Isabelle had agreed to stay out the week with Vickers, and in spite of her restlessness, her desire to be doing something new, the old self in her--the frank, girlish, affectionate self--revived, as it always did when she was alone with her brother. He said:--
"I am coming to agree with Potts, Isabelle; you need to elope."
As she looked up, startled, he added, "With me! I"ll take you to South America and bring you back a new woman."
"South America,--no thanks, brother."
"Then stay here."...
That evening Isabelle was called to the telephone, and when she came back her face was solemn.
"Percy Woodyard died last night,--pneumonia after grippe. Too bad! I haven"t seen him this winter; he has been very delicate.... I must go in for the funeral."
"I thought you and Cornelia were intimate," Vickers remarked; "but I haven"t heard you mention her name since I"ve been home."
"We were, at first; but I haven"t seen much of her the last two years....
Too bad--poor Percy! Conny has killed him."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, she"s worked him to death,--made him do this and that. Tom says--"
Isabelle hesitated.
"What does Tom say?"
"Oh, there was a lot of talk about something he did,--went off to Europe two years ago, and let some politicians make money--I don"t know just what.
But he"s not been the same since,--he had to drop out of politics."
This and something more Isabelle had learned from Cairy, who had heard the gossip among men. Woodyard was too unimportant a man to occupy the public eye, even when it was a question of a "gigantic steal," for more than a few brief hours. By the time the Woodyards had returned from that journey to Europe, so hastily undertaken, the public had forgotten about the Northern Mill Company"s franchise. But the men who follow things and remember, knew; and Percy Woodyard, when he sailed up the bay on his return in October, realized that politically he was buried,--that is, in the manner of politics he cared about. And he could never explain, not to his most intimate friend, how he had happened to desert his post, to betray the trust of men who trusted him. It was small satisfaction to believe that it would all have happened just as it had, even if he had been there to block the path of the determined majority.
When, towards the end of their stay abroad, a letter had come from the Senator in regard to "that post in the diplomatic service," Percy had flatly refused to consider it.
"But why, Percy?" his wife had asked gently,--she was very sweet with him since their departure from New York. "We can afford it,--you know my property is paying very well."
In the look that Percy gave her, Conny saw that her husband had plumbed her farther than she had ever dreamed him capable of doing, and she trembled.
"I am going back to New York to practise my profession," Percy said shortly. "And we shall live henceforth on _my_ earnings, solely."
So he had gone back to his office and taken up his practice. He was a delicate man, and the past year had strained him. His practice was not large or especially profitable. The franchise scandal stood in his way, and though he succeeded in securing some of the corporation practice that he had once scorned, his earnings were never sufficient to support the establishment Conny had created. In fact that able mistress of domestic finance increased the establishment by buying a place at Lancaster for their country home. She was weaving a new web for her life and Percy"s, the political one having failed, and no doubt she would have succeeded this time in making the strands hold, had it not been for Percy"s delicate health. He faded out, the inner fire having been quenched....
At the funeral Isabelle was surprised to see Cairy. Without knowing anything exactly about it, she had inferred that in some way Conny had treated Tom "badly," and she had not seen him the last times she had been at the Woodyards". But that had not been lately. Somehow they had drifted apart these last two years,--their paths had diverged in the great social whirlpool ever more and more, though they still retained certain common friends, like the Silvers, who exchanged the current small gossip of each other"s doings. Isabelle was thinking of this and many other things about Percy and Conny as she waited in the still drawing-room for the funeral service to begin. She had admired Conny extravagantly at first, and now though she tried to think of her in her widowhood sympathetically, she found it impossible to pity her; while of poor Percy, who it seemed "had been too much under his wife"s thumb," she thought affectionately.... The hall and the two rooms on this floor where the people had gathered were exquisitely prepared. Isabelle could see Conny"s masterly hand in it all....
When the service was over, Isabelle waited to speak with Conny, who had asked her to stay. She saw Cairy go out behind the Senator, who looked properly grave and concerned, his black frock-coat setting off the thick white hair on the back of his head.
