His talk for a while was mostly with Mr. Carling, who was in a pleasant mood, being, like most nervous people, at his best in the evening. Mary made an occasional contributory remark, and Mrs. Carling, as was her wont, was silent except when appealed to. Finally, Mr. Carling rose and, putting out his hand, said: “I think I will excuse myself, if you will permit me. I have had to be down town today, and am rather tired.” Mrs. Carling followed him, saying to John as she bade him good night: “Do come, Mr. Lenox, whenever you feel like it. We are very quiet people, and are almost always at home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Carling,” responded John, with much sincerity. “I shall be most glad to. I am so quiet myself as to be practically noiseless.”
The hall of the Carlings’ house was their favorite sitting place in the evening. It ran nearly the whole depth of the house, and had a wide fireplace at the end. The further right hand portion was recessed by the stairway, which rose from about the middle of its length.
Miss Blake sat in a low chair, and John took its fellow at the other angle of the fireplace, which contained the smoldering remnant of a wood fire. She had a bit of embroidery stretched over a circular frame like a drumhead. Needlework was not a passion with her, but it was understood in the Carling household that in course of time a set of table doilies of elaborate devices in colored silks would be forthcoming. It has been deplored by some philosopher that custom does not sanction such little occupations for masculine hands. It would be interesting to speculate how many embarrassing or disastrous consequences might have been averted if at a critical point in a negotiation or controversy a needle had had to be threaded or a dropped stitch taken up before a reply was made, to say nothing of an excuse for averting features at times without confession of confusion.
The great and wise Charles Reade tells how his hero, who had an island, a treasure ship, and a few other trifles of the sort to dispose of, insisted upon Captain Fullalove’s throwing away the stick he was whittling, as giving the captain an unfair advantage. The value of the embroidered doily as an article of table napery may be open to question, but its value, in an unfinished state, as an adjunct to discreet conversation, is beyond all dispute.
“Ought I to say good night?” asked John with a smile, as he seated himself on the disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Carling.
“I don’t see any reason,” she replied. “It isn’t late. Julius is in one of his periods of retiring early just now. By and by he will be sure to take up the idea again that his best sleep is after midnight. At present he is on the theory that it is before twelve o’clock.”
“How has he been since your return?” John asked.
“Better in some ways, I think,” she replied. “He seems to enjoy the home life in contrast with the traveling about and living in hotels; and then, in a moderate way, he is obliged to give some attention to business matters, and to come in contact with men and affairs generally.”
“And you?” said John. “You find it pleasant to be back?”
“Yes,” she said, “I do. As my sister said, we are quiet people. She goes out so little that it is almost not at all, and when I go it has nearly always to be with someone else. And then, you know that while Alice and I are originally New Yorkers, we have only been back here for two or three years. Most of the people, really, to whose houses we go are those who knew my father. But,” she added, “it is a comfort not to be carrying about a traveling bag in one hand and a weight of responsibility in the other.”
“I should think,” said John, laughing, “that your maid might have taken the bag, even if she couldn’t carry your responsibilities.”
“No,” she said, joining in his laugh, “that particular bag was too precious, and Eliza was one of my most serious responsibilities. She had to be looked after like the luggage, and I used to wish at times that she could be labeled and go in the van. How has it been with you since your return? and,” as she separated a needleful of silk from what seemed an inextricable tangle, “if I may ask, what have you been doing? I was recalling,” she added, putting the silk into the needle, “some things you said to me on the Altruria. Do you remember?”
“Perfectly,” said John. “I think I remember every word said on both sides, and I have thought very often of some things you said to me. In fact, they had more influence upon my mind than you imagined.”
She turned her work so that the light would fall a little more directly upon it.
“Really?” she asked. “In what way?”
“You put in a drop or two that crystallized the whole solution,” he answered. She looked up at him inquiringly.
“Yes,” he said, “I always knew that I should have to stop drifting some time, but there never seemed to be any particular time. Some things you said to me set the time. I am under ‘full steam ahead’ at present. Behold in me,” he exclaimed, touching his breast, “the future chief of the Supreme Court of the United States, of whom you shall say some time in the next brief interval of forty years or so, ‘I knew him as a young man, and one for whom no
