Isabel, very lovely in a remarkable gown and hat, chatted cheerfully all the way home, and led the guest to quite the smartest of the motor-cars that were waiting at the San Rafael station. Susan was amazed--a little saddened--to find that the beautiful gowns and beautiful women and lovely homes had lost their appeal; to find herself a.n.a.lyzing even Isabel's happy chatter with a dispa.s.sionate, quiet unbelief.

The new home proved to be very lovely; a harmonious mixture of all the sorts of doors and windows, porches and roofs that the young owners fancied. Isabel, trailing her frothy laces across the cool deep hallway, had some pretty, matronly questions to ask of her butler, before she could feel free for her guest. Had Mrs. Wallace telephoned--had the man fixed the mirror in Mr. Furlong's bathroom--had the wine come?

"I have no housekeeper," said Isabel, as they went upstairs, "and I sha'n't have one. I think I owe it to myself, and to the maids, Sue, to take that responsibility entirely!" Susan recognized the unchanged sweetness and dutifulness that had marked the old Isabel, who could with perfect simplicity and reason seem to make a virtue of whatever she did.

They went into the sitting-room adjoining the young mistress' bedroom, an airy exquisite apartment all colonial white and gay flowered hangings, with French windows, near which the girls settled themselves for tea.

"Nothing's new with me," Susan said, in answer to Isabel's smiling inquiry. What could she say to hold the interest of this radiant young princess? Isabel accordingly gave her own news, some glimpses of her European wedding journey, some happy descriptions of wedding gifts. The Saunders were abroad, she told Susan, Ella and Emily and their mother with Kenneth, at a German cure. "And Mary Peac.o.c.k--did you know her? is with them," said Isabel. "I think that's an engagement!"

"Doesn't that seem horrible? You know he's incurable--" Susan said, slowly stirring her cup. But she instantly perceived that the comment was not acceptable to young Mrs. Furlong. After all, thought Susan, Society is a very jealous inst.i.tution, and Isabel was of its inner circle.

"Oh, I think that was all very much exaggerated!" Isabel said lightly, pleasantly. "At least, Sue," she added kindly, "you and I are not fair judges of it!" And after a moment's silence, for Susan kept a pa.s.sing sensation of irritation admirably concealed, she added, "--But I didn't show you my pearls!"

A maid presently brought them, a perfect string, which Susan slipped through her fingers with real delight.

"Woman, they're the size of robins' eggs!" she said. Isabel was all sweet gaiety again. She touched the lovely chain tenderly, while she told of Jack's promise to give her her choice of pearls or a motor-car for her birthday, and of his giving her both! She presently called the maid again.

"Pauline, put these back, will you, please?" asked Isabel, smilingly.

When the maid was gone she added, "I always trust the maids that way!

They love to handle my pretty things,--and who can blame them?--and I let them whenever I can!"

They were still lingering over tea when Isabel heard her husband in the adjoining room, and went in, closing the door after her, to welcome him.

"He's all dirty from tennis," said the young wife, coming back and resuming her deep chair, with a smile, "and cross because I didn't go and pick him up at the courts!"

"Oh, that was my fault!" Susan exclaimed, remembering that Isabel could not always be right, unless innocent persons would sometimes agree to be wrong. Mrs. Furlong smiled composedly, a lovely vision in her loose lacy robe.

"Never mind, he'll get over it!" she said and, accompanying Susan to one of the handsome guest-rooms, she added confidentially, "My dear, when a man's first married, ANYTHING that keeps him from his wife makes him cross! It's no more your fault than mine!"

Sherwin Perry, the fourth at dinner, was a rosy, clean-shaven, stupid youth, who seemed absorbed in his food, and whose occasional violent laughter, provoked by his host's criticism of different tennis-players, turned his big ears red. John Furlong told Susan a great deal of his new yacht, rattling off technical terms with simple pride, and quoting at length one of the men at the ship-builders' yard.

"Gosh, he certainly is a marvelous fellow,--Haley is," said John, admiringly. "I wish you could hear him talk! He knows everything!"

Isabel was deeply absorbed in her new delightful responsibilities as mistress of the house.

"Excuse me just a moment, Susan----Jack, the stuff for the library curtains came, and I don't think it's the same," said Isabel or, "Jack, dear, I accepted for the Gregorys'," or "The Wilsons didn't get their card after all, Jack. Helen told Mama so!" All these matters were discussed at length between husband and wife, Susan occasionally agreeing or sympathizing. Lake Tahoe, where the Furlongs expected to go in a day or two, was also a good deal considered.

"We ought to sit out-of-doors this lovely night," said Isabel, after dinner. But conversation languished, and they began a game of bridge.

This continued for perhaps an hour, then the men began bidding madly, and doubling and redoubling, and Isabel good-naturedly terminated the game, and carried her guest upstairs with her.

Here, in Susan's room, they had a talk, Isabel advisory and interested, Susan instinctively warding off sympathy and concern.

"Sue,--you won't be angry?" said Isabel, affectionately "but I do so hate to see you drifting, and want to have you as happy as I am! Is there somebody?"

"Not unless you count the proprietor of the 'Democrat,'" Susan laughed.

"It's no laughing matter, Sue---" Isabel began, seriously. But Susan, laying a quick hand upon her arm, said smilingly:

"Isabel! Isabel! What do you, of all women, know about the problems and the drawbacks of a life like mine?"

"Well, I do feel this, Sue," Isabel said, just a little ruffled, but smiling, too, "I've had money since I was born, I admit. But money has never made any real difference with me. I would have dressed more plainly, perhaps, as a working woman, but I would always have had everything dainty and fresh, and Father says that I really have a man's mind; that I would have climbed right to the top in any position! So don't talk as if I didn't know ANYTHING!"

Presently she heard Jack's step, and ran off to her own room. But she was back again in a few moments. Jack had just come up to find some cigars, it appeared. Jack was such a goose!

"He's a dear," said Susan. Isabel agreed. "Jack was wonderful," she said. Had Susan noticed him with older people? And with babies----

"That's all we need, now," said the happy Isabel.

"Babies are darling," agreed Susan, feeling elderly and unmarried.

"Yes, and when you're married," Isabel said dreamily, "they seem so--so sacred--but you'll see yourself, some day, I hope. Hark!"

And she was gone again, only to come back. It was as if Isabel gained fresh pleasure in her new estate by seeing it afresh through Susan's eyes. She had the longing of the bride to give her less-experienced friend just a glimpse of the new, delicious relationship.

Left alone at last, Susan settled herself luxuriously in bed, a heap of new books beside her, soft pillows under her head, a great light burning over her shoulder, and the fragrance of the summer night stealing in through the wide-opened windows. She gave a great sigh of relief, wondered, between desultory reading, at how early an hour she could decently excuse herself in the morning.

"I SUPPOSE that, if I fell heir to a million, I might build a house like this, and think that a string of pearls was worth buying," said Susan to herself, "but I don't believe I would!"

Isabel would not let her hurry away in the morning; it was too pleasant to have so gracious and interested a guest, so sympathetic a witness to her own happiness. She and Susan lounged through the long morning, Susan admired the breakfast service, admired the rugs, admired her host's character. Nothing really interested Isabel, despite her polite questions and a.s.sents, but Isabel's possessions, Isabel's husband, Isabel's genius for housekeeping and entertaining. The gentlemen appeared at noon, and the four went to the near-by hotel for luncheon, and here Susan saw Peter Coleman again, very handsome and gay, in white flannels, and very much inclined toward the old relationship with her.

Peter begged them to spend the afternoon with him, trying the new motor-car, and Isabel was charmed to agree. Susan agreed too, after a hesitation she did not really understand in herself. What pleasanter prospect could anyone have?

While they were loitering over their luncheon, in the shaded, delightful coolness of the lunch-room, suddenly Dolly Ripley, over-dressed, gay and talkative as always, came up to their table.

She greeted the others negligently, but showed a certain enthusiasm for Susan.

"h.e.l.lo, Isabel," said Dolly, "I saw you all come in--'he seen that a mother and child was there!'"

This last was the special phrase of the moment. Susan had heard it forty times within the past twenty-four hours, and was at no pains to reconcile it to this particular conversation.

"But you, you villain--where've you been?" pursued Dolly, to Susan, "why don't you come down and spend a week with me? Do you see anything of our dear friend Emily in these days?"

"Emily's abroad," said Susan, and Peter added:

"With Ella and Mary Peac.o.c.k--'he seen that a mother and child was there!'"

"Oh, you devil!" said Dolly, laughing. "But honestly," she added gaily to Susan, "'how you could put up with Em Saunders as long as you did was a mystery to ME! It's a lucky thing you're not like me, Susan van Dusen, people all tell me I'm more like a boy than a girl,--when I think a thing I'm going to SAY it or bust! Now, listen, you're coming down to me for a week---"

Susan left the invitation open, to Isabel's concern.

"Of course, as you say, you have a position, Sue," said Isabel, when they were spinning over the country roads, in Peter's car, "but, my dear, Dolly Ripley and Con Fox don't speak now,--Connie's going on the stage, they say!---"

"'A mother and child will be there', all right!" said John Furlong, leaning back from the front seat. Isabel laughed, but went on seriously,

"---and Dolly really wants someone to stay with her, Sue, and think what a splendid thing that would be!"

Susan answered absently. They had taken the Sausalito road, to get the cool air from the bay, and it flashed across her that if she COULD persuade them to drop her at the foot of the hill, she could be at home in five minutes,--back in the dear familiar garden, with Anna and Phil lazily debating the attractions of a walk and a row, and Betsey compounding weak, cold, too-sweet lemonade. Suddenly the only important thing in the world seemed to be her escape.

There they were, just as she had pictured them; Mrs. Carroll, gray-haired, dignified in her lacy light black, was in a deep chair on the lawn, reading aloud from the paper; Betsey, sitting at her feet, twisted and folded the silky ears of the setter; Anna was lying in a hammock, lazily watching her mother, and Billy Oliver had joined the boys, sprawling comfortably on the gra.s.s.