The two men walked down the street together, and the Senator, who had met Cairy at the Woodyards" a number of times and remembered him as an inmate of the house, fell to talking about the dead man.
"Poor chap!" he said meditatively; "he had fine talents."
"Yes," a.s.sented Cairy. "It was a shame!" His tone left it doubtful just what was a shame, but the Senator, a.s.suming that it was Percy"s untimely death, continued:--
"And yet Woodyard seemed to lack something to give practical effectiveness to his abilities. He did not have the power to "seize that tide which leads men on to victory,"--to size up the situation comprehensively, you know."
(The Senator was fond of quoting inaccurately and then paraphrasing from his own acc.u.mulated wisdom.)
"I doubt very much," he went on expansively, "if he would have counted for as much as he did--as he promised at one time to count at any rate--if it had not been for his wife. Mrs. Woodyard is a very remarkable woman!"
"Yes, she is a strong personality,--she was the stronger of the two undoubtedly."
"She has one of the ablest business heads that I know of," the Senator said emphatically, nodding his own head. "She should have been a man."
"One would miss a good deal--if she were a man," suggested Cairy.
"Her beauty,--yes, very striking. But she has the brain of a man."
"She is the sort that must make destiny," agreed Cairy, feeling a literary satisfaction in the phrase and also pride that he could so generously play chorus to the Senator"s praise. "I fancy she will marry again!"
He wondered at the moment whether the Senator might not venture now to break his long widowerhood. The great man, stopping on the step of his club, remarked in a curious voice:--
"I suppose so,--she is young and beautiful, and would naturally not consider her life ended. And yet--she is not exactly the sort of woman a man marries--unless he is very young!"
With a nod and a little smile the Senator went briskly up the steps of his club.
CHAPTER XLVIII
The time, almost the very minute, when Isabelle realized the peculiar feeling she had come to have for Cairy, was strangely clear to her. It was shortly after Percy Woodyard"s funeral. She had been to Lakewood with her mother, and having left her comfortably settled in her favorite hotel, had taken the train for New York. Tom was to go to the theatre with her that evening, and had suggested that they dine at a little down-town restaurant he used to frequent when he was Gossom"s slave. He was to meet her at the ferry.
She had been thinking of Percy Woodyard, of Fosd.i.c.k"s epithet for Conny,--the Vampire. And there flashed across her the thought, "She will try to get Tom back!" (Cairy had told her that he had gone to the funeral because Conny had written him a little note.) "And she is so bad for him, so bad for any man!" Then looking out on the brown March landscape, she felt a pleasant glow of expectation, of something desirable in immediate prospect, which she did not at once attribute to anything more definite than the fact she was partly rested, after her two days at Lakewood. But when in the stream of outgoing pa.s.sengers that filled the echoing terminal she caught sight of Tom"s face, looking expectantly over the heads of the crowd, a vivid ray of joy darted through her.
"He"s here!" she thought. "He has come across the ferry to meet me!"
She smiled and waved the bunch of violets she was wearing--those he had sent down to Lakewood for her--above the intervening heads.
"I thought I would s.n.a.t.c.h a few more minutes," he explained, as they walked slowly through the long hall to the ferry.
The bleak March day had suddenly turned into something warm and gay for her; the dreary terminal was a spot to linger in.
"That was very nice of you," she replied gently, "and so are these!"
She held up his flowers, and in the look they exchanged they went far in that progress of emotional friendship, the steps of which Cairy knew so well.... The city was already lighted, tier on tier of twinkling dots in the great hives across the river, and as they sat out on the upper deck of the ferry for the sake of fresh air, Isabelle thought she had never seen the city so marvellous. There was an enchantment in the moving lights on the river, the millions of fixed lights in the long city. The scent of sea water reached them, strong and vital, with its ever witching a.s.sociations of far-off lands. Isabelle turned and met Cairy"s eyes looking intently at her.
"You seem so joyous to-night!" he said almost reproachfully.
She smiled at him softly.