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However, a little at a time, the second person in the car came emerging into the sunshine. And Cally's heart lifted with an appalling wrench as she saw that it was her father. There had been an accident at the Works: that was clear in one eye-sweep. Her father had been hurt. He was bareheaded; a long splotch ran up his cheek, into his hair.
Cally's heart had jumped a little at the sight of his tall figure, but she answered easily enough, as she moved toward the steps, that she was walking. "Then won't you allow me to see you home?... It's getting rather dark. And I the fact is, I wanted to speak to you."
She drew away from her unwonted demonstration, leaving her hands on Cally's shoulders, and the two women looked at each other, both a little flushed with excitement. "He's at the Arlington, to stay only till to-morrow," said she, "and he's coming in after dinner to see you and papa." "Oh!... He insists on not seeing you, I suppose?" fleered mamma, with enormous archness.
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 would have liked to justify herself to Mattie, to talk her heart out to her, or to somebody; but Mattie's idea was clearly to keep Cally's mind off it, as you do with the near relatives of the deceased.
Of one of the Triumphs of Cally's Life, and the Tête-
The truth was that mamma's attitude, since hearing of the extraordinary rupture, which her daughter refused either to explain or amend instantly, had been nothing short of violent. Jangling scenes recurred daily.... Perhaps, indeed, it was mamma's relentless pressure that had brought about the gradual shifting, amounting to a total revolution, in Cally's own attitude.
The two stood looking at each other. Color came into Cally's cheek; came but soon departed. The long gold-and-black lashes, which surely had been made for ornaments, fluttered and fell. Out of the dead silence she said, with some difficulty: "It's very sweet of you to say that." Cally moved away from him, toward the door, deeply touched.
Heth turned upon the hovering maid and said: "A glass of water." When the woman had passed out of earshot, she turned again, and put her two strong hands on Cally's shoulders. "What man? Who was this you called up long-distance?" "Mr. Dalhousie," said Cally's small voice. "I called up a friend of his...." She looked up fixedly at her mother and said: "Mamma, he did it because of me."
"A scandal," continued mamma, in a crescendo sweep, "that all but undid my lifework for the family's position, and that may yet cost your father his presidency at the bank." The good lady easily saw that she had struck the right punitive note at last. Indeed, the question now, Cally's peculiarities being considered, was whether she had not struck it rather too hard.
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