"So many desires of men, always struggling at cross-purposes! I haven't read the papers for months! They don't seem real up here, somehow. What's happening?"
"I haven't opened my papers, either. Look there!" Isabelle pointed to a pile of unwrapped newspapers in the corner. "But I must go through them and see what John is grumbling about. It isn't like John to grumble at anything." Then she read from her husband's letter: "The President in his besotted vanity and colossal ignorance has succeeded in creating trouble that twenty Presidents won't be able to settle. The evils which he may have corrected are nothing to those he has brought upon innocent people…. So far as our road is concerned, this prejudiced and partisan investigation, instigated by the newspapers and notoriety seekers, will do no great harm…. I suppose you have seen the garbled press account of my cross-examination,—don't let it disturb you."…
Isabelle looked up.
"I wonder what he means by that! 'My cross-examination'? It must be something rather out of the ordinary to stir John to such expression,—'Besotted vanity and colossal ignorance.' Whew!"
After Margaret left, Isabelle began abstractedly to strip the wrappers from the newspapers, glancing at the thickest headlines:—
BANK FAILURE—SUICIDE OF BANK PRESIDENT—SENSATIONAL DIVORCE, etc.
Here it was at last:—
THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC ON THE GRILL!! INVESTIGATION OF THE GREAT RAILROAD'S COAL BUSINESS
Isabelle scanned the newspaper column indifferently. As Margaret had said, the squabbles of the great, conglomerate, writhing business world seemed remote indeed. They had never been actual to her, though she was the daughter of a merchant. In the Colonel's house, as in most American homes of the well-to-do, the newspaper was regarded as a necessary evil, largely composed of lies and garbled rumors. It was taken for granted that almost everything to be seen in print was vitiated by sensational falsehood, and so far as "business"—mystic word!—was concerned, all "news" was pure fabrication. This sceptical attitude had been intensified by John, who regarded any criticism of the actions of capital as dictated by envy, as "unpatriotic," aimed at the efforts of the most energetic and respectable element in the community; moreover, "socialistic," that is, subversive of the established order, etc. According to John the ablest men would always "get on top," no matter what laws were made. And getting on top meant that they would do what they wished with their own, i.e. capital. Thus without thinking about it Isabelle had always assumed that men in general were envious of their betters. Sometimes, to be sure, she had suspected that this simple theory might be incomplete, that her husband and his friends might be "narrow." Some people whose opinion she respected even approved of the President's policy in seeking to curb the activities of capital. But she had slight interest in the vexed question, and skipped all references to industrial turmoil in her reading.
So to-night her eyes slipped carelessly down the column, which was not intelligible without previous accounts, and she continued to rip the wrappers from newspapers, letting the stiff parcels of paper drop to the floor. She was thinking of what Renault had said, bits of his phrases constantly floating through her mind. If he had only been more precise! She wanted to know what to do,—here, now. He had said: "Wait! It will all be clear. It makes little difference what it is. You will find the path." With her eager temperament that was all baffling. Margaret had found her path,—had seen her Vision, and it had brought to her peace. Her restless, bitter nature had been wonderfully changed into something exquisitely calm and poised, so that her very presence, silent in the room, could be felt….