brought down in full flight: perhaps by
the force of that wild upstarting, perhaps by the grisly threat about
the Cooneys. Carlisle in a flare-up had always required a certain
handling. The worst of the mad girl was that she was really capable of
doing these unspeakable things she mentioned.

"So you refuse pointblank," said Mrs. Heth, in a muffled sort of voice,
"to carry out your parents' wishes."

"About this--I _must_. I'll do anything else you want me to,
anything.... And, mamma, this isn't papa's wish," said the girl, with
some emotion. "He told me--the other night--that I mustn't think of
marrying anybody I didn't care for. He said he had never thought the
same of Hugo--"

Then mamma smote the flat arm of her morris-chair, and sprang up,
exploding.

"_That's it_! Shove it off on your poor, generous father!... How
characteristic of your whole behavior! Why, you ought to be _ashamed_ to
mention your father's name!" cried mamma; and, indeed, Cally was, though
for reasons not known to her mother....

Mrs. Heth walked the floor, in the grip of those agonies which the
defeat of her will brought her in poignant measure. It may be that her
faith in her diplomatic plan had never been triumphantly strong. Now,
certainly, her purposes were punitive only, and her flowing sentences
well turned to her desire....

"You suppose your father's overjoyed to have his delightfully
_independent_ daughter thrown back on his hands--of course!" she was
remarking. "True, you've heard him say a thousand times that he was
going to sell his business as soon as you married and buy himself a
place in the country and begin to have some pleasure of his own. But, of
course, that was only his little joke! Yes, yes!" said mamma,
brandishing her arms. "What he really wants is to go on slaving and
toiling and worrying his heart out to keep you in pampered idleness and
luxury, indulging your lightest whim without regard--"

"Mamma, mamma!--do, please!" the girl broke in. "If papa has been
working so hard on my account--and I didn't know that--then I don't want
him to do it any more. I wish he would sell--"

"Oh, I've no patience with your deathbed repentances! Don't you know
your father's involved in serious worries at this moment, entirely on
your account? Do you think a few dramatic speeches from you can undo--"

"Worries on my account? No, I didn't know of any.... What worries?"

Cally had stood listening with a kind of numbed listless