After the solitude and meditation came action at speed.

The maid vanished, the mistress slipped off her flowered negligee and drew hot water in the bathroom.  She proceeded, with no want of experience or skill, to make herself beautiful for her lover:  the lover who had seemed over a gulf from her this afternoon, and now what worlds away....  And if the rites were done somewhat hurriedly perforce, there was no lack of conscientiousness here.  She, who had said that she had never paid her way through life, could only pay in what coin she had....

Events moved quickly.  Flora, who was “on the doorbell” to-night because of the dinner-party, was soon back to say that Mr. Canning was in the library.  She was sent ahead to make sure that the coast was clear.

Cally, in a soft black house-dress with an apricot waist-ribbon, went down the back-stairs.  She passed through the busy pantry, where Moses and Annie were just ready for an expert entrance with the fish; went through the back hall, where Flora stood flashing her teeth beside the closed door of the dining-room; came to the side door of the library.  This door Cally opened, and shut it again behind her....

It was a massive and dark-beamed room, softened now with the light of lamps and fire.  Hugo stood in the middle of it, turning quickly at the sound of the door.  He, whose afternoon had taken a course so different from his planning, still wore the clothes he had had on then, a dark gray walking-suit which well became his fine-figured masculinity.  Over his brow there hovered a vexed business frown, nor did this altogether vanish as he advanced upon Carlisle, a lover’s welcome springing imperiously into his eyes.

“Isn’t this the devil’s own luck?...  Deming insists it all depends on me.”

“You go at nine-thirty?”

“He says he’ll manacle me if necessary.  It’s confoundedly important, you see—­there are large interests involved.  You know I wouldn’t go otherwise.  Don’t you?”

“And to-morrow you go on to New York?”

“No!—­There’s only the remotest chance.  I’ll go bail to be back here to-morrow at five o’clock.”

“Oh!...  I—­the message I got—­”

“I put that in only to make absolutely sure of getting you....  Growing cunning, you see.”

“Oh—­I didn’t understand,” said Cally, colorlessly, continuing to look down at her pink fingernails.

She seemed to think of nothing further to say, but that appeared to make no great difference.  Hugo moved nearer.  If he had remembered his thought about her being too sure of him, it may be that the sight of her had rushed his senses, as it had often done before.

“You were so unlike your natural dear self this afternoon,” he said, on the wooing note; and suddenly he had possessed himself of both her hands.  “To-night—­and we’ve only such a little time—­you are going to make it all up to me ...  Aren’t you?”