V. V.'s Eyes Part 75

However, back at home, Cally seemed unresponsive to Hugo's overture in the direction of his lingering awhile in the drawing-room. It became evident that the afternoon was ruined beyond repair. He paused but a moment, to see whether any telegrams or telephone calls had been sent up for him from the hotel.

It proved that there was nothing of the sort. The lover looked relieved.

He wished his lady a refreshing rest, apropos of the evening. Beneath his feeling that he was an ill-used man, there had risen in Canning the practical thought that he had let this wild sweet thing get too sure of him....

"I shall see you then," said he, at the door, "at seven-thirty."

"Yes, indeed.... I'll be quite myself again then. Au revoir!"

She stood alone, in the dim and silent hall. The house was sweet with Hugo's flowers. Cally, standing, picked a red rose slowly to pieces. She could pursue her own thoughts now, and her struggle was against thinking ill of her father. If it was the extreme of sympathy with the poor to regard the Works as a homicidal place, then her present impulse was plainly toward such extremity. But she dared not allow that impulse its head, fearful of the far-reaching consequences that would thereby be entailed. Yet, even from the cheeriest view, it was clear that the Works were a pretty bad place--Hugo himself had tacitly admitted that by the arguments he employed,--and if that was so, what was to be said for papa? Possibly she and mamma did have some connection with the business, but it would be simply foolish to say that they were _responsible_ for the overcrowding in the bunching-room. How could she be--how _could_ she?--she, to whom her father had never spoken seriously in his life, who had never even seen the Works inside till to-day? No, it was papa's business. He was responsible; and it was a responsibility indeed....

It was quarter-past five. So, presently, the tall hall-clock said, on its honor as a reliable timepiece.... Only an hour since she and Hugo had met in front of Morland's....

Still the girl did not hurry up to her rest-chamber. She wandered pointlessly from empty hall to silent drawing room. There had descended upon her that sense of loneliness in the great world, to which in the spring and summer she had been no stranger. She felt listless and oddly tired. Presently, when she had thought about it a little, she was certain that she felt quite unwell; almost ill. The strong probability was that she had a bad sick headache coming on; small wonder, either, after nearly fainting with poor Miller and others at the Works....

Cally considered whether she did not owe it to her health to dine from a tray this evening, giving Hugo to-morrow morning instead. Even as she revolved this thought--with especial reference to explaining it to mamma--there came her humble admirer, Flora Johnson, col'd, saying that Mr. Canning begged to speak to her a minute at the telephone.

"Mr. _Canning_?"

Flora said yas'm, and flashed her dazzling teeth. Her mistress ascended the stairs in surprise, wondering what reason Hugo would a.s.sign for wanting to come back.

However, Hugo's intentions were the contrary. His unhappy request was to be excused from dinner this evening.

The young man's voice over the wire was at once regretful, annoyed, and (somewhat) apologetic. There was, it seemed, the devil to pay over certain entanglements of the rate-case matter. He had found Mr. Deming, of his law firm, waiting for him at the hotel. Mr. Deming had come for a conference which could not be postponed; he had to get back to Washington by the nine-thirty train. Would Carlisle make his excuses to Mrs. Heth, and know for herself how disappointed he was?

He spoke in loverly vein, and Cally was able to answer soothingly. She mentioned that she would probably withdraw from the dinner, too; so that even mamma's table would not be upset at all. He would be much missed, of course. The suggestion emerged, or perhaps it was merely in the air, that Hugo was to come in, if he could, in the later evening.

Cally was at the telephone some three minutes. Turning away, she did not go at once to rest, though now halfway to her room. If she was not going to dinner, there was more time, of course. Or possibly her head had taken a slight turn for the better. The girl leaned against the banisters in the quiet upper hall, full of depression. And then she said aloud, with a resolution that was perhaps not so sudden as it seemed:

"I'll go and see Hen c.o.o.ney!"

XXIX

One Hour, in which she apologizes twice for her Self, her Life and Works; and once she is beautifully forgiven, and once she never will be, this Side of the Last Trump.

The c.o.o.neys' door was opened, after the delay usual with the poor, by Henrietta herself, this moment returned from the bookstore. Hen wore her hat, but not her coat, and it was to be observed that one hand held a hot-water bottle, imperfectly concealed behind her back.

"Hurrah!--Cally!" cried she. "We were talking of you at dinner to-day, wondering what had become of you. Come into the house, and don't mind a bit if this bottle leaks all over you. Such troubles!"

"How is Chas to-day? I just heard that he hadn't been at work for a week."

"Chas?... Chas is better--Cousin Martha's worse--father's just the same--Looloo's dancing the floor with a toothache." Hen recited this in the manner of a chant, and added, as she ushered her Washington Street cousin into the little parlor: "But for that, we're all doing nicely--thank you!"

"Gracious, Hen! I'd no idea you had such a hospital. Why, what's the matter with Uncle John?"

