Isabel sat beneath the trees, while Reginald turned successful
somersaults on the lawn. The boy was well and strong, adorable in blue
overalls.
Mrs. Doan's second season in the most beautiful town in southern
California had begun. She had forestalled the demand of tourists, and
was already established in a furnished house, with a garden. She was
very happy and believed that she had found the idyllic spot of a
life-long dream. To-day a glorious perspective of purple mountains
spread out before her, when she lifted her eyes from the bit of
needlework which she was trying to finish for a friend's firstborn.
Having spent the previous season in a large hotel she rejoiced in
seclusion. Now she might face the future without indefinite dread,
something she could not quite get rid of when thinking of the man whom
she had undoubtedly influenced. For Philip Barry was no longer in
orders. Almost a year lay between his life as a priest and the strained,
difficult existence of one adrift, beginning over, feeling his way with
a prejudiced public. But he had gone abroad, as Isabel advised; and at
first excommunication appeared to be no harder to bear than his earlier
Catholic punishment.
During months in Paris he had wrought himself into lofty independence,
occupying his time with feverish writing. The result was an unpublished
book on "The Spirit of the Cathedral." Disdaining many lurid accounts
of his apostacy, he had worked with his whole intellect, thinking
constantly of Isabel. Yet withal he kept his promise. Through six months
he had sent her no word of his welfare. Isabel's pure name lent no color
to a startling sensation, exciting the entire Middle West and Catholics
throughout the world. With Mrs. Grace, alone, suspicion rested. For
others, Mrs. Doan had no part in the priest's unusual course.
Fortunately, but one stormy scene had ensued between the aunt and the
niece, then both women agreed to ignore a painful subject. It was not
until the second season in California, when European letters began to
come with unguarded frequency, that Mrs. Grace again grew chilly.
Glancing askance at foreign postmarks, she declined to ask the most
trivial question concerning the man wholly excluded from the thoughts of
a good Catholic. The lady's bitterness brewed fresh measure. Isabel was
deeply hurt. Still, as during the previous winter, days passed without
rupture. To all appearances things were as usual. It was not until Mrs.
Grace rebelled over quiet that Isabel fully realized her aunt's
unfitness. She now barely endured her chaperone, while more than ever
she regretted the woman's unexecuted threat to return to apartments in a
favorite hotel. However, Mrs. Grace stayed on, unsettling an otherwise
contented household.
Isabel was obliged to keep open house without regard to chosen guests. A
dream of freedom seemed ruthlessly dispelled. Yet to-day she was happy,
at last free to indulge her thoughts. Early in the morning the restless
relative had departed, and should good fortune continue, the touring car
would not return before late afternoon. Isabel glanced down the gentle
slope of her garden, shut in from streets beyond by hedge rows that in
springtime were snowbanks of cherokee roses. Early rain had cleansed the
mountains. The range was already prismatic, sharpened into fresh beauty
below a sky as blue as June. No suggestion of winter touched the
landscape. As usual the paradox for November was summer overhead and
autumn on the foothills. "Old Baldy" still rose without his ermine. On
the mesa brown and yellow vineyards lay despoiled of crops lately
pressed into vintage or dried into raisins. What is known as "the
season" had not begun. To Isabel the absence of the ubiquitous tourist,
together with simple demands upon time, expressed a "psalm of life,"
which she might well have sung.
As she sat under a tree sewing, her mind went naturally to a land far
distant--a land which held Philip Barry. For a letter had come that very
morning. The excommunicated priest was in Paris awaiting her answer. A
year of probation was almost over, yet he begged as a boy for shortened
time. While Isabel worked she examined herself with judicial care. The
unerring precision of each tiny, regular stitch seemed like testimony in
her lover's case. She sewed exquisitely at infrequent intervals, and
generally to compose her mind. Philip Barry's wish to come to her at
once had upset both her plans and her judgment. Should she let him
cross--two full months before the time agreed upon? All that her answer
might involve pricked into soft cambric. She drew a thread, again and
again struck back sharply into dainty space for a hemstitched tuck. It
was hard--so hard--to refuse. Yet if he came, came within the month,
then everything must be changed, not only for herself but for Reginald.
Isabel evaded the natural conclusion of the whole matter. As she sat
below the towering mountains--very close they seemed to-day--she had a
sense of being in retreat from everyone. She would take ample time to
prove herself, to feel sure that her wish for Philip Barry's love was
not selfishness. Nothing must make her forget the boy and the possible
consequence of his mother's marriage to an apostate Catholic priest. She
sighed, looking up at the purple peaks. The very serenity of her
environment developed the longing for happiness. She was too young to
accept blighting sacrifice. And yet, because of those two months on
which she had counted, she was undecided. But withal she smiled. "He
might have stayed away the year!" she murmured. Her son's glad shouts
echoed on the lawn. Impatience is unreasonable. Why has he asked me to
cable my answer? He should have waited for my letter, she told herself,
in flat denial to what she really wished.
She sat idle. Stirring pepper boughs roused her from revery. She looked
above at swaying branches, only to remember how admirably Reginald's
father had waited for everything. Half stoical force, which described
the man's power during a period of successful railroading, had always
restrained him. When he died, his unsoiled record and splendid business
success had both been achieved through the mastery of waiting. She
smiled. The curve of her lips charmed. She was yet undecided. Yes, the
man she married had not been impatient. He had waited three months for
the one word she would not say. At last, when she became his wife, he
still waited for something she could never give him. He did not
complain. Again pepper branches trembled, and a shower of tiny berries
began to fall. Commotion ensued among leaves, until a dark, slender
mocker shot out, onto the back of Reginald's fox terrier. Suspicion,
rage, shrieked in the bird's shrill war cry. The beleaguered dog
retreated beneath Isabel's chair. The enemy flew off, but came back,
finally to settle just below the cherished nest which his excitement had
duly located. Egotism and pride made plain his secret.
Isabel laughed, as she patted the dog crouching at her feet. "Poor
fellow!" she said. "You surely had no thought to harm domestic
prospects." Then through the garden her boy rushed headlong, a toy spade
swung recklessly, as Maggie the nurse pursued. Jewels of moisture
glistened on the child's warm forehead. His cheeks glowed, the violet of
his eyes shone flowerlike. He flung himself into waiting, outstretched
arms. "O mudder dear!" he cried. "I just love you so, it most makes me
cry." The joy of his baby passion, the depths reserved for years to
come, seemed the expression of another, a stronger will; and Isabel knew
that she had made ready her answer to Philip Barry.