THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT
A NOVEL
BY
BASIL KING
AUTHOR OF
THE INNER SHRINE, THE WILD OLIVE, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
ORSON LOWELL
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Published by Arrangement with Harper &Brothers
1911, 1912.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED MAY, 1912
"By the Street Called Straight we come to the House calledBeautiful"
—New England Saying
THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT
I
s a matter of fact, Davenant was under noillusions concerning the quality of the welcome his hostess wasaccording him, though he found a certain pleasure in being oncemore in her company. It was not a keen pleasure, but neither was itan embarrassing one; it was exactly what he supposed it would be incase they ever met again—a blending on his part of curiosity,admiration, and reminiscent suffering out of which time andexperience had taken the sting. He retained the memory of a minuteof intense astonishment once upon a time, followed by some weeks,some months perhaps, of angry humiliation; but the years betweentwenty-four and thirty-three are long and varied, generating inhealthy natures plenty of saving common sense. Work, travel, and awidened knowledge of men and manners had so ripened Davenant's mindthat he was able to see his proposal now as Miss Guion must haveseen it then, as something so incongruous and absurd as not only toneed no consideration, but to call for no reply. Nevertheless, itwas the refusal on her part of a reply, of the mere laconic Nowhich was all that, in his heart of hearts, he had ever expected,that rankled in him longest; but even that mortification hadpassed, as far as he knew, into the limbo of extinct regrets. Forher present superb air of having no recollection of his blunder hehad nothing but commendation. It was as becoming to the spiritedgrace of its wearer as a royal mantle to a queen. Carrying it asshe did, with an easy, preoccupied affability that enabled her tolook round him and over him and through him, to greet him andconverse with him, without seeming positively to take in the factof his existence, he was permitted to suppose the incident of theirprevious acquaintance, once so vital to himself, to have beenforgotten. If this were so, it would be nothing very strange, sincea woman of twenty-seven, who has had much social experience, may bepermitted to lose sight of the more negligible of the conquests shehas made as a girl of eighteen. She had asked him to dinner, andplaced him honorably at her right; but words could not have made itplainer than it was that he was but an accident to theoccasion.
He was there, in short, because he was staying with Mr. and Mrs.Temple. After a two years' absence from New England he had arrivedin Waverton that day, "Oh, bother! bring him along," had been theformula in which Miss Guion had conveyed his invitation, the dinnerbeing but an informal, neighborly affair. Two or three weddinggifts having arrived from various quarters of the world, it wasnatural that Miss Guion should want to show them confidentially toher dear friend and distant relative, Drusilla Fane. Mrs. Fane hadevery right to this privileged inspection, since she had not onlytimed her yearly visit to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Temple, so thatit should synchronize with the wedding, but had introduced Oliviato Colonel Ashley, in