Angela's Business Part 33

XVIII

Finding himself unable to reflect with pleasure or pride upon this interview, Charles resolved, within the hour, not to reflect upon it at all. For the fourth time--or was it the fourteenth?--he determined to think of Egoettes no more. At least, he had given his warning, unthanked, and that ended it. He might rest upon the ground that the match would really be a very suitable thing; or, conversely, he might argue that Donald was just amusing himself a little with Angela, at odd times, while at heart perfectly true to Helen, etc. But chiefly he stood upon the warning which made all this Mary Wing's concern henceforward, and no longer his. And, bent upon bringing his last relation and duty in the case to a clear, honorable conclusion, Charles sallied from the Studio next morning with the new "Marna" tucked under his arm.

But there seemed to hang a curse over everything connected with this unhappy book. Because he had brought it with him to-day, the azure heavens became overcast at noon; at two o'clock, it was drizzling dismally; and all that afternoon, and all the next day, the cold rain poured in torrents. To call in such home-keeping weather would be a wanton provocation: Charles hung off, yet again. The third day proved well worth waiting for, a brilliant, blue, and tingling day, gloriously inviting to all owners of vehicles. And now a new plague befell. When Charles emerged from Miss Grace's on this day, his face firmly set for his duty, the Big Six wasn't there.

The discovery was most disconcerting. The young man stood irresolute on the Choristers' steps, "Marna" clutched in his hands, gazing up and down the street.

Unfortunately, Eustace's habits had not been kept completely virtuous by his light duties with his mistress's tutor. The grinning black rascal had got himself pleasantly illuminated the first day, and had remained in that state with considerable consistency ever since. However, being kept excellently tipped, he had never failed to meet an appointment before; and Charles, eyeing the spot where Jehu should have been, but wasn't, was most unpleasantly struck with his own sense of helplessness ensuing. It really appeared that soft custom had made him as dependent on the limousine as if he lacked the means of locomoting for himself.

He scanned the horizon. Many vehicles rolled up and down Was.h.i.+ngton Street, but his own swift chariot was nowhere among them.

Then, while he irritably hesitated between telephoning to the garage, on the off chance that Eustace might be there, and tamely abandoning the enterprise once more, a third alternative, ingenious in its way, quite unexpectedly offered itself. Down the street came jogging a carriage for hire--empty. Providence seemed to be directing straight at him, Charles.

And, by chance, he knew this old carriage well; Walter Taylor's carriage, it was; many and many a time had it driven him forth to parties when he was young and gay.

On the first quick impulse, Charles went springing down the Choristers'

steps.

"Walter!... Here, you old rascal! Where're you going?"

"At libbuty, suh!" cried Walter Taylor, drawing rein with alacrity.

"Whar mout you wish to be druv, Mist' Garrott?"

"Well!--Perhaps I'll let you--"

The young man hesitated, fractionally, struck with the rattletrap's supreme lack of dignity. Then, with decision, he plucked open the weather-beaten door.

"One seven East Center. And look sharp now!" he ordered, stepping in--"I'm in a hurry. Mind you don't stop for anything!"

"Ya.s.suh! Sutney, suh!" said Walter Taylor, with great enthusiasm, and gave his old nag a prodigious wallop.

So it fell out that, for his first call at the Flowers' since the bridge-party--his party-call, his book-call, and his call about the Kiss--Charles Garrott fared forth in a closed livery hack.

Inside the hack, Charles laughed briefly; and then at once began to react. In the fine afternoon, numbers of people were abroad. Strangers seemed to look with surprise at the apparently able-bodied young man who liked thus to trot around in a hack; chance acquaintances were seen to smile in pa.s.sing; more than one called out derisive remarks. Charles himself questioned whether his employment of the hack was quite reasonable.... Seemed inconsistent till you stopped to think. Inasmuch as he was going straight to see Angela, why, it might be asked, all this elaborate precaution in advance? Well--there was really no inconsistency there; no, none at all. He was _not_ going to see Angela; he was only going to pay The Call, while she was out in her Fordette--a totally different matter. But this raised fresh questions of consistency: how was he going to hold his position that Angela was just the wife for Donald, if he himself would only go to see her in a hack?... Well, the answer to that was simple enough, too. Donald was a marrying man, while he, Charles (though probably still liked best) emphatically was not.

Moreover, Donald was a primitive male, while he, Charles, was a modern.... Or, no, perhaps he wasn't a modern, exactly--but--yes, he _was_ a modern, a true one, while others he could name were only self-centered extremists....

