"Grandmother," she said, and her voice betrayed how she shrank from her own words, "before you sent for me I was about to come down. I wished to speak with you about a very delicate matter, a very serious matter. You have often reproached me for not taking you into my confidence. I am going to give you my confidence now."
At any other moment the distrust and indignity contained in the tone of this avowal would not have escaped Mrs. Conyers. But surprise riveted her attention. Isabel gave her no time further:
"A thing has occurred in regard to which we must act together for our own sakes—on account of the servants in the house—on account of our friends, so that there may be no gossip, no scandal."
Nothing at times so startles us as our own words. As the girl uttered the word "scandal," she rose frightened as though it faced her and began to walk excitedly backward and forward. Scandal had never touched her life. She had never talked scandal; had never thought scandal. Dwelling under the same roof with it as the master passion of a life and forced to encounter it in so many repulsive ways, she had needed little virtue to regard it with abhorrence.
Now she perceived that it might be perilously near herself. When all questions were asked and no reasons were given, would not the seeds of gossip fly and sprout and bear their kinds about her path: and the truth could never be told. She must walk on through the years, possibly misjudged, giving no sign.
After a while she returned to her seat.
"You must promise me one thing," she said with white and trembling lips. "I give you my confidence as far as I can; beyond that I will not go. And you shall not ask. You are not to try to find out from me or any one else more than I tell you. You must give me your word of honor!"
She bent forward and looked her grandmother wretchedly in the eyes.
Mrs. Conyers pushed her chair back as though a hand had struck her rudely in the face.
"Isabel," she cried, "do you forget to whom you are speaking?"
"Ah, grandmother," exclaimed Isabel, reckless of her words by reason of suffering, "it is too late for us to be sensitive about our characters."
Mrs. Conyers rose with insulted pride: "Do not come to me with your confidence until you can give it."
Isabel recrossed the room and sank into the seat she had quitted.
Mrs. Conyers remained standing a moment and furtively resumed hers.
Whatever her failings had been—one might well say her crimes—Isabel had always treated her from the level of her own high nature. But Mrs. Conyers had accepted this dutiful demeanor of the years as a tribute to her own virtues. Now that Isabel, the one person whose respect she most desired, had openly avowed deep distrust of her, the shock was as real as anything life could have dealt.
She glanced narrowly at Isabel: the girl had forgotten her.
Mrs. Conyers could shift as the wind shifts; and one of her characteristic resources in life had been to conquer by feigning defeat: she often scaled her mountains by seeming to take a path which led to the valleys. She now crossed over and sat down with a peace-making laugh. She attempted to take Isabel's hand, but it was quickly withdrawn. Fearing that this movement indicated a receding confidence Mrs. Conyers ignored the rebuff and pressed her inquiry in a new, entirely practical, and pleasant tone:
"What is the meaning of all this, Isabel?"
Isabel turned upon her again a silent, searching, wretched look of appeal.
Mrs. Conyers realized that it could not be ignored: "You know that I promise anything. What did I ever refuse you?"
Isabel sat up but still remained silent. Mrs. Conyers noted the indecision and shrugged her shoulders with a careless dismissal of the whole subject:
"Let us drop the subject, then. Do you think it will rain?"
"Grandmother, Rowan must not come here any more." Isabel stopped abruptly. "That is all."
. . . "I merely wanted you to understand this at once. We must not invite him here any more."
. . . "If we meet him at the houses of our friends, we must do what we can not to be discourteous to them if he is their guest."
. . . "If we meet Rowan alone anywhere, we must let him know that he is not on the list of our acquaintances any longer. That is all."
Isabel wrung her hands.
Mrs. Conyers had more than one of the traits of the jungle: she knew when to lie silent and how to wait. She waited longer now, but Isabel had relapsed into her own thoughts. For her the interview was at an end; to Mrs. Conyers it was beginning. Isabel's words and manner had revealed a situation far more serious than she had believed to exist. A sense of personal slights and wounds gave way to apprehension. The need of the moment was not passion and resentment, but tact and coolness and apparent unconcern.
"What is the meaning of this, Isabel?" She spoke in a tone of frank and cordial interest as though the way were clear at last for the establishment of complete confidence between them.
"Grandmother, did you not give me your word?" said Isabel, sternly. Mrs. Conyers grew indignant: "But remember in what a light you place me! I did not expect you to require me to be unreasonable and unjust. Do you really wish me to be kept in the dark in a matter like this? Must I refuse to speak to Rowan and have no reason? Close the house to him and not know why? Cut him in public without his having offended me? If he should ask why I treat him in this way, what am I to tell him?"
"He will never ask," said Isabel with mournful abstraction.
"But tell me why you wish me to act so strangely."
"Believe that I have reasons."
"But ought I not to know what these reasons are if I must act upon them as though they were my own?"
Isabel saw the stirrings of a mind that brushed away honor as an obstacle and that was not to be quieted until it had been satisfied. She sank back into her chair, saying very simply with deep disappointment and with deeper sorrow:
"Ah, I might have known!"
Mrs. Conyers pressed forward with gathering determination:
"What happened last night?"
"I might have known that it was of no use," repeated Isabel.
Mrs. Conyers waited several moments and then suddenly changing her course feigned the dismissal of the whole subject: "I shall pay no attention to this. I shall continue to treat Rowan as I have always treated him."
Isabel started up: "Grandmother, if you do, you will regret it."
Her voice rang clear with hidden meaning and with hidden warning.
It fell upon the ear of the other with threatening import. For her there seemed to be in it indeed the ruin of a cherished plan, the loss of years of hope and waiting. Before such a possibility tact and coolness and apparent unconcern were swept away by passion, brutal and unreckoning: "Do you mean that you have refused Rowan? Or have you found out at last that he has no intention of marrying you—has never had any?"
Isabel rose: "Excuse me," she said proudly and turned away. She reached the door and pausing there put out one of her hands against the lintel as if with weakness and raised the other to her forehead as though with bewilderment and indecision.
Then she came unsteadily back, sank upon her knees, and hid her face in her grandmother's lap, murmuring through her fingers: "I have been rude to you, grandmother! Forgive me! I do not know what I have been saying. But any little trouble between us is nothing, nothing! And do as I beg you—let this be sacred and secret! And leave everything to me!"
She crept closer and lifting her face looked up into her grandmother's. She shrank back shuddering from what she saw there, burying her face in her hands; then rising she hurried from the room, Mrs. Conyers sat motionless.
Was it true then that the desire and the work of years for this marriage had come to nothing? And was it true that this grandchild, for whom she had planned and plotted, did not even respect her and could tell her so to her face?
Those