"But, Isabelle!"
"Oh, I know what you are going to say about Vick. I have heard it over and over. John has said it. Mother has said it. Father looks it. You needn't bother to say it, Alice!" She glanced at her cousin mutinously. "John thought I was partly to blame; that I ought to have been able to control Vick. He speaks as if the poor boy were insane or drunk or something—because he did what he did!"
"And you?"
Isabelle sat upright, leaning her head thoughtfully on her hands, and staring with bright eyes at Alice.
"Do you want to know what I really believe? … I have done a lot of thinking these months, all by myself. Well, I admire Vick tremendously; he had the courage—"
"Does that take courage?"
"Yes! For a man like Vickers…. Oh, I suppose she is horrid and not worth it—I only hope he will never find it out! But to love any one enough to be willing, to be glad to give up your life for him, for her—why, it is tremendous, Alice! … Here is Tots," she broke off as the nurse wheeled the baby through the hall,—"Miss Marian Lane…. Nurse, cover up her face with the veil so her ladyship won't get frostbitten," and Isabelle sank back again with a sigh on the lounge and resumed the thread of her thought. "And I am not so sure that what John objects to isn't largely the mess,—the papers, the scandal, the fact they went off without waiting for a divorce and all that. Of course that wasn't pleasant for respectable folk like the Lanes and the Prices. But why should Vickers have given up what seemed to him right, what was his life and hers, just for our prejudices about not having our names in the papers?"
"That wasn't all!"
"Well, I shall always believe in Vick, no matter what comes of it…. Marriage—the regular thing—doesn't seem to be such a great success with many people, I know. Perhaps life would be better if more people had Vick's courage!"
Isabelle forced her point with an invalid's desire to relieve a wayward feeling and also a childish wish to shock this good cousin, who saw life simply and was so sure of herself. Alice Johnston rose with a smile.