"It's to be in the office of that Dr. Vivian--you know?... one flight up. No difficulty in finding ... Sure to put on rubbers...."
The last words to be distinctly heard were: "Look for me right up at the front."
In her own room Carlisle flew about quite blithely, making ready for the unexpected excursion with odd anticipations beyond mamma's guessing. She felt grateful to Hugo, attached to him by a new tie; for he, however clearly he had understood it himself, had beautifully put her in just that position toward the religious fellow which she had so long desired to occupy: the position, in short, of overwhelming moral superiority. How easy now, choosing her own moment, to say what would dispel forever the man's odd little power of causing her to worry....
The streets were slippery, the journey was from pole to pole of the town and yet five minutes sufficed for it, bringing Settlementers to their destination. So easily does forty horse-power traverse the mile between Houses of Heth and Houses of Dabney. Cally Heth rolled up to the door of the abandoned hotel. Large and dismal it looked in the slanting rain. Archaic, too, so the modern of the moderns thought, glancing upward over the face of the shabby pile as the car halted, and William, who was ever attentive to his young mistress, sprang out with the umbrellas. It was an odd place for anybody to live, certainly; an even odder place to draw in storm the world of fashion foregathering to its bosom. Yet this indubitably was the spot. There was the little procession of motor-cars, lined against the broken sidewalk in the wet, to prove it. The girl's upward eye fell, too, upon a name, inscribed in white paint upon a window directly above the decayed grand entrance:
DR. VIVIAN
Carlisle became conscious of a certain excitement. She hoped very much that they hadn't read out the names of subscribers yet.
She was late, so there was nobody to show her in. From the sidewalk she stepped under a queer little portico, which seemed to waft one back to a previous century. Here, at the vestibule step, she was obliged to move carefully to avoid treading on two dirty little denizens of the neighborhood, who knew no better than to block the way of the quality. They were little Jew girls,--little Goldnagels, in short,--and while one of them sat and played at jackstones with a flat-looking rubber ball, the other and smaller lay prone upon her stomach, weeping with passionate abandon.
Her agonized wails indicated the end of the world, and worse. Carlisle said kindly:
"What's the matter, little girl?"
The lamenting one, who was about four years old, rolled around and regarded the lady with a contorted face. Her wails died to a whimper: but then, curiosity satisfied and no solace offering, she burst forth as with an access of mysterious pain.