And then, in good season, there sounded welcome footsteps, Hen's, in the hall. They broke at a stroke, the strange petrifying numbness which Carlisle had felt mysteriously closing over her. She murmured the name of Henrietta, and turned away. And her voice was the voice of Lucknow, as the friendly columns poured in....
Hen came walking in, saying something lively and Cooneyesque, and glancing with an air of interested expectancy from her friend V.V. to her cousin Cally. But Cally only said once more that she must be going, and asked where Aunt Molly was. She then let fall the word good-night for Hen's caller, while looking at a point some ninety degrees removed from his whereabouts: by which the caller understood that his forgiveness was problematical, to say the least of it.
IX
Concerning an Abandoned Hotel, and who lived there; also of an Abandoned Youth, who lived somewhere else, Far Away; how a Slum Doctor dressed for a Function, such as involved Studs; and how Kern Garland wishted she was a Lady.
Mrs. Garland, catching sight of Doctor as he came up the decayed grand-stairway, cried out, well, she never, just in the nig of time! Why, the words was no more'n out of her mouth that the stoo was just done to a hair, she did declare, and Kern she said, quick as anything, what, a hair in the stoo, now, mommer, that'd never do....
The clocks of the city had just struck six for the last time that year. Dr. Vivian, having placed his suitcase and overcoat on the second-hand operating-table in the office, washed face and hands, brushed his coat-collar with a whisk whose ranks had been heavily thinned in wars with dust and lint, and, repairing in sound spirits to the Garland combination dining-and living-room, with the kitchen in the corner, made his interesting confidence relative to the suitcase. He made it in mouth-filling phrases, with many teasing generalizations about the ways of the world and the evils of modern society, which was only his gempman's way when playful. But by close application his auditors soon got at the heart of his meaning, to wit: Doctor actually was going uptown to his swell Uncle Beirne's swell Noo Year's reception to-night in Mr. O'Neill's fulldressuit.
Naturally the Garlands were much interested and excited by the tidings, which brought them so close to great events that, practically speaking, they themselves became members of the fash'nable set: and Mrs. Garland publicly thanked God that she was not as other women were, lazying and keeping back their gentlemen's shirts till Saturday night, or worse. Laid away tidy in the second bureau drawer, her shirts were. The doctor himself seemed not a little enlivened by the evening's prospect. It is imaginable that the Dabney House grew a little lonely at times....
"And to think your swell uncle wants you so special, sir!" said Mrs. Garland, in her harsh, inflectionless voice. "A compliment, I'm sure. And his party all a fizzle unless you come, and his gai'ty a mockery! Well!"
Such indeed was the way in which Vivian had been pleased to depict his fashionable uncle's attitude. He smiled slightly, sipped his feeble coffee and said: