Broils of the world! The endless struggle between those who had and those who envied them what they had. There was another side, she supposed, and in the past Cairy had been at some pains to explain that other side to her. Her husband must of course be prejudiced, like her father; they saw it all too close. However, it was a man's affair to settle, unless a woman wished to play Conny's role and move her husband about the board. Broils! How infinitely far away it seemed, all the noise of the world! … She began to dress hurriedly to report at the hospital for the afternoon. As she glanced again at her husband's letter, she saw a postscript, with some scraps of St. Louis gossip:—
"I hear that Bessie is to get a divorce from Falkner. I wonder if it can be true…. I saw Steve in the street last week. From what I learn the lumber business isn't flourishing…. Pity he didn't swallow his scruples and stay with us where he would be safe!"
Poor Alice—if Steve should fail now, with all those children! And then she remembered what Alice Johnston had said to Vickers, "You see we have been poor so much of the time that we know what it is like." It would take a good deal to discourage Alice and Steve. But John must keep an eye on them, and try to help Steve. John, it occurred to her then for the first time, was that kind,—the substantial sort of man that never needed help himself, on which others might lean.
* * * * *
So Isabelle stayed in the mountain village through the winter months. Molly came with her governess, and both endeavored to suppress politely their wonder that any one could imprison herself in this dreary, cold place. The regular nurses came back to the hospital, but Isabelle, once having been drawn in, was not released.
"He's a hard master," Margaret said of the doctor. "If he once gets his hand on you, he never lets go—until he is ready to."
Apparently Renault was not ready to let go of Isabelle. Without explaining himself to her, he kept her supplied with work, and though she saw him often every day, they rarely talked, never seriously. He seemed to avoid after that first night any opportunity for personal revelation. The doctor was fond of jokes and had the manner of conducting his affairs as if they were a game in which he took a detached and whimsical interest. If there was sentiment in his nature, an emotional feeling towards the work he was doing, it was well concealed, first with drollery, and then with scientific application. So far as any one could observe the daily routine, there was nothing, at least in the surgical side of the hospital, that was not coldly scientific. As Renault had said, "We do what we can with every instrument known to man, every device, drug, or pathological theory." And his mind seemed mostly engrossed with this "artisan" side of his profession, in applying his skill and learning and directing the skill and learning of others. It was only in the convalescent ward that the other side showed itself,—that belief in the something spiritual, beyond the physical, to be called upon. One of the doctors, a young Norwegian named Norden, was his assistant in this work. And every one in the place felt that Norden was closest of all to the doctor. Norden in his experiments with nervous diseases used hypnotism, suggestion, psychotherapy,—all the modern forms of supernaturalism. His attitude was ever, as he said to Isabelle, "It might be—who knows?"—"There is truth, some little truth in all the ages, in all the theories and beliefs." Isabelle had a strong liking for this uncouth Northman with his bony figure and sunken eyes that seemed always burning with an unattained desire, an inexpressible belief. Norden said to her, the only way is "to recognize both soul and body in dealing with the organism. Medicine is a Religion, a Faith, a great Solution. It ought to be supported by the state, free to all…. The old medicine is either machine work or quackery, like the blood-letting of barbers." …
It was an exhilarating place to live in, Renault's hospital,—an atmosphere of intense activity, mental and physical, with a spirit of some large, unexpressed truth, a passionate faith, that raised the immediate finite and petty task to a step in the glorious ranks of eternity. The personality of Renault alone kept this atmosphere from becoming hectic and sentimental. He held this ship that he steered so steadily in the path of fact that there was no opportunity for emotional explosions. But he himself was the undefined incarnate Faith that made the voyage of the last importance to every one concerned. Small wonder that the doctors and nurses—the instruments of his will—"could not be driven away"! They had caught the note, each one of them, of that unseen power and lived always in the hope of greater revelations to come.
As the order of the days settled into a rhythmic routine with the passing of the weeks, Isabelle Lane desired more and more to come closer to this man who had touched her to the quick, to search more clearly for her personal Solution which evaded her grasp. There were many questions she wished to have answered! But Renault had few intimate moments. He avoided personalities, as if they were a useless drain upon energy. His message was delivered at casual moments. One day he came up behind Isabelle in the ward, and nodding towards Molly, who was reading a story to one of the little girl patients, said:—
"So you have put daughter to some use?"