V. V.'s Eyes

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

"Looloo saw him at the station. She happened to be there, meeting a friend of hers."

Gone!--He had come, not seen her, and gone!... A wave of bitterness swept through Cally, impelling her to hit out at somebody.

"Of course. Isn't it funny how your family always sees and hears everything?"

But Hen answered, entirely unmoved, in fact with an air of modesty: "Any family can do it who keep their eyes and ears open. For instance, good old Looloo heard where he checked his baggage to: Palm Beach, if it's of any interest to you."

"I don't believe it is, my dear. He'll be checking it back this way again very soon, I've no doubt. Are we going the right way for Dunbar Street?"

Hen shot at her a look of unconscious admiration. Her pretty cousin's indifferent air seemed to support the theory that she had actually rejected the prince of partis, which, in fact, was exactly what it was meant to do. Hen had never really thought that Cally had it in her. She threw her alert eye around to see where they were. The car had turned south at Twelfth Street, had crossed Centre, and was now rolling into a quarter of the town very different-looking, indeed, from Washington Street. Hen said they were all right for Dunbar Street and told Cally to cheer up. Much worse was coming, Hen said.

There was nothing personal in Hen's admonition, but the truth was that Cally, gazing fixedly at the passing sights, felt anything but cheerful at this moment. The Cooneys' tidings were staggering in their way.

What was the meaning of Mr. Canning's mysterious flying visit? That it had to do with her she did not question; and, tensely meditating, she presently found a hypothesis not unsatisfying after its kind. He had come with the hope that she would at last make some generous overture toward a reconciliation. More direct advances, after her three galling rebuffs of him, he naturally could not bring himself to make. Yet he had taken a long journey merely to put himself in her way--perhaps counting on a chance meeting, more probably expecting that she, hearing of his presence, would this time extend the sweet olive. The wormwood in it was that she would have been perfectly willing to extend the olive if she had only known....

The car, pushing through a mean and shabby neighborhood, offensive to refined eyes, ears, and nostrils, now turned into a narrow street brisk with the din of business, but by no means lovely to look upon. Recalling the Cooney presence, Cally suddenly stirred with the deadly self-protective instinct of her sex, and directed Hen to cease instantly all thinking about her and Mr. Canning. She did it, needless to say, scientifically, by saying with just the plausible degree of interest:

"I meant to ask you--what on earth was the trouble with Hortense, Hen? I supposed she was a perfect fixture with you, an institution!"