So Charles's call at the Wings' on the evening of his homecoming wore a complexion not contemplated by him when he had arranged the matter.
He had made this engagement, under the general misapprehension, in his reply to Mary's grateful letter last week. And now he had to keep it, however malapropos, resolved as he was that she should never sense any criticism or disapprobation in him. To seek to "influence" her, naturally never entered his mind. No, he was her casual spectator now and henceforward; he had dipped his oar in her affairs for the last time.
But the call was hardly much of a success, despite all efforts. Mary, having now had time to recapture her usual poise, no longer impressed one as being so unreservedly overjoyed with herself. It was noted that she kept referring to the write-ups, kept assuring him how delightful she found it to be a celebrity as well as a Secretary, etc., etc. The caller's intellect coldly gave her credit for "being very nice." However, no niceness could help much to drape the stark obtruding facts; no civilities seemed fitted to cope with the intangible wall suddenly sprung up in the old friendship. And if there had lingered in Charles's mind some revolting incredulity, some reactionary insistence that Mary could never really carry out the typical exploit of the Egoette, the talk this evening finally killed it. The famous educator's sentences made it clear, once and for all, that she was Leaving Home for good—for her own good, of course—on the 1st day of March succeeding.
Charles was determinedly "sincere" throughout the brief call, continuously and spuriously hearty. Inwardly, his resolve grew more and more fixed that this young woman, who was so rarely competent to Lead Her Own Life, should be permitted to lead it quite unassisted henceforth. For himself, he decided that his life should go to the unremitting service of pure Letters. But of such matters, of course, he permitted his agreeable chatter to yield no hint. Taking his departure upon a new wave of felicitations, he could but congratulate himself upon the trained adeptness of his mask.
And Mary, having shut the door upon her caller, stood leaning against it, her arched brows drawn together in a faint frown, her fine eyes faintly bewildered.
"Now what," she said, half aloud, "have I said or done, or left unsaid or undone, this time?"
And then she went slowly back to her mother's bedroom, where she found her mother with stockings to darn, and (taken unawares) her eyes a little red.