It was the bitterest moment of Miss Heth's well-sheltered young life. Of notoriety, of a vulgar sensation such as this, of malicious gossip, of all that was cheap and familiarizing, she had a deep-seated horror. Of the moment of reckoning with her mother, whose objections to noisy rumor rather surpassed her own, she felt a wholesome dread. There was also the matter of her personal appearance, which she conceived to be repulsive: she was confident that she looked a hideosity and a sight. Her eyes fastened from afar upon the staring faces on the pavilion. She saw hungry curiosity stalking there, naked and unashamed, and the sight sickened her.
For these faces, as individual faces, she felt indifference and contempt. But in the mass they seemed to assume the enormous importance of good or ill repute. What these people were saying of her and Dalhousie to-day, the world would say to-morrow.
To know what this was, she would have given on the spot all the money she possessed (eight thousand dollars, birthday and Christmas presents, in United States bonds). But to run the gauntlet of those questioning faces was just a little more than she could endure. She was quick in action. She said:
"Land me here, Mr. Wedge. And you must walk with me to the hotel."
As she directed, so it was done. They landed there, and Carlisle and Mr. Wedge struck out hurriedly up the strand for the main entrance of the hostelry. When the cunning ruse became plain to the staring gallery, it was practically too late to do anything about it. You could not have caught the escaping pair without a sprint. However, each man promised himself to be the first to interview the boatman ...
After the humiliating cut-and-run, which stretched out interminably, Carlisle found herself, at length, in the haven of the brilliantly lighted elevator. Water dribbled from her skirt's edge; she was aware of the elevator boy's African side-glances. If she had been a different sort of girl, she could no longer have refrained from bursting into tears. Fine ending to her rosy journey this!--a sensational "scene" played out before a house of loafers, and now the babel of thousand-tongued gossip, linking her name amorously (so she suspected) with the red-painted ne'er-do-well. Charming background, indeed, for a remeeting with the heir of the Cannings.
Her plight was crushing to the distracted girl; but her anger, the wild resentment of a high spirit feeling itself abominably mistreated, made it impossible for her to be crushed. She would not lie down tamely and be trampled upon by malicious mischance. She would not ...
Mrs. Heth, just risen from her refreshing nap, heard the sounds of arrival in the adjoining room and opened the door between. Then she leaned back against the door-frame, her ladylike eyes starting from her head.
"Carlisle!... Oh, merciful heavens! What?--What on earth's happened?"
Miss Heth, already beginning to free herself of her soaking clothes, braced for the explanatory ordeal. Having no plan of procedure except to put herself in as praiseworthy a light as possible (thus avoiding a useless scene), she began in a hard, dry voice: