Vickers waved his hand to her and called back, "I think you'll get on very well without me!"
Isabelle was already answering Cairy's shout from the terrace. As Vickers took his way through the meadow, he thought how sweet she was, the real Isabelle, when one got to her as he had this morning. But she had never once mentioned John; her husband seemed to be very little in her mind.
CHAPTER XLV
Vickers strode off through the meadow that morning in the hope of finding familiar things, and indulging in old memories. The country roads had been widened and improved, and many of the farm-houses had given way to more or less pretentious "places." Motors whirled past him. The hill that he remembered as a veritable mountain was a mere rise in the straightened road over which a fast car plunged at full speed, covering him with dust and leaving behind a sickening odor. He struck off into a wood-lot; here and in the pastures and meadows he found himself again. It was nearly noon before he came up the lane that led to the Ed Price farm.
This was off the beat of the motors, away from the new "estates," at the end of a grassy road bordered by gray birches. The ample old house he remembered very well with its square central chimney and stretch of outbuildings that joined the yellow barn. At his knock a broad-shouldered, smiling woman came to the door, and after a moment's hesitation exclaimed:—
"Why, Vick,—can it be you?"
"Yes, Cousin Alice."
She led him to the orchard in the rear, where with the aid of two little boys she was preparing vegetables for dinner. Tying on a large apron, she said:—
"You see we all have to take a hand. Won't you have a bib and dip in, too?
… Children, this is your uncle—cousin. Which is it, Vickers?"
It was pleasant in the long grass under the apple tree, looking across the orchard of gnarled and stubby trees to the lane. Mrs. Johnston worked and talked, while the little boys with furtive glances pecked at the peas like two birds.