One moment, she saw the restless scene below her, the diamonds, the uniforms, the blaze of electric light, the tapestries on the walls, the handsome faces of men and women; the next, it had been wiped out; the prairies unrolled before her; she beheld a green, boundless land invaded by a mirage of sunny water; scattered through it, the white farms; above it, a vast dome of sky, with summer clouds in glistening ranks climbing the steep of blue; and at the horizon's edge, a line of snow-peaks. Her soul leapt within her. It was as though she felt the freshness of the prairie wind upon her cheek, while the call of that distant land--Anderson's country--its simpler life, its undetermined fates, beat through her heart.
And as she answered to it, there was no sense of renunciation. She was denying no old affection, deserting no ancient loyalty. Old and new; she seemed to be the child of both--gathering them both to her breast.
Yet, practically, what was going to happen to her, she did not know. She did not say to herself, "It is all clear, and I am going to marry George Anderson!" But what she knew at last was that there was no dull hindrance in herself, no cowardice in her own will; she was ready, when life and Anderson should call her.
At the foot of the stairs Mariette's gaunt and spectacled face broke in upon her trance. He had just arrived as she was departing.
"You are off--so early?" he asked her, reproachfully.
"I want to see Philip before he settles for the night."
"Anderson, too, meant to look in upon your brother."
"Yes?" said Elizabeth vaguely, conscious of her own reddening, and of Mariette's glance.
"You have heard his news?" He drew her a little apart into the shelter of a stand of flowers. "We both go next week. You--Lady Merton--have been our good angel--our providence. Has he been saying that to you? All the same--ma collégue--I am disappointed in you!"
Elizabeth's eye wavered under his.