As Isabel entered Mrs. Conyers started forward, smiling, to clasp
it around her neck as the expression of her love and pleasure; then
she caught sight of Isabel's face, and with parted lips she stood
still.
Isabel, white, listless, had sunk into the nearest chair, and now
said, quietly and wearily, noticing nothing:
"Grandmother, do not get up to see me off in the morning. My trunk
is packed; the others are already at the station. All my
arrangements are made. I'll say good-by to you now," and she stood
up.
Mrs. Conyers stood looking at her. Gradually a change passed over
her face; her eyes grew dull, the eyelids narrowed upon the balls;
the round jaws relaxed; and instead of the smile, hatred came
mysteriously out and spread itself rapidly over her features: true
horrible revelation. Her fingers tightened and loosened about the
necklace until it was forced out through them, until it glided,
crawled, as though it were alive and were being strangled and were
writhing. She spoke with entire quietness:
"After all that I have seen to-night, are you not going to marry
Rowan?"
Isabel stirred listlessly as with remembrance of a duty:
"I had forgotten, grandmother, that I owe you an explanation. I
found, after all, that I should have to see Rowan again: there was
a matter about which I was compelled to speak with him. That is
all I meant by being with him to-night: everything now is ended
between us."
"And you are going away without giving me the reason of all this?"
Isabel gathered her gloves and shawl together and said with simple
distaste:
"Yes."
As she did so, Mrs. Conyers, suddenly beside herself with aimless
rage, raised one arm and hurled the necklace against the opposite
wall of the room. It leaped a tangled braid through the air and as
it struck burst asunder, and the stones scattered and rattled along
the floor and rolled far out on the carpet.
She turned and putting up a little white arm, which shook as though
palsied, began to extinguish the lights. Isabel watched her a
moment remorsefully:
"Good night, grandmother, and good-by. I am sorry to go away and
leave you angry."
As she entered her room, gray light was already creeping in through
the windows, left open to the summer night. She went mournfully to
her trunk. The tray had been lifted out and placed upon a chair
near by. The little tops to the divisions of the tray were all
thrown back, and she could see that the last thing had been packed
into its place. Her hand satchel was open on her bureau, and she
could see the edge of a handkerchief and the little brown wicker
neck of a cologne bottle. Beside the hand satchel were her purse,
baggage checks, and travelling ticket: everything was in readiness.
She looked at it all a long time:
"How can I go away? How can I, how can I?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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