Isabelle waited in the carriage outside the station for her husband and
Molly. The New York train was late as usual. She had driven in from Bryn
Mawr, where she had spent most of the ten days since Lane's departure. She
was steeped now in the atmosphere of that suburban house covered by the
April mist, with the swelling bushes and trees all about it. There had been
an operation, decided on after consultation with the eminent surgeons that
Isabelle had summoned. After the operation hope had flickered up, as the
sick man breathed more easily, was able to articulate a few intelligible
words, and showed an interest in what was going on about him. But it had
waned again to-day, and when Isabelle left, Alice was holding her husband's
large hand, talking to him cheerfully, but there was no response.... How
wonderful she was,--Alice! That picture of her filled Isabelle's thought as
she waited in the carriage. Never a tear or a whimper all these anxious
days, always the calm, buoyant voice, even a serene smile and little joke
at her husband's bedside, such as she had used to enliven him
with,--anything to relax his set, heavy features. "How she loves him!"
thought Isabelle, almost with pain.
When she left that afternoon, Alice had sent a grateful message to John.
"He will come out to-morrow if he can?" she had asked. She knew now that
the hours were numbered without being told so by the doctors. And never a
tear, a self-pitying cry! Oh, to be like that,--sturdy in heart and
soul,--with that courage before life, that serene confidence in face of the
worst fate can offer! Alice was of the faith of Renault.
Lane came down the platform, followed by Molly and her governess. As he
raised his hat in greeting, Isabelle noticed the deep lines at the corners
of his mouth, and the line above his broad, straight nose. When they were
in the carriage, she realized that her husband had been living these ten
days in another world from the one she had inhabited, and in spite of his
questions about Steve and Alice, he was preoccupied, still held by the
anxieties and perplexities of his business in New York, still in the close
grip of his own affairs, his personal struggle. So she talked with Molly,
who was almost articulately joyful over her escape from the country, at the
sight of streets and motor carriages.
As they were going to dinner a servant brought word that a reporter wished
to speak to John. Usually Lane refused to see reporters outside his office,
and there turned them over to his secretary, who was skilled in the gentle
art of saying inoffensive nothings in many words. But to her surprise John
after slight hesitation went into the library to see the man, and it was a
long half hour before he returned to his dinner. The evening was another
one of those torturing periods when Isabella's heart was full and yet must
be carefully repressed lest she make a false step. After a little talk
about Molly, her mother, the Johnstons, Lane turned to open his mail that
had been sent up for him from the office. Isabelle left him absorbed in
this task, but she could not sleep, and when at last she heard him go to
his room, she followed him. Laying her hands on his arms, she looked at him
pleadingly, longing now not so much to know the facts, to reason and judge,
as to understand, perhaps comfort him,--at least to share the trouble with
him.
"Can't you tell me all about it, John?"
"About what?" he demanded dryly, his dislike of effusiveness, emotionalism,
showing in the glitter of his gray eyes.
"Tell me what is troubling you! I want to share it,--all of it. What has
happened?"
He did not answer at once. There was an evident struggle to overcome his
habitual reserve, the masculine sense of independence in the conduct of his
affairs. Also, there was between them her prejudice, the woman's
insufficient knowledge, and the barrier of the long years of aloofness. But
at last, as if he had reflected that she would have to know soon in any
case, he said dryly:--
"The Board has voted to relieve me of my duties as general manager of
traffic. I am assigned to St. Louis for the present, but the duties are not
specified. A polite hint--which I have taken!"
"Did Mr. Beals do that?"
"Beals went to Europe on his vacation when the coal cases first came up....
Besides, it would have made no difference. I think I see in it the fine
hand of our good friend the Senator,--smug-faced old fox!"
Isabelle felt how much this action by the directors had stung him, how
severely he was suffering.
"It was ... because of the verdict?"
"Oh, the general mess, the attacks in the press, complaints from
stockholders! They want to get under cover, show the public they are
cleaning house, I suppose. They thought to shelve me until the row fizzles
out, then drop me. But I am not the sort of man to sit around as a willing
sacrifice, to pose for the papers as a terrible example. They will know,
to-morrow!"
Isabelle understood why he had consented to see the reporter. Hitherto, he
had refused to speak, to make any public defence of himself or comment on
the trial. But after this action on the part of the directors, after the
long smouldering hours on the train, he had decided to speak,--at length.
It would not be pleasant reading in certain quarters near Wall Street, what
he said, but it would make good copy.
Biting fiercely at his cigar, which had gone out, he struck a match sharply
and talked on:--
"I am not a back number yet. There is not another road in the country that
has shown such results, such gain in traffic, as the A. and P. since I was
put in charge of traffic five years ago. There are others who know it, too,
in New York. I shan't have to twiddle my thumbs long when my resignation is
published. The prejudiced trial out here won't stand in the way."
In the storm of his mood, it was useless to ask questions. Isabelle merely
murmured:--
"Too bad, too bad,--I am so sorry, John!"
Instead of that dispassionate groping for the exact truth, justice between
her husband and the public, that she had first desired, she was simply
compassionate for his hurt pride. Innocent or guilty, what right had she to
judge him? Even if the worst of what had been charged was literally true,
had she not abandoned him at the start,--left him to meet the problems of
the modern battle as he could,--to harden his soul against all large and
generous considerations? Now when he was made the scapegoat for the sins of
others, for the sin of his race, too,--how could she sit and censure! The
time would come for calm consideration between them. There was that
something in her heart which buoyed her above the present, above the
distress of public condemnation,--even disgrace and worldly failure. Coming
close to him again, she said with ringing conviction:--
"It can make no difference to you and me, John!"
He failed to see her meaning.
"The money doesn't matter,--it isn't that, of course. We shan't starve!"
"I didn't mean the money!"
"Sensible people know what it amounts to,--only the mob yaps."
"I didn't mean criticism, either," she said softly.
"Well, that New York crowd hasn't heard the last of me yet!"
His lips shut tight together. The spirit of fight, of revenge, was aroused.
It was useless to talk further. She drew his arm about her.
"You will go out to see Steve to-morrow, won't you?"
"Yes, of course,--any time in the afternoon."
She kissed him and went back to her room.
One precept out of Renault's thin book of life was hard to
acquire,--Patience. But it must be acquired,--the power to abide the time
calmly, until the right moment should come. The morrows contain so many
reversals of the to-days!