On one vital point the doctors were hopelessly divided. Some thought Isabelle should have another child, "as soon as may be,"--it was a chance that Nature might take to right matters. The others strongly dissented: a child in the patient"s present debilitated condition would be criminal. As these doctors seemed to have the best of the argument, it was decided that for the present the wife should remain sterile, and the physicians undertook to watch over the life process, to guard against its a.s.serting its rights.
The last illusions of romance seemed to go at this period. The simple old tale that a man and a woman loving each other marry and have the children that live within them and come from their mutual love has been rewritten for the higher cla.s.ses of American women, with the aid of science. Health, economic pressure, the hectic struggle to survive in an ambitious world have altered the simple axioms of nature. Isabelle accepted easily the judgment of the doctors,--she had known so many women in a like case. Yet when she referred to this matter in talking to Alice Johnston, she caught an odd look on her cousin"s face.
"I wonder if they know, the doctors--they seem always to be finding excuses for women not to have children.... We"ve been all through that, Steve and I; and decided we wouldn"t have anything to do with it, no matter what happened. It--tarnishes you somehow, and after all does it help? There"s Lulu Baxter, living in daily fear of having a child because they think they are too poor. He gets twenty-five hundred from the road--he"s under Steve, you know--and they live in a nice apartment with two servants and entertain. They are afraid of falling in the social scale, if they should live differently. But she"s as nervous as a witch, never wholly well, and they"ll just go on, as he rises and gets more money, adding to their expenses. They will never have money enough for children, or only for one, maybe,--no, I don"t believe it pays!"
"But she"s so pretty, and they live nicely," Isabelle protested, and added, "There are other things to live for besides having a lot of children--"
"What?" the older woman asked gravely.
"Your husband"; and thinking of John"s present homeless condition, she continued hastily, "and life itself,--to be some one,--you owe something to yourself."
"Yes," Alice a.s.sented, smiling,--"if we only knew what it was!"
"Besides if we were all like you, Alice dear, we should be paupers. Even we can"t afford--"
"We should be paupers together, then! No, you can"t convince me--it"s against Nature."
"All modern life is against Nature," the young woman retorted glibly; "just at present I regard Nature as a mighty poor thing."
She stretched her thin arms behind her head and turned on the lounge.
"That"s why the people who made this country are dying out so rapidly, giving way before Swedes and Slavs and others,--because those people are willing to have children."
"Meantime we have the success!" Isabelle cried languidly. "_Apres nous_ the Slavs,--we are the flower! An aristocracy is always nourished on sterility!"
"Dr. Fuller!" Alice commented.... "So the Colonel is going with you to the Springs?"
"Yes, poor old Colonel!--he must get away--he"s awfully broken up," and she added sombrely. "That"s one trouble with having children,--you expect them to think and act like you. You can"t be willing to let them be themselves."
"But, Isabelle!"
"Oh, I know what you are going to say about Vick. I have heard it over and over. John has said it. Mother has said it. Father looks it. You needn"t bother to say it, Alice!" She glanced at her cousin mutinously. "John thought I was partly to blame; that I ought to have been able to control Vick. He speaks as if the poor boy were insane or drunk or something--because he did what he did!"
"And you?"
Isabelle sat upright, leaning her head thoughtfully on her hands, and staring with bright eyes at Alice.
"Do you want to know what I really believe? ... I have done a lot of thinking these months, all by myself. Well, I admire Vick tremendously; he had the courage--"
"Does that take courage?"
"Yes! For a man like Vickers.... Oh, I suppose she is horrid and not worth it--I only hope he will never find it out! But to love any one enough to be willing, to be glad to give up your life for him, for her--why, it is tremendous, Alice! ... Here is Tots," she broke off as the nurse wheeled the baby through the hall,--"Miss Marian Lane.... Nurse, cover up her face with the veil so her ladyship won"t get frostbitten," and Isabelle sank back again with a sigh on the lounge and resumed the thread of her thought.
"And I am not so sure that what John objects to isn"t largely the mess,--the papers, the scandal, the fact they went off without waiting for a divorce and all that. Of course that wasn"t pleasant for respectable folk like the Lanes and the Prices. But why should Vickers have given up what seemed to him right, what was his life and hers, just for our prejudices about not having our names in the papers?"
"That wasn"t all!"
"Well, I shall always believe in Vick, no matter what comes of it....
Marriage--the regular thing--doesn"t seem to be such a great success with many people, I know. Perhaps life would be better if more people had Vick"s courage!"
Isabelle forced her point with an invalid"s desire to relieve a wayward feeling and also a childish wish to shock this good cousin, who saw life simply and was so sure of herself. Alice Johnston rose with a smile.
"I hope you will be a great deal stronger when you come back, dear."
"I shall be--or I shall have an operation. I don"t intend to remain in the n.o.ble army of N.P."s."
"How is John?"
"Flourishing and busy--oh, tremendously busy! He might just as well live in New York or Washington for all I see of him."
"Steve says he is very clever and successful,--you must be so proud!"
Isabelle smiled. "Of course! But sometimes I think I should like a subst.i.tute husband, one for everyday use, you know!"
"There are plenty of that kind!" laughed Alice. "But I don"t believe they would satisfy you wholly."
"Perhaps not.... How is Steve? Does he like his new work?"
"Yes," Alice replied without enthusiasm. "He"s working very hard, too."
"Oh, men love it,--it makes them feel important."
"Did you ever think, Belle, that men have difficulties to meet,--problems that we never dream of?"
"Worse than the child-bearing question?" queried Isabelle, kicking out the folds of her tea-gown with a slippered foot.
"Well, different; harder, perhaps.... Steve doesn"t talk them over as he used to with me."
"Too tired. John never talks to me about business. We discuss what the last doctor thinks, and how the baby is, and whether we"ll take the Jackson house or build or live at the Monopole and go abroad, and Nan Lawton"s latest,--really vital things, you see! Business is such a bore."
The older woman seemed to have something on her mind and sat down again at the end of the lounge.
"By the way," Isabelle continued idly, "did you know that the Falkners were coming to St. Louis to live? John found Rob a place in the terminal work.
It isn"t permanent, but Bessie was crazy to come, and it may be an opening.
She is a nice thing,--mad about people."
"But, Isabelle," her cousin persisted, "don"t you want to know the things that make your husband"s life,--that go down to the roots?"
"If you mean business, no, I don"t. Besides they are confidential matters, I suppose. He couldn"t make me understand...."
"They have to face the fight, the men; make the decisions that count--for character."
"Of course,--John attends to that side and I to mine. We should be treading on each other"s toes if I tried to decide his matters for him!"
"But when they are questions of right and wrong--"
"Don"t worry. Steve and John are all right. Besides they are only officers.
You don"t believe all that stuff in the magazines about Senator Thomas and the railroads? John says that is a form of modern blackmail."