"Oh, just his lumbago. He's complaining, but out and about--fighting over the Seven Days around Richmond with an old comrade somewhere, I doubt not.... Sit down, my dear," added Hen, who had been looking at Cally just a little curiously, "and excuse me while I run upstairs. I forgot to explain that this bottle is for mother, who's down with a splitting headache. Back in a jiffy...."

Thus Miss c.o.o.ney, not knowing that for one moment, at least, her society had been preferred above that of a Canning. Such was the odd little development. Carlisle, having been more with Henrietta in the past five weeks than she had commonly been in a year, had discovered her as undoubtedly a person you could talk things over with--the only person in the world, perhaps, that you could talk _this_ over with....

Possibly Hen, being a lynx-eyed c.o.o.ney, had somehow gathered that her lovely cousin had not dropped in merely to "inquire"; for when she returned to the parlor, having doubtless put her hot-water bottle where it would do the most good, she did not expend much time on reporting upon her invalids, or become involved in the minor doings of the day.

Very soon she deflected, saying:

"But you don't look particularly fit yourself, Cally. What's wrong with the world?"

Cally, being still uncertain how far she cared to confide in Hen, met the direct question with a tentative lightness.

"Oh!... Well, I _did_ just have a rather unpleasant experience, though I didn't know I showed it in my face!... We happened to look in at the Works for a few minutes--Mr. Canning and I--and I certainly didn't _enjoy_ it much ..." And then, the inner pressure overcoming her natural bent toward reserve, she spoke with a little burst: "Oh, Hen, it was the most horrible place I ever saw in my life!"

The little confidence spoke straight to the heart, as a touch of genuine feeling always will. Quite unconsciously, Henrietta took her cousin's hand, saying, "You poor dear ..." And within a minute or two Cally was eagerly pouring out all that she had seen in the bunching-room, with at least a part of how it had made her feel.

Hen listened sympathetically, and spoke rea.s.suringly. If her "arguments"

followed close in the footsteps of Hugo,--for Hen was surprisingly well-informed in unexpected ways,--it must have been some quality in her, something or other in her underlying "att.i.tude," that invested her words with a new horsepower of solace. And Saltman's best stenographer actually produced an argument that Hugo had altogether pa.s.sed by. She thought it worth while to point out that these things were not a question of abstract morals at all, but only of changing points of view....

"When Uncle Thornton learned business," declared Hen, "there wasn't a labor law in the country--no law but supply and demand--pay your work-people as little as you could, and squeeze them all they'd stand for. n.o.body ever _thought_ of anything different. In those days the Works would have been a model plant--nine-hour day, high wages, no women working at night, no children...."

If Cally was not wholly heartened by words like these, she knew where the lack was. And perhaps Hen herself was conscious of something missing. For, having defended her uncle's Works at least as loyally as she honestly could, she gave the talk a more personal tone, skirting those phases of the matter so new-thoughty that they had never even occurred to Hugo Canning.

"Cally, are you going to speak to Uncle Thornton about it--about your going there, I mean?"

"No, no!" cried Cally, hastily. "How could I? Of course I--realize that that's the way business must be--as you say. What right have I, an ignorant little fool, to set up as papa's critic?"

"Not at all--of course," said Hen, giving her hand a little squeeze.

"What I--"

"You surely can't think that I ought to go and reprove papa for the way he runs his business--do you, Hen?... That I--I'm _responsible_ in any way!"

Hen noted her cousin's unexplained nervousness, and it may be she divined a little further. She answered no, not a bit of it. She said she meant to speak to him, not as a business expert, but only as his daughter. It was always a mistake to have secrets in a family, said Hen.

Good advice, undoubtedly. Only Hen didn't happen to know the most peculiar circ.u.mstances....

The two girls sat side by side on a sofa that sorely needed the ministrations of an upholsterer. Hen was sweet-faced, but habitually pale, usually a little worn. Her eyes and expression saved her from total eclipse in whatever company; otherwise she would have been annihilated now by the juxtaposition of her cousin. Cally's face was framed in an engaging little turn-down hat of gold-brown and yellow, about which was carelessly festooned a long and fine brown veil. Hen, gazing rather wistfully, thought that Cally grew lovelier every year.

"I'll tell you, Cally!" she said, suddenly. "Do you know what you ought to do? Talk to V.V. about all this!"

Cally repressed a little start; though the thought, to speak truth, was far from being a new one. But how could she possibly talk to V.V.

without the ultimate disloyalty to papa?...

"No," she said, quietly, after a brief pause. "I could hardly do that."

"Why not? He's thought out all these things further than anybody I know.

And he'll--"

"Hen, have you forgotten what he wrote in the paper about papa last year--what he's going to write next month. Don't you see my position?"

"I don't care what he writes in the papers!... When it comes to people, there's n.o.body so kind--and wise. And--"