Madeleine was spared the ordeal of confession; it was six weeks before
she saw her husband again. He telegraphed at six o'clock that he had a
small-pox patient and could not subject her to the risk of contagion.
The disease most dreaded in San Francisco had arrived some time before
and the pest house outside the city limits was already crowded. The
next day yellow flags appeared before several houses. Before a week
passed they had multiplied all over the city. People went about with
visible camphor bags suspended from their necks, and Madeleine heard
the galloping death wagon at all hours of the night. Howard telegraphed
frequently and sent a doctor to revaccinate her, as the virus he had
administered himself had not taken. She was not to worry about him as
he vaccinated himself every day. Finally he commanded her to leave
town, and she made a round of visits.
She spent a fortnight at Rincona, Mrs. Abbott's place at Alta, in the
San Mateo valley, and another with the Hathaways near by. Then, after a
fortnight at the different "Springs" she settled down for the rest of
the summer on the Ballinger ranch in the Santa Clara valley. All her
hostesses had house parties, there were picnics by day and dancing or
hay-rides at night. For the first time she saw the beautiful California
country; the redwood forests on the mountains, the bare brown and
golden hills, the great valleys with their forests of oaks and madronas
cleared here and there for orchard and vineyard; knowing that Howard
was safe she gave herself to pleasure once more. After all there was a
certain satisfaction in the assurance that her husband could not be
with her if he would. She was not deliberately neglected and it was
positive that he never entered the Club. She told no one but Sally
Ballinger of her adventure, and although Travers was a favorite of her
mother, this devoted friend adroitly managed that the gentleman to whom
she applied many excoriating adjectives should not be invited that
summer to "the ranch."