At Gresham Street, the hack turned south, at Center it turned back west.

Walter Taylor, up aloft, began to look for his street-number. And then, while Charles still argued uneasily about the spiritual differences between Donald and himself, his eye all at once fell on Donald in the flesh, close by--striding up Center Street homeward on his way from the office he left so early now.

The sight of the youth at this moment was unwelcome to Charles.

Instinctively, he sat far back in the hack. But Donald, unluckily turning at the sound of wheels, had caught sight of him; and he stopped stock-still on the sidewalk at once, staring with unaffected interest.

"Well, I'll be darned!" he said, as the carriage came up with him.

"Whither away in the sea-going, old top?"

Unwillingly appearing at the window, Charles said: "Well, Donald....

Just driving around."

"Driving!--Thought you must be going to a funeral, at least," said Donald, stepping along to keep up. "Here! Stop the blamed thing! I want to look you over."

"You don' want me to stop, does you, Mist' Garrott?" bawled down Walter Taylor from the box.

"No, I told you! Go on!"

Walter cut his nag a mighty crack, and with the same movement drew rein sharply.

"Here's yo' number, suh!" he cackled, with great merriment. "One seven, like you said! Ya.s.suh!"

So the hack halted, and the fare reluctantly discharged himself. His friend, having come up, halted, too, a few feet away; it was noted that his gibing expression had suddenly altered. And then Charles understood instantly that this fool's destination was no other than his own.

"Oho!" said Donald, slowly and suspiciously. "So this is where you were driving around to?"

Controlling an immense complication of sensations, Charles said coldly: "You mean you're going to--the Flowers', too?"

"You've guessed it!" retorted the engineer, with a slight touch of consciousness. And he added, a.s.suming an indifferent air: "Just got to stop by and leave a book Miss Flower lent me."

And then, for the first time, Charles noticed the volume in a gaudy wrapper protruding beneath Donald's st.u.r.dy arm. The coincidence was remarkable, to say the least of it. It was also exceedingly annoying.

"Time, too," quoth the primitive male. "I've had it since before I went to Wyoming."

On Angela's sidewalk, the two young men stood gazing hard at each other.

Whatever the argument in the case, it was surely Charles's higher nature that spoke at last, icily but firmly:--

"I am going here to return a book, and also to pay a call--on the family. If you wish, I will return your book for you."

"Couldn't think of troubling you, Charlie, old top."

"As you like, of course--"

"But as I'm going in, anyway, why need you stop at all? Glad to take charge of your book for you. Save you a little hack-fare."

To this, Charles disdained reply. So the two members of the coterie, with their books to return under their arms, stepped up the bricked walkway side by side.

Charles rang the Flowers' loud little bell. Having done so, he turned on the shabby verandah, with the intention of looking Donald hostilely up and down. But he found that Donald was already looking him up and down, in the most hostile manner conceivable. Then the youth's dullness, his grotesque conception of a male rivalry here, his impervious blind asininity,--all this acting upon the original concern about the Call, produced a sudden infuriation. Speech flowed from Charles:--

"Of all the laughing jacka.s.ses that ever broke loose from a zoo, I do think you take the cake, Manford. How you keep from falling off bridges, or b.u.t.ting out the pan where your brain ought to be on stone-copings, pa.s.ses all understanding. If I didn't have you to look at, I wouldn't believe it possible that an ordinary well-meaning chucklehead could deteriorate so horribly, just in a week or two."

Donald seemed slightly nonplussed by this attack. All that he could muster in reply was some very poor childish stuff, introduced by shakings of his head and "significant" tappings of his forehead.

"So that's why they sent him around here in a closed carriage--oho! Old Doc Flower's an alienist--forgot that! H'm! Funny how it runs in the family. First old Blenso, now poor Charlie-boy ..."

Then a servant opened the door, and relieved the high tension instantly by saying, in reply to two simultaneous questions, that Miss Flower was out.

Donald looked slightly crestfallen. Charles's look was the opposite. The youth's presence here had strongly suggested that Angela was known to be in, despite the fine weather. When the Flowers' servant--answering Donald's "Oh, she's out, is she?"--said further that Miss Angela had gone driving with a genaman, his relief rose to genuine thanksgiving.

And then Donald cleared the air completely by cavalierly handing in his book, with only his card for acknowledgment, and clattering away down the steps. Evidently, he sought a little amus.e.m.e.nt here, and nothing more.