As they were going to dinner a servant brought word that a reporter wished to speak to John. Usually Lane refused to see reporters outside his office, and there turned them over to his secretary, who was skilled in the gentle art of saying inoffensive nothings in many words. But to her surprise John after slight hesitation went into the library to see the man, and it was a long half hour before he returned to his dinner. The evening was another one of those torturing periods when Isabella's heart was full and yet must be carefully repressed lest she make a false step. After a little talk about Molly, her mother, the Johnstons, Lane turned to open his mail that had been sent up for him from the office. Isabelle left him absorbed in this task, but she could not sleep, and when at last she heard him go to his room, she followed him. Laying her hands on his arms, she looked at him pleadingly, longing now not so much to know the facts, to reason and judge, as to understand, perhaps comfort him,—at least to share the trouble with him.
"Can't you tell me all about it, John?"
"About what?" he demanded dryly, his dislike of effusiveness, emotionalism, showing in the glitter of his gray eyes.
"Tell me what is troubling you! I want to share it,—all of it. What has happened?"
He did not answer at once. There was an evident struggle to overcome his habitual reserve, the masculine sense of independence in the conduct of his affairs. Also, there was between them her prejudice, the woman's insufficient knowledge, and the barrier of the long years of aloofness. But at last, as if he had reflected that she would have to know soon in any case, he said dryly:—
"The Board has voted to relieve me of my duties as general manager of traffic. I am assigned to St. Louis for the present, but the duties are not specified. A polite hint—which I have taken!"
"Did Mr. Beals do that?"
"Beals went to Europe on his vacation when the coal cases first came up…. Besides, it would have made no difference. I think I see in it the fine hand of our good friend the Senator,—smug-faced old fox!"
Isabelle felt how much this action by the directors had stung him, how severely he was suffering.
"It was … because of the verdict?"