CHAPTER IV


It was a hot, close night. After the Bellefleur had been coupled to the
Western express at the junction, Lane had the porters make up a bed for
Isabelle on the floor of the little parlor next the observation platform,
and here at the rear of the long train, with the door open, she lay
sleepless through the night hours, listening to the rattle of the trucks,
the thud of heavy wheels on the rails, disturbed only when the car was
shifted to the Adirondack train by the blue glare of arc lights and phantom
figures rushing to and fro in the pallid night.

The excitement of the day had utterly exhausted her; but her mind was
extraordinarily alive with impressions,--faces and pictures from this great
day of her existence, her marriage. And out of all these crowding images
emerged persistently certain ones,--Aline, with the bloom almost gone, the
worn air of something carelessly used. That was due to the children, to
cares,--the Gorings were poor and the two years abroad must have been a
strain. All the girls at St. Mary's had thought that marriage ideal, made
all of love. For there was something of the poet in Eugene Goring, the slim
scholar, walking with raised head and speaking with melodious voice. He was
a girl's ideal.... And then came Nan Lawton, with her jesting tone, and
sly, half-shut eyes. Isabelle remembered how brilliant Nan's marriage was,
how proud she herself had been to have a part in it. Nan's face was blotted
by Alice Johnston's with her phlegmatic husband. She was happy, serene, but
old and acquainted with care.

Why should she think of them, of any other marriage? Hers was to be
different,--oh, yes, quite exceptional and perfect, with an intimacy, a
mutual helpfulness.... The girls at St. Mary's had all had their emotional