“You are playing on my deepest feelings, but you are right. Nevis! When you are crushed, your own land calls you. And, as you say, I haven’t much work in me at present.”
“Then you’ll go?”
“When you get to London, telegraph me how matters stand. If it looks as if the truce would be a long one—yes, I’ll go. I believe I want to go more than anything else in the world—except one! Perhaps I’ll get a grip on myself down there. Perhaps I’ll find that—well, that I love this great cause best, after all.”
“Not a bit of it!” cried Ishbel, in alarm. “Don’t try to persuade yourself of anything so unnatural and foolish. Do you realize how few women have complete happiness offered them? I could shake you.”
Then she reflected that Nevis was a tropical island; and another scheme was forming in her agile brain. “Well, never mind all that. You are worn out now. It is not a matter to discuss, anyhow. Stay out of doors here, and I will prepare your wardrobe. Then you can start as soon as you return to England. I will tell Collins to pack your other things. Eric will secure your accommodations on the first steamer that sails after Mr. Tay’s. Now lie down. Or shall you come down to our last dinner?”
“No, I am not going to see him again. I’ll be glad when he has gone, and that, at least, is over. But I’ll go to Nevis, if all is quiet in England.”
XV
They left on the evening train in order to catch the morning train out of Munich. Julia, who had been sitting inertly in her room, too listless to go to bed, heard the carriage rattle down the street, and sprang to her feet with a wild sense of protest and despair. It required all her self-control to refrain from ringing for a droschke and following before it was too late. Then, angry at this complete surrender to her femininity, she undressed and went to bed.
Here, she discovered to her dismay that California was not farther off than sleep. Perversely, she would not relax, nor go through any of the other forms with which she had always been able to summon sleep when excited. She doubted if they would conquer these new impressions, but refused to give them a trial. She lay awake until nearly dawn, the events of the day marching through her brain with maddening reiteration. She dreaded sleep, also, for now at least her brain was stimulated, and she guessed that it would be correspondingly depressed upon awakening. So it was. The weather, also, had changed. It was raining.
When Julia heard the heavy raindrops splashing on her balcony, she sat up with a gasp of horror, then laughed grimly. But this conspiracy of Nature gave her a certain obstinate fortitude, and she rose at once, took a cold bath, and dressed. But when she opened her door to go down to the dining-room, her courage failed her, and she rang and ordered breakfast to be brought upstairs.