ather. But Cally said briefly that she was not afraid,
and had to go home in a little while anyway.

In the same moment Carlisle heard the voice of the caller in the hall,
for whom Hen had just opened the door. She recognized this voice at the
first word. And she involuntarily rose in the Cooney parlor, feeling the
oddest, suddenest, most unreasoning impulse to go at once into the
dining-room, after all, and be with Looloo, and watch them play checkers
for a little while....

It was the surprise of it; nothing more. And Carlisle overcame that
impulse. She remained standing motionless, reconsidering as by lightning
flashes the quite complicated point of etiquette that so suddenly
confronted her. What was a lady's proper attitude toward a nobody who
has called her father a shameless homicide and herself a God-pitiful
poor little thing? There was no experience to guide here. But clearer
and clearer it seemed to become to Cally that to hold any converse with
such an one could only be, after all, essentially debasing. Icy
indifference was the stingingest rebuke....

Henrietta came through the door, with the lame medical man behind her.
Without looking at him, Cally gathered that the man found the sight of
her properly disquieting.

"You know my cousin, Miss Heth, I believe--_Doctor_ Vivian, Cally."

"Oh!... How do you do!" said the doctor.

Carlisle, not advancing from the sofa-side, said:

"I remember Dr. Vivian."

"Well, sit down, both of you," said Hen.

And then Henrietta, with that audacious forwardness which the Cooneys
mistook for humor, smiled treacherously at her cousin over the caller's
shoulder, and said:

"And entertain each other a moment, won't you? I have _got_ to speak to
mother...."

On that Hen left them. Through some bias in its ancient hinges, the
parlor door swung to behind her. It shut with a loud click. From behind
the other closed doors, the merry voices of the checker-players and
rooter grew very audible.

Despite the hostess's cordial injunction, the two young people in the
shut Cooney parlor did not immediately sit down and begin to entertain
each other. Both remained standing exactly where Hen had left them, and
there ensued a hiatus of entertainment just long enough to be quite
distinctly appreciable.

Then the absurdity of her--Miss Heth's--feeling constraint before this
Mr.--no, Dr.--Vivian, this friend of the Cooneys and malicious attacker
of the Cooneys' relatives' characters