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It occurred to her, with ominous sinkings of the heart, that she had relied mistakenly upon Dalhousie's gentlemanliness. What horrid intention was concealed behind these strange words about his taking matters into his own hands? And suppose she refused to see the emissary alone, and he then said: "Well, then, I'll just have to speak before your friend."... What would Mr. Canning think of her then?
The occurrences of the last quarter of an hour had actually dazed her; but the net result of them was sufficiently manifest. Her purpose had been to detach herself unnoticed from Dalhousie's gay fame. And now: Look at the boat pavilion.... It was the bitterest moment of Miss Heth's well-sheltered young life.
"Is that the Works?" breathed the daughter of the Works, with a sort of stunned incredulity. In her utter bewilderment, she was confused into glancing at Jack Dalhousie's friend, who stood silent upon the sidewalk, two yards away. Thus she surprised his translucent eyes fixed upon her with a look which she had seen there on two other remembered occasions.
New York, the colossal, received the runaway with an anonymous roar, asking no questions. Here, in the late afternoon of the first day, safe forever in a well-furnished room on a seventeenth floor, Cally Heth made her answer to Dalhousie's letter. She formally cremated the scrawl in a pink saucer which had previously been doing nothing more useful in the world than holding up a toothbrush mug.
Good-evening." "Don't go," said the slum physician, instantly, much as Mr. Canning had said at a similar yet totally different moment "that is must you go at once? I there is something I've wanted very much to tell you." She stopped still; stood in silence gazing at Dalhousie's friend, the shabby author of the two Severe Arraignments.
She had always wanted to love above her: how time and this man had invested her ideal with a richer meaning!... Was not this the touchstone of that change within herself she had sought, that day when Colonel Dalhousie's rod had chastened her?
In these days of uneasiness, Carlisle wished far more than ever that the whole thing had been started differently; and she wondered often, and somewhat fearfully, if Dalhousie's friend, Mr. Vivian, would try to force himself on her again.
Her thick lashes began pure gold, but changed their minds abruptly in the middle, and finished jet black.... She was the loveliest thing this man's eyes had ever rested upon. And as at the Beach, he seemed to begin with a plunge: "Jack Dalhousie's gone away, Miss Heth gone to Weymouth, Texas, to live. I had a letter from him, day before yesterday.
Eh?... little she-devil, pretty little hell-cat!..." Cally smothered a little noise between a cry and a sob. She started away, by sheer strength of horror; somehow got away from the terrible old face, ran up her own steps. Glancing whitely over her shoulder from this secure coign, she saw that Jack Dalhousie's father still stood unmoving on her sidewalk, staring and leaning on his cane....
Now her eyes fully met those of Dalhousie's friend, and in that meeting she was conscious of an odd little shock, almost like a physical impact.... Why was it that this impossible man, with his ridiculous opinions, his wicked untruths, and his face so full of a misplaced hopefulness, kept coming like a destiny across and across her path?
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