As the child awkwardly held out a hand, Isabelle felt the tears come into her eyes. Here was her old Vickers,—the gentle, idealistic soul she had loved, the only being it seemed to her then that she had ever really loved.
"Delia and I have been tramping the Louvre," Vickers remarked. "That's the way we are learning history."
Isabelle glanced about the forlorn little sitting-room of the third-class hotel.
"Why did you come here?"
"It does well enough, and it's near the Louvre and places…. It is very reasonable."
Then Isabelle remembered what Fosdick had said about Vickers's gift of half his fortune to Mrs. Conry. "You see the idiot hadn't sense enough to run off with a man who had money. Some damn fool, artist! That's why you must pack Vick away as soon as you can get him to go."
With this in her mind she exclaimed impulsively:—
"You are coming back with us, Vick!"
"To live in America?" he queried with bitter humor. "So you came out as a rescue party!"
"You must get back into life," Isabelle urged vaguely.