V. V.'s Eyes Part 24

To that he made no reply at all. But she saw, by the look he wore, that he was doing his best to convict her once again of having said something unfair and rather cheap and horrid....

Turning from him, she delivered the coup de grace, in a voice not quite so firm as she would have wished:

"I don't wish to talk to you any more. You must not speak to me again...."

And she added at once, to a more congenial audience: "Oh!"

"Oh, oh! Cally!" whispered Mattie Allen, turning simultaneously, and for the first time, from Mr. Canning.

And Mr. Canning said: "Ah!--what's happened?..."

In almost the same moment all three had become aware that the rattle of talk and laughter outside the little room had entirely died away. There had fallen upon the house of gaiety a strange silence, in which a pin-fall might almost have been heard, and the slow speaking of a single voice, the length of the house away, was heard most distinctly.

To neither of the two girls was this proceeding a mystery. They were familiar with the New Year's Eve rites, and Mattie, after a number of pretty _Sh-h-h_ gestures, whispered the explanation to Mr. Canning:

"They're reading out the Old Year. We must all go see it. It's so cunning and quaint...."

So conversation of all sorts was summarily suspended. Even whispers sounded loud in the sudden hush. The four young people moved toward the door. For a moment they had almost the air of a company of friends.

Young Dr. Vivian, who was n.o.body's friend, stood back for Miss Heth to pa.s.s out; but, seeing that she lingered beside her gallant, he turned again silently after Miss Allen, who beckoned to him _sh-h_ingly, whose property he seemed mysteriously to have become....

The alien pa.s.sed out of sight, limping. If his only party that year had gone rather badly with him, it was not less so with another. Behind him in the firelit den, Carlisle looked up at Canning, color coming back into her cheek, her breast rising and falling. The sight of him, all to herself again, was more than balm to a wound, more than harbors to storm-swept mariners.

"Is there _any_ rest for the weary!" she whispered. "Oh, me! Let's _go home,_ right after this!"

Canning, who also wore a faint air of persecution for righteousness'

sake, took her gloved hand, and she did not withdraw it.

"Do you know," he answered, with a little smile, "that's the cleverest thing I've heard said to-night...."

"We can have a little party all to ourselves," said Carlisle, rather tremulously. "It's been so _horrid_ to-night...."

They opened the back door to let the Old Year out. They flung wide the front doors to let the New Year in. They lowered all lights to the dimness of obsequies. The gay company, standing, ranged the long room in a ghostly half-light, and old Mr. Beirne, from his immemorial post between the tall windows, read from a great book "The Dying Year," in a voice as slow and solemn as he could make it. The stately lines brought home with a certain force, rather emphasized by the festive contrast, the certain pa.s.sing of all mundane things. Here was another milestone left behind, and you and I would pa.s.s this way no more. Over the long loose dim ring, your eye fell upon a familiar and friendly face, fallen suddenly a little sad; and memory stirred of the many times you had looked at that face, and with it wonder of what another year might bring to you two. Would you stand here like this, friends good and true, with hearts tuned to the same feeling, a twelvemonth from to-night? There was felt a quick, childlike impulse for hands all round and such a singing of "Auld Lang Syne" as would have brought the police on the run.

By long practice and the most accurate chronometric reckoning, old Mr.

Beirne timed his proceedings to a decimal. The last line of the slow-read poem died in a deafening uproar without. Every bell in the city, it seemed, every whistle and chime, every firecracker and penny-trumpet and cannon (there was but one), to say nothing of many an inebriated human voice, hailed in a roaring diapason the birth of a new year. At Mr. Beirne's the outer tumult was echoed in the manner of the well-bred. The doors were shut, with the infant inside; the lights flew up; gla.s.ses clinked, merry healths were pledged, new fealties sworn by look alone. Gaiety overcame silence. All talked with one voice.

Carlisle Heth descended the stairs in a carriage-robe of blue-and-fur, giving and taking lively good-nights. Canning, already m.u.f.flered and overcoated, stood awaiting her near the door: over many heads she caught sight of his splendid figure and her heart leapt a little. If it had been horrid for her to-night so far, no one would have guessed it, looking at her. Her s.h.i.+ning loveliness upon the stairs attracted considerable attention; even her best girl-friend Mattie Allen noticed it, spoke of it to Evey McVey....

