V. V.'s Eyes

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

"Because," said Vivian, "I've felt I--did you such a wrong--that night...."

Under the flickering Cooney gas, the two stood staring at each other. The young man hurried on:

"I've had it on my mind ever since, and have wanted very much to tell you.... I've felt that--what I--I said to you was all wrong--most unjust...."

He hesitated; and the gold-and-black lashes, so piquant and gay, fell. "Take your jump! Take your jump!" called Major Cooney in the dining-room. You could hear him plainly, straight through the folding doors. And young V. Vivian, who was merciless as a social philosopher but somewhat trusting as a man, took his jump with a will.

"I was much upset about it that night--and excited, I suppose. I can't account for--for what I said in any other way. I've hoped for the opportunity to tell you.... Why, of course I don't believe that at all.... It was all so confused and mixed up; that was the trouble. But of course I know that you--that you wouldn't have said anything that--that wasn't entirely consistent with the facts...."

He paused, expectantly it seemed; but there came no reply.

Cally Heth, indeed, stood in a dumbness which she seemed powerless to break. Well she knew what sort of reply she ought to make to these remarks: what was the man saying but what she had already said a hundred times to herself? He was simply making tardy admission that her position had been exactly right all along; that was all. Yet somehow the sane knowledge did not seem to help much against this sequence of unique sensations she was at present experiencing,--odd, tumultuous, falling sensations, as of bottoms dropped out....

"I suppose," said the man's faraway voice, sounding a sudden loss of confidence, "it's rather too much to hope that--that you can forget...."

Again his words dropped into the brief, expectant silence.... It seemed that he had happened to say the one thing to which no reply was possible. And somehow the effect of it was worse, even, than the never-forgotten moment in the summer-house.

"And forgive," finished the voice.... "I've felt--"