng her hands of it; her hands had never been in it at all.

"You'll get intensely interested and want to stay hours!" said she, with the loud roar of traffic in her ears. "Remember I only came for a peep--just to see what a Works is like inside."

Hugo, guiding her over the littered sidewalk to the shabby little door marked "Office," swore that she could not make her peep too brief for him.

She had considered the possibility of encountering her father here; had seen the difficulties of attributing this foray to Hugo's insatiable interest in commerce, with Hugo standing right there. However, in the very unpretentious offices inside--desolate places of common wood part.i.tions, bare floors, and strange, tall stools and desks--she was a.s.sured by an anaemic youth with a red Adam's apple that her father had left for the bank an hour earlier, which was according to his usual habit. She inquired for Chas c.o.o.ney, who kept books from one of those lofty stools, but Chas was reported sick in bed, as Cally then remembered that Hen had told her, some days since. Accordingly the visitors fell into the hands of Mr. MacQueen, whom Carlisle, in the years, had seen occasionally entering or leaving papa's study o' nights.

MacQueen was black, bullet-headed, and dour. He had held socialistic views in his fiery youth, but had changed his mind like the rest of us when he found himself rising in the world. In these days he received a percentage on the Works profits, and cursed the impudence of Labor. As to visitors, his politics were that all such had better be at their several homes, and he indicated these opinions, with no particular subtlety, to Miss Heth and Mr. Canning. He even cited them a special reason against visiting to-day: new machines being installed, and the shop upset in consequence. However, he did not feel free to refuse the request out-right, and when Canning grew a little sharp,--for he did the talking, generously enough,--the sour vizier yielded, though with no affectation of a good grace.

"Well, as ye like then.... This way."

And he opened a door with a briskness which indicated that Carlisle's expressed wish "just to look around" should be carried out in the most literal manner.

The opening of this door brought a surprise. Things were so unceremonious in the business district, it seemed, that you stepped from the superintendent's office right into the middle of everything, so to speak. You were inspecting your father's business a minute before you knew it....