already
with a sheep's eye for the king among men in the doorway) had seized the
conversation even before Carlisle left it hanging.

"Hello, darling Cally! Do come in and share our lovely little snuggery.
Isn't it cunning?--don't you think we were awfully smart to find it? Oh,
do you know Dr. Vivian?--Miss Heth."

"How do you do?" said Cally, without a second glance.... "_This_ is she,
Mr. Canning--Miss Mattie Allen, whom you've heard so much about...."

Canning, hardly less piqued than Carlisle by the presence of strangers
in his lodge, and unable to remember having heard the name Allen before
in his life, of course rose gallantly.

"I hope Miss Allen won't think me impertinent," he said, most
delightfully, "if I claim her as an old friend...."

Miss Allen's response acquitted him of all impertinence. It was she who
then recalled an omission, and in her sweet artless way bade the two
gentlemen be acquainted. Dr. Vivian (who could not exactly recollect the
steps by which he had come to be duetting in his uncle's den with Miss
Allen) looked as if he expected to shake hands with Miss Heth's handsome
squire; but Canning, having shot him with a quick curious glance, merely
bowed, in silence. Through the minds of both men (and also of Miss
Carlisle Heth) had swept at the same moment a darting memory of their
last meeting....

And then it was suddenly seen by all that Mr. Canning had been gathered
in by his adroit old friend Miss Allen, and smartly withdrawn from the
general society. And Cally was left to face alone the last man upon
earth she wanted to see.

She, whose own plans had been so utterly different, had been on her
guard against such a contingency as this; but Mattie's born gift for
strategics had simply been too much for her. Mr. Canning had been
surrounded and backed against a bookcase, as it were, before anybody
realized what was happening to him....

"But oh, you're so dreadfully tall," she heard the voice of her gifted
girl-friend, as from a distance. "I don't believe you can look far
enough down to see poor little Me...."

All had happened at speed: the lines of division were still just
forming. And Carlisle, of course, had no idea of tamely accepting such
an unfair distribution of things. As to this man, Dr. Vivian, her
attitude toward him now, after the Cooneys', was simply one of cool
polished politeness. She had told him what she thought of him about the
Works, and he had humbly apologized for