And then at the foot of the steps, she ran right into Jack Dalhousie's friend once more, the lame stranger whom she had just finally disposed of.

Encountering the man's eyes by mischance, she would of course have looked away at once, but her glance was trapped by the expression on his face. He was smiling; smiling straight at her. An odd smile it was, and complicated; not without diffidence, but certainly not without hope; quite an eager smile, confiding somehow, by the gift he had. It was as if he was saying that of course he knew she hadn't really meant what she said back there; and that he, for one, would never let a hasty word or two cut him off from the hope of being good friends yet.

Having thus by a trick captured her attention, he made a pleased sort of gesture toward the breast-pocket of his fat-man's coat, and, while she pa.s.sed silent within a foot of him, said quite eagerly:

"_I--I got the marrons!_"

XI

In which Mr. Canning must go South for his Health, and Cally lies awake to think.

Midnight stillness hung over the House of Heth, five doors from Mr.

Beirne's. Dim sounds from above indicated that Mrs. Heth, who had come in a few moments earlier, did not mean to sit up for anybody. She had, however, left the door "on the latch" as agreed. Carlisle and Mr.

Canning pa.s.sed within, out of the biting New Year.

It was like stepping into heaven to be at home again, after the rabble and rattle at Mr. Beirne's. Canning shut the door with something like a sigh.

"A lodge at last! We've had--well, a fragmentary time of it, haven't we?... That chap with the game foot is simply my hoodoo."

Carlisle winced a little. "Oh! Then you did remember him?"

"Could I forget my Beach supplanter, my giver of colds in the head?

What's wrong with the fellow anyway?"

"Everything," said she. "Let's go into the library."

"Why should he remind me of a camp-meeting funeral, I wonder?" mused Canning, following behind--"or is it something I read in the book of Job?"

The girl answered with a vague laugh. Mr. Canning's odd but evident antagonism to the man she herself had such cause to dislike was agreeable to her, but the topic was not. She had had enough of the Vivians of this world for one night. She led the way through the dark drawing-room, and at the switch beyond the door turned the light into two soft-tinted dome-lamps. The library was ma.s.sive rather than "livable"; it had books, which is more than can be said for some libraries; but they were chiefly books in stately sets, yards and yards of them just alike: a depressing matter to the true lover. However, it was at least solitude; solitude enveloped with an air of intimacy vastly agreeable and compensatory. It did not seem so certain now that the golden evening was ruined past hope....

"You and he seemed to be having a terribly earnest discussion," said Canning. "Of course I did my best to eavesdrop, but Miss Allen was so charming I caught only a word now and then."

"He was lecturing me about how my father ought to run his business. He always does...."

She replenished the dying fire with a soft lump, and poked it unskilfully, all but stabbing the life out of it. Canning, standing and staring half-absently into the soft glow, did not offer to relieve her of the poker. They knew each other very well by now.

"Only don't let's spoil our little party by talking about him," she went on--"he rubs me the wrong way so. And do please take off that polar overcoat. It positively makes me _s.h.i.+ver_...."

"Lecturing appears to be the fellow's specialty.... Well!"

He threw his overcoat, stick, and white gloves on the fire-settle, turned and glanced down at her. After the long and broken evening, he looked somewhat fatigued. Carlisle, already seated, was just beginning to unb.u.t.ton her left long glove.

"Fine hours, fine hours these, for even a play sick-man! Yet I linger on...."

"You must stay," said she, "till the last person has gone from Mr.

Beirne's."

The mantel clock stood at twenty minutes past twelve. With a little laugh she reached up and turned its small commemorative face to the wall.

"Or," she added, becoming grave, "are you really quite tired out with being with me?"

"I was hardly thinking that," said Canning.

He dropped into a chair and stared into the fire. Carlisle glanced at his face in profile; a virile and commanding face it was, and to her, singularly attractive.