It is one thing to kick out your symbol of happiness in a burst of senseless rage. It is quite another to learn to live day by day without it.... Why, indeed, should she not yield obedience to poor mamma--at the least greet Canning's return with some mark of forgiveness, a tiny olive-branch?...
Henrietta Cooney's voice spoke, singularly apropos:
"You don't seem to be the only one who's been bored lately, Cally--that ought to comfort you! Chas and I saw Mr. Canning yesterday, and he looked bluer than indigo. Mad, too!"
Surprise betrayed Carlisle into a naked display of interest. Turning with a little jump, she stared at Hen with a kind of breathless rigidity.
"You saw Mr. Canning yesterday!... Where?"
"Why, out on the old Plattsburg Turnpike," said Hen, certain now that the affair was not on again--"near the Three Winds Road. We happened to be taking a walk out there, and he dashed by on that beautiful big bay mare of Mr. Payne's, going like a runaway. He didn't look happy a bit ... You knew he was here, I suppose?"
By a very special effort, Carlisle had recaptured her poise: it was not her habit to confide her troubles to anybody, least of all to a Cooney.
"Oh, no!" she answered in a voice of careless frankness. "I don't know the first thing about his movements any more."
"Well, it seems he only came for over Sunday. A friend of Mr. Payne's told Chas he was here, on Saturday. He went off again on the noon train to-day."
"Oh!... Did he?"