" Then she hurried hack to the sherbet. She
wanted her granddaughter, but she wanted that first.
Her thoughts ascended meantime to Isabel in the room above. She
finished the sherbet. She waited. Impatience darkened to
uneasiness and anger. Still she waited; and her finger nails began
to scratch audibly at the mahogany of her chair and a light to burn
in the tawny eyes.
In the room overhead Isabel's thoughts all this time were
descending to her grandmother. Before the message was delivered
it had been her intention to go down. Once she had even reached
the head of the staircase; but then had faltered and shrunk
back. When the message came, it rendered her less inclined to
risk the interview. Coming at such an hour, that message was
suspicious. She, moreover, naturally had learned to dread her
grandmother's words when they looked most innocent. Thus she,
too, waited--lacking the resolution to descend.
As she walked homeward from church she realized that she must take
steps at once to discard Rowan as the duty of her social position.
And here tangible perplexities instantly wove themselves across her
path. Conscience had promptly arraigned him at the altar of
religion. It was easy to condemn him there. And no one had the
right to question that arraignment and that condemnation. But
public severance of all relations with him in her social world--how
should she accomplish that and withhold her justification?
Her own kindred would wish to understand the reason.
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