Chapter 4 - Page 2

out here. How do they all stand it?"

"Most of them stand it much better than I do, Ned. You see they don't want to be doing anything else."

"Yes. That's the mischief of it!" he agreed; and she looked at him in the clear moonlight, wondering exactly what he thought the mischief was.

"Shall we go in and read a bit?" he offered; but she thought not.

"I'm too tired, I'm afraid. And Eddie'll wake up as soon as we begin."

So they sat awhile enjoying the soft silence, and the rich flower scents about them, till Eddie did wake presently, and Isabel went upstairs.

She slept little that night, lying quite still, listening to her husband's regular breathing so near her, and the lighter sound from the crib. "I am a very happy woman," she told herself resolutely; but there was no outpouring sense of love and joy. She knew she was happy, but by no means felt it. So she stared at the moon shadows and thought it over.

She had planned the little house herself, with such love, such hope, such tender happy care! Not her first work, which won high praise in the school in Paris, not the prize-winning plan for the library, now gracing Orchardina's prettiest square, was as dear to her as this most womanly task--the making of a home.

It was the library success which brought her here, fresh from her foreign studies, and Orchardina accepted with western cordiality the youth and beauty of the young architect, though a bit surprised at first that "I. H. Wright" was an Isabel. In her further work of overseeing the construction of that library, she had met Edgar Porne, one of the numerous eager young real estate men of that region, who showed a liberal enthusiasm for the general capacity of women in the professions, and a much warmer feeling for the personal attractions of this one.

Together they chose the lot on pepper-shaded Inez Avenue; together they watched the rising of the concrete walls and planned the garden walks and seats, and the tiny precious pool in the far corner. He was so sympathetic! so admiring! He took as much pride in the big "drawing room" on the third floor as she did herself. "Architecture is such fine work to do at home!" they had both agreed. "Here you have your north light--your big table--plenty of room for work! You will grow famouser and famouser," he had lovingly insisted. And she had answered, "I fear I shall be too contented, dear, to want to be famous."

That was only some year and a-half ago,--but Isabel, lying there by her sleeping husband and sleeping child, was stark awake and only by assertion happy. She was thinking, persistently, of dust. She loved a delicate cleanliness. Her art was a precise one, her studio a workshop of white paper and fine pointed hard pencils, her painting the mechanical perfection of an even wash of