She was still joyous over her escape. Things might happen in the Glen and she would never know. She, whose interest in the smallest event there had ever been of the warm and proprietary kind, had by one drastic step cut herself off from her old life. And for the moment she had room for little else in her mind but a sense of lively relief that she had gotten clean away.
As she dressed leisurely she reviewed the events of yesterday, among which the meeting and conversation with Joe Bisley's widow stood out in odd relief.
Isla was not without a latent sense of humour. In happier circumstances she could have extracted a great deal of amusement from the passing show of life, and she was able to smile at the situation of yesterday. It had been Gilbertian to the last degree, and might have been culled from the pages of the latest comic opera.
What surprised her most was that she had no feeling of indignation or resentment against this woman who had stepped from the unknown into the Mackinnon scheme of things. Nay, she felt kindly towards her--she felt that somewhere, deep down in that undisciplined nature, there was gold. It was not the woman's fault that she had been born in another sphere, that she was so far from comprehending Isla's own points of view.
She had other qualities which are common to the whole of humanity--good feeling, honesty, kind-heartedness, and sympathy. Isla was womanly enough and just enough to concede the possession of all these to Winifred Bisley. Her own innate goodness convinced her that this woman was not, and could not be, wholly bad. And no doubt--and here her thoughts again became tinged with bitterness--in this case also Malcolm had been to blame.
She preferred to leave the unfinished story, however, to try to banish from her mind the problem of the loose threads which wanted weaving together. As for the day of unravelling, that was hid in the womb of time, but from past experience Isla had no doubt that that day would surely come.
In her mind's eye this morning Glenogle was shadowy, and even her passionate championship of Vivien Rosmead seemed to suffer some chill. She was concerned altogether with herself. And perhaps just then that was no bad thing for Isla Mackinnon, seeing that she had arrogated to herself so long the rôle of general burden-bearer to the community.
She felt fit and strong and hopeful as she belted her trim waist and fastened the Mackinnon badge into her black tie and set her hat firmly on her pretty hair. The memory of the nodding plumes and the moonstone hat-pins evoked a smile as she turned away from the mirror.
With that smile still lingering on her lips she went forth to conquer London!
She was the very last arrival in the breakfast-room, and she apologized for her lateness.