They parted at the foot of the mountain, and as Isabel approached her own house she saw Anabel Colton's trap tied to the garden gate. She set her teeth and slackened the pace of her horse, but Anabel and Miss Boutts had seen her, and leaned over the edge of the veranda, calling to her impatiently. She gave her horse a cut with the whip and rode rapidly to the stable. When she finally reached the veranda she greeted her friends courteously enough, and then, as she noted their expression of defiant loyalty, remarked, sweetly:
"Of course you have been expecting to hear that I am engaged to Mr. Gwynne, but I only really made up my mind to-day."
"Isabel!" Both fell on her neck, Dolly with tears, and she responded with what enthusiasm was in her, and gently deposited them into two of the veranda chairs. With a very fair simulation of the engaged girl she answered their rapid fire of questions, and even informed Anabel that she would prefer silver to china when the day for presents arrived, and promised that she should come to the rehearsal of the ceremony, since, unfortunately, the young matron's own happy state debarred her from officiating at the altar. But she was averse from lying, even by implication, and was glad to see them go. After they had turned for the last time to blow her a kiss, she went within, slammed all the doors on the lower floor, stamped her feet, and hurled a book across the room. Finally she swore. After that she felt better and sat down to read a letter from Mrs. Hofer that awaited her.
"... I can't do anything with your Lady Victoria" [the lively young matron ran on after a few preliminary enthusiasms]. "She went everywhere at first, but just sat round looking like a battered statue out of the Vatican with some concession in the way of clothes—not so much. Literally she made no effort whatever, and, you know, American men won't stand that. Perhaps that's the reason she suddenly called off and refused to go anywhere. But what can she expect? American women may talk too much, but at any rate they are the sort American men know like a book, and our knights have no use for inanimate beauties a good many years younger than my Lady Victoria.
"Now she appears to do nothing but walk—stalk rather. She goes over these hills as if she had on seven-league boots. One would think she was possessed by the furies; or perhaps she is afraid of getting fat.
"I am simply dying to see you again. If you don't mind—I like you better than any one I ever met. You combine everything, and although you make me feel as fresh as paint and as Irish as Paddy Murphy's pig, still you always put me in a better humor with myself than ever. How do you do it? You suggest all sorts of things that I can't define at all. Comes of living alone and making a success of it, I suppose, getting ahead of mere femininity and all the pettinesses of life. That's flying rather high for me, so I'd better come down. Please make Mr. Gwynne come to my party. I intend that party to be the greatest thing ever given in California—since the old Monte Cristo Ralston days, anyhow: and have all sorts of surprises that I won't tell even you. The ballroom is quite finished and is a perfect success. It is too fine to think that you will make your formal d閎ut in it. Everybody is coming. Mr. Gwynne simply must. I know of about a dozen girls who would have given him the cotillon if he had asked them, and even now, when they are all engaged, I know of at least two who would not hesitate to throw their men over. We all like him tremendously, the men as well as the women. Mr. Hofer and I—do you know, we have just a dark suspicion—where is Elton Gwynne, anyway? That would be too good to be true. He could own the town. We know an individual when we see one, and wouldn't we appreciate the compliment! We'd like him all the better for having accepted him when he was plain John Gwynne, and we'd like ourselves better still. You know how we make up our own minds out here. Look at the famous actors and singers we've rejected, and the reputations we've made. Not like New York, that never expresses an opinion until a sort of consensus has sweated up to the surface. I hate New York. Can't you come down and pay me a visit of a week? I should love it. Call me up on the telephone."
Isabel pondered over this missive for a few moments and then reread parts of a long letter she had received the day before from Flora Thangue.
"... I almost wish Jack would return, although at first I approved of his going. His case seemed so desperate. But since the elections there has been so much talk of him, so many prophecies as to what he will do when he returns—they believe him to be travelling in South America—so much seems to be expected of him, especially now that the Liberals are in, and there is so much dissatisfaction with the Cabinet—I really believe he would be the one to keep the party in power and that his becoming prime-minister would be a question of only a few years. Not such a bad outlook! But I don't care to say all this to Jack—or even to Vicky. You are responsible for the present state of affairs, and I am sure you realize what a tremendous responsibility it is. Besides, you know every side of the question over there as I do not. Think it over, dear Isabel.... Julia Kaye, I happen to know, has been trying to get his address. So far, she has not landed another big fish, and no doubt thinks that Jack's disgust and enthusiasm have both worn themselves out by this time. Don't send him back, but bring him. Of course he has fallen in love with you. Besides, you could accomplish any mortal thing you put your will to. Do, please, think it all over. A few years' delay, and he might return and find it too late. The public memory is short. There are rivals. The one he had most to fear from has an Under-secretaryship, and lets no one forget him. There will be deep resentment at too long an absence, especially if he should become an American citizen meanwhile. They would never forgive that.
