V. V.'s Eyes

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

"Cally, I was just thinking--no harm in being forehanded, as I always say!... Considering all the circumstances, what would you say to a small, dignified home-wedding, with two or four bridesmaids, and a large breakfast to the most intimate friends?"

Cally was even more amused....

There hovered over her in this moment, however clearly she knew it, an immense pressure, born both within and without--pressure of her own lifelong mental habits and ideals, of her parents' wishes, strengthened by the family's late loss of prestige, pressure of public opinion, of orthodox standards, of manifest destiny, of the whole air she breathed--driving her, quite irrespective of the heart question, straight to brilliant success in Hugo's waiting arms. The wing of this vast body brushed Cally's cheek now, in mamma's cooing notes. She felt it, but only smiled. A new strength possessed her; she was her own girl now as never before.

"I'll give the suggestion due thought, mamma dear ... I've an engagement now."

Annie knocked, announcing Mr. Avery. Cally was now fully accoutred, in a small, queer hat, and a short queer wrap, draping in fantastically above the knee and made of a strange filmy material which might have been stamped chiffon. She turned, laughing, at the bedroom door, and her mother, no sentimentalist, thought that she looked extraordinarily pretty....

"Good-night, mamma.... Be sure to remember me to Hugo."

She went off to a merry evening in which her high spirits became a matter of remark, and her friend Evey McVey considered that they were the least bit out of taste--"so soon, you know." So Hugo Canning spent the evening of his return formally reinstating himself in the good graces of papa, who did not forget his daughter's unhappiness of the summer quite so easily as mamma....

But next day Hugo had his innings, according to Mrs. Heth's desire.

He had been in Washington, and had come to Carlisle upon an irresistible impulse. Steadily magnetized by the spirit of the "wild, sweet thing" who had withstood him at the price of his hand, yearning had once more conquered pride, and again he had returned, again an astonishment to himself. In view of such abasement of his self-love, he had, truth to tell, expected to find Carlisle fully ready for the immediate rejoining of their lives. But perhaps there had lingered in him a doubt of the quality of his reception, born of the manner of their parting; and her hesitation, while it shook his vanity, by no means bade him despair. After the first small shock, he had not failed to perceive the coyness of her; and why not? If her maiden's whim demanded a brief ritual of probationary wooing before verbally admitting him to her heart again, never fear but he would go through his paces with a gallant's air....

The day was what photographers call cloudy-bright, turning toward mid-afternoon into fitful sunshine. The young pair lunched à deux at the Country Club, nearly deserted at this hour on a week-day. Hugo had stoutened the least bit under his sorrows; he was more masculine, handsomer than ever; his manner did not want his old lordliness, even now. He was not one to discuss business with a woman, but she learned of the affair which was hurrying him back to Washington, nothing less than rate-hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission, if you please. The able young man was now assistant counsel for his father's railway. However, he was to pass this way soon again, probably next week.