XXIV

How the Best People came to the Old Hotel again; how Cally is Ornamental, maybe, but hardly a Useful Person; how she encounters Three Surprises from Three Various Men, all disagreeable but the Last.

To the Dabney House, it was like old times come back. Not in forty years had the ancient hostelry so resounded with the steps of the best people.

Without, there stood lines of motor-cars in the shabby and unaccustomed street, ten times as many as there had been in May. Within--to prove at a stroke the tone of the gathering--J. Forsythe Avery himself stood conspicuously at the very door: not merely stood, but labored behind a deal table for the cause, distributing Settlement pamphlets, brochures or treatises, to all comers. He irresistibly reminded Carlisle of one of those lordly men in gold-lace outside a painless dentist's parlors. Many others of the conquering order there were observed also, almost in the first glance; chiefly congregating in the new a.s.sembly room, where the "opening reception" was under way, but also deploying in numbers all over the lower floor and the remodeled bas.e.m.e.nt beneath.

It was the Heths' first public appearance since their home-coming, and perhaps even mamma felt a little bit self-conscious. But Carlisle had come with serious intentions, and a manner of determined vivacity. Let people find anything to gloat over in her appearance, if they could.

Glancing about as they left Mr. Avery, she saw that the old court or lobby, where she had stood and talked once on a rainy May day, had been left intact, only renovated somewhat as to floor and walls. On one side of it now ran down a row of offices with new gla.s.s doors, the first of them, marked "Mr. Pond." On the other side, a great arched doorway led into the large meeting-room, formed by the demolition of many part.i.tions. Changed indeed it all was: yet Cally found it quite disturbingly familiar too....

Beyond the arched doorway stood a little group of the best men and women: a reception committee clearly, and Mrs. Heth had not been asked to serve upon it, as she was instantly and indignantly conscious.

However, she was one to bear martyrdom n.o.bly, knowing that truth would prevail in the end; and accordingly she greeted Byrds, Daynes, and others with marked and lingering cordiality. Carlisle, pa.s.sing down the receiving line more quickly, soon found herself introduced to Pond, the imported Director, according to her plan. The phrase is accurate, for Mr. Pond appeared to be panjandrum here, and people of all degree were presented to him, as to royalty. Frequent hearing of the man's name in the last few days had suggested nothing to Carlisle, but the moment she caught sight of his keen face with the powerful blue-tinged jaw, she recalled that she had seen Mr. Pond in the Dabney House before now.

The Director had turned with businesslike indifference as Mr. Dayne spoke her name, but his expression as he looked at her took on a sudden half-surprised intentness which Carlisle had seen upon the faces of strangers before now. His reply to her commonplaces of greeting was:

"Where have I met you before?"

"Nowhere, I think."

Bored with the tenor of his speech, she looked at him steadily yet negligently for a moment; and then, releasing her gaze, continued: "This is the a.s.sembly room, isn't it? What sort of meetings are to held here?"

A faintly quizzical look came into the man's incisive stare. "Do you really think it worth while for me to explain, when--"

He left this beginning hanging in midair, while he turned, without apology, to accept the humble duties of three new arrivals. Cally waited patiently. Mrs. Berkeley Page had left her possessed of an impulse, which she took to be almost tantamount to a resolution. She would give at least part of her time to doing something solid....

Director Pond, turning back to her, concluded:

"When we are both well aware that you don't care a continental what sort of meetings are going to be held here?"

"Oh, but I do, you see," replied Cally, distinctly irritated. "I'm very much interested. One of the reasons I'm here this afternoon," she explained, not without an under-feeling of sad n.o.bility, "is that I am thinking of offering myself as--as a worker."

"Oh!--As a worker."

"Yes."

"A worker. You mean it?"

She said, glancing indifferently away: "But probably Mr. Dayne is the person I should speak to about it.... Or--perhaps Dr. Vivian...."

"What's Dayne or Vivian got to do with it? Walk a little away from the door with me--there! Thank the Lord when this mob clears out.... So you want to offer as a worker," said Director Pond, his face gravely authoritative. "Good. We need workers more than money now, which is putting it somewhat strongly. I am pleased that you will join us. When can you move in?"

