"Take me home, Vick! … Good-night, Tom!"
She hurried nervously from the place. Vickers hailed a cab, and as they rode up town neither spoke at first. Then Vickers put his hand on hers and held it very tightly. She knew that he had seen—her tear-stained eyes and Cairy's intent face,—that he had seen and understood.
"Vick," she moaned, "why is it all such a muddle? Life—what you mean to do, and what you can do! John doesn't care, doesn't understand…. I'm such a fool, Vick!" She leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed. He caressed her hand gently, saying nothing.
He was sure now that he was called somewhere on this earth.
CHAPTER XLIX
When Lane went West early in May for his annual inspection trip, Isabelle moved to the Farm for the season. She was wan and listless. She had talked of going abroad with Vickers, but had suddenly given up the plan. A box of books arrived with her, and she announced to Vickers that she meant to read Italian with him; she must do something to kill the time. But the first evening when she opened a volume of French plays, she dropped it; books could not hold her attention any more. All the little details about her house annoyed her,—nothing went smoothly. The governess must be changed. Her French was horrible. Marian followed her mother about with great eyes, fearful of annoying her, yet fascinated. Isabelle exclaimed in sudden irritation:
"Haven't you anything to do, Molly!" And to Vickers she complained: "Children nowadays seem perfectly helpless. Unless they are provided with amusement every minute, they dawdle about, waiting for you to do something for them. Miss Betterton should make Molly more independent."
And the next day in a fit of compunction she arranged to have a children's party, sending the motor for some ten-mile-away neighbors.
In her mood she found even Vickers unsatisfactory: "Now you have me here, cooped up, you don't say a word to me. You are as bad as John. That portentous silence is a husband's privilege, Vick…. You and I used to jaser all the time. Other men don't find me dull, anyway. They tell me things!"
She pouted like a child. Vickers recalled that when she had said something like this one day at breakfast with John and Cairy present, Lane had lifted his head from his plate and remarked with a quiet man's irony: "The other men are specials,—they go on for an occasion. The husband's is a steady job."