But Hugo, the understanding, though personally opposed to interruptions during dinner, knew the folly of arguing with the whims of the unreasoners. He had risen with Carlisle, and now said: "I'll show you the way."
Cally gave him a look of exquisite gratitude, but answered: "Please don't trouble, Hugo! The boy will--"
"No trouble. Let's be off before the tolls eat you out of house and home."
"Oh, no! Please don't! Couldn't I have my way about such a little matter, Hugo dear?"
In this glaring publicity, the dialogue began to take on something of the nature of a "scene." Canning yielded with perfect grace.
"Of course you can, if you really prefer it. Well, then!... Hurry back."
"In two minutes," said she, with certainty; and smiled brightly into mamma's censorious concern.
On the heels of the proud page, Cally threaded her way among the glittering tables for the telephone and Jefferson 4127, unaware for once that she was the cynosure of many eyes. She was buoyed within, thrilled with a sense of strange adventure, baffling to analysis, but somehow comparable to that soaring moment last week. She was captain of her soul. That she was now standing by her flare-up, deliberately reattaching herself to a past which she had moved heaven and earth to cut away from her, did not occur to her, in just that way. But she was conscious of a curious inner sense of freedom, and somehow of fulfilment. And now she saw that she must have been secretly thinking of doing this for some time, nibbling fearfully at the idea....
She was alone in a glass booth, with a telephone before her, receiver off its hook. She sat down, put the receiver to her ear, and said:
"Hello?"