"Move in?"

"You understand, of course, that resident workers are the only ones good for anything. You will want to live here, for a year or so at least.

Naturally the sooner you can come the better."

"Live here? Here in the Dabney House? Well, no," said Carlisle, with open amus.e.m.e.nt, "I could hardly do that."

"Ah?" said he, without the slightest change of expression. "Well, that's a pity.... Allow me to raise my hand and point at this wall, so; and now people will understand that I'm explaining important points to a worker, and will not interrupt. Of course there is something for the non-residents to do, too. Let us see now. You can sew, I suppose?"

"Sew?... Well--not really well at all."

"Too bad," said he, keeping his broad back to the lively groups about them and pointing steadily at the wall. "However--I'm thinking of putting in a woman's infirmary. Can you recommend yourself as reasonably fitted for an a.s.sistant amateur nurse?"

"Oh, no! No, I couldn't do that, I'm afraid. I can't bear sickness."

"Indeed? A great many people enjoy it.... Well!--district visitor it is, then, while we're getting acquainted with the neighborhood. But it means business, you know--six days a week visiting in the homes of the poorest, dirtiest and meanest, investigating, collecting facts under instructions you will get from me--"

"Oh! Well, no--not that. I--I'm afraid my mother wouldn't care to have me do that."

The man's pointing hand, which was large and strong-looking, fell at his side, and he gazed at her with a sarcasm which he no longer troubled to conceal.

"May I ask what under the sun you can do?"

"What I can do?..."

Under his hard and frankly belittling stare, Carlisle began to feel rather small, despite her firm resolves to feel nothing of the sort. She had heard something of this Mr. Pond in the past week: a person of some consequence in the world, it was said, several kinds of Doctor, and the author of a work on The Settlement which was considered "standard" and which Cally had meant (since last night) to purchase at Saltman's bookstore. Report made him also a man of some independent means and position, and certainly he had come with excellent letters and credentials. But Cally did not consider that these things justified anybody in being so thoroughly hateful, particularly when you could see that it was only an eccentric pose....

"That," said she, with dignity, "is what I am now considering--"

"But you've already offered to help! I merely request you, in a polite manner, to state how you can help me, in my big, serious and important work.... Doesn't it occur to you, in fact, that you are somewhat helpless?"

"Does it occur to you that you are being somewhat rude?"

"Does it occur to _you_ that what you call rudeness may be exactly the sort of wholesome irritant needed by people of your cla.s.s?"

"What do you mean by people of my cla.s.s?"

Cally raised a white-gloved hand and put back a tendril of her gay hair.

She looked at him level-eyed. The man's constant and c.o.c.ksure "I," "me,"

"mine," rubbed her strongly the wrong way. This was Dr. Vivian's Settlement, and n.o.body else's. She was convinced that Vivian would have made a far better Director anyway....

Mr. Pond, however, smiled suddenly. The smile largely transformed his dark face, making it look for the first time quite agreeable, and even kind.

"I mean," said he, "those who are highly ornamental, but cannot candidly be described as generally useful."

The reply, for some reason, silenced her. She thought of Mrs. Page. The man's smile faded.

"Not," said he, "that I don't consider ornaments of use. I do, in their place. Now I must get back to the firing-line. I can only add that if you are serious about wanting to help me, Miss--I'm afraid I didn't catch your name--you will lose no time in qualifying yourself to be of service. Obviously you are not so qualified at present."

He nodded curtly, and turned away. The admiring populace swallowed him up....

Cally felt as if she had received a severe drubbing. She felt rebuffed, defeated, depressed, and at the same time vaguely stimulated. However, the moment for introspective a.n.a.lysis was not now....

"Well, Cally," said motherly Mrs. McVey, drifting by, "you must feel sort of lonesome--such a turn-out of old folks I never saw. I wanted Evey to come, but she said she 'd as soon go to a tea at the Needy Ladies' Home."

On the heels of Evey's mother came Cally's own, whose watchful eye had been felt from a distance before now. Possibly mamma had not forgotten what happened the last time Cally came to the Dabney House....