"... About Vicky. I wish I could have gone with her, but she did not feel that she could afford to take me, and Vicky's spasms of economy are not to be discouraged. But, thank heaven, she has you and Jack. Perhaps all she really needed was a change: she was always an individual, but she got to be distinctly peculiar after you left—nerves, I suppose: only instead of being merely irritable like other women she sealed herself up like a Mahatma preparing for astral flight. I only wish she was one. Women of her class no longer take to religion, when the fires are dead, but they certainly need a substitute, and I should think theosophy would be as good as any. It is such a delightful mixture of vagueness and cock-sureness, and even more picturesque than Romanism. It is time for me to follow the fashion and write a book, and I think I'll paint the mysterious delights of India as a late autumn resort. I am so sick of all these public mausoleums for youth! It would be a positive relief to think of all our erstwhile beauties stretched out in some frescoed cave with their ears and eyes and noses sealed up with wax, while their ever-youthful spirits sallied forth for new conquests on the astral plane. But Vicky never 'made up': one must say that much for her. Only this terrible fetish of youth! Heavens! the tragedies my sympathetic soul has endeavored to see as tragedies only. Not that growing old seems to be the worst of it. The underlying tragedy is that they can't care enough, and this they take to be the real end of youth, and patter up and down the old worn-out track of device, trying to fool themselves as well as others. But Vicky, as I said, is an individual: a touch or two more and she might have been a genius. She is like the mass of women in many things, heaven knows, but her divergences are the more startling; and the point of divergence lies down in the roots of her pride. She suddenly felt the complete loss, the final departure of youth, and she accepted it like a fallen goddess, and refused even the sudden and startling renewal of Sir Cadge Vanneck's devotions. She had nothing left to give him, and although her pride may have urged her to show the world that she still could capture a man like that, I think he really bored her to death, and she was satisfied to parade him for a time and then publicly throw him over. And she once loved him, I am certain of it. That is tragedy, if you like. I fancy she has desperate moments, but she will pull through in her own way. Don't delude yourself with the notion that she is sitting down in sackcloth and ashes with her past! Those women don't repent, for they never admit that the laws of common mortals apply to them. What is their royal pleasure to do they do, and when it is over a square inch of their memory might have gone with it. To mull themselves, commit some flagrant error that lands them in the divorce court, or high and dry in the outskirts—that is another matter. They repent then, sans doute; and get no mercy. We overlook everything at this apex of civilization but stupidity. We respect the high-handed but not the light-headed. That is one reason those long-winded novels of sin and repentance—generally over one slip and when the man has wearied—leave us cold. We know too much. It seems such a lot of fuss about so little. If some of these good, painstaking, and—let us whisper it—bourgeoise novelists had seen one-tenth of the pagan disregard for all they cherish most highly, that I have seen, and if they could only be made to comprehend—which they never could—how absolutely admirable these same women are in many other respects—such capacity for deep undying friendship, such uncalculating loyalty, such racial possibilities of heroism—well, they would do a good deal harder thinking than they have had to do yet, if they attempted to readjust their traditions to the actual facts of life. But the old traditions get back at our women all the same, although they don't suspect it. They pay the penalty in that late—sometimes not so late—intolerable maddening ennui. Heavens! how many women I have heard wish they were dead. Thank God I am a virgin!
"Of course, dear Isabel, I would not write like this about Vicky to any one on earth but yourself. But she is on your hands, so to speak, and I feel you should have some sort of comprehension of her. To understand her fully is impossible. She is unhappy, that is the main thing—what with all I have intimated, and the great change in her fortunes—I can hardly imagine Vicky without Capheaton and the reflected glory of 'Elton Gwynne'; and, no doubt, she finds California an exile and has realized by this time that she can be of little use to Jack. Better make a fortune for her in your wonderful American way and bring them both home."