"Oh?" she queried mischievously. He considered the working of her mind as merely whimsical, but she had a sense of logical triumph over the man. Apparently he would make allowances of "circumstances" in business, his life, that he would not admit in private affairs. As he kissed her and was turning out the light, before joining the Colonel for another cigar, she asked:—
"Supposing that you refused to be involved in circumstances that were—complex? What would happen?"
"What a girl!" he laughed cheerfully. "For one thing I think we should not be going to the Springs to-morrow in a private car, or buying the Jackson house—or any other. Now put it all out of your head and have a good rest."
He kissed her again, and she murmured wearily:—
"I'm so useless,—they should kill things like me! How can you love me?"
She was confident that he did love her, that like so many husbands he had accepted her invalidism cheerfully, with an unconscious chivalry for the wife who instead of flowering forth in marriage had for the time being withered. His confidence, in her sinking moods like this, that it would all come right, buoyed her up. And John was a wise man as well as a good husband; the Colonel trusted him, admired him. Alice Johnston's doubts slipped easily from her mind. Nevertheless, there were now two subjects of serious interest that husband and wife would always avoid,—Vickers, and business honesty!
She lay there feeling weak and forlorn before the journey, preoccupied with herself. These days she was beset with a tantalizing sense that life was slipping past her just beyond her reach, flowing like a mighty river to issues that she was not permitted to share. And while she was forced to lie useless on the bank, her youth, her own life, was somehow running out, too. Just what it was that she was missing she could not say,—something alluring, something more than her husband's activity, than her child, something that made her stretch out longing hands in the dark…. She would not submit to invalidism.
CHAPTER XIX
The Virginia mountains made a narrow horizon of brilliant blue. On their lower slopes the misty outlines of early spring had begun with the budding trees. Here and there the feathery forest was spotted by dashes of pink coolness where the wild peach and plum had blossomed, and the faint blue of the rhododendron bushes mounted to the sky-line. The morning was brilliant after a rain and the fresh mountain air blew invigoratingly, as Isabelle left the car on her husband's arm. With the quick change of mood of the nervous invalid she already felt stronger, more hopeful. There was color in her thin face, and her eyes had again the vivacious sparkle that had been so largely her charm.
"We must find some good horses," she said to her father as they approached the hotel cottage which had been engaged; "I want to get up in those hills. Margaret promised to come for a week…. Oh, I am going to be all right now!"