 Part 2. CHAPTER XVI. Stretched out under an awning on the deck of the ibis, Nick Lansing looked up for a moment at the vanishing cliffs of Malta, and then plunged again into his book. He had had nearly three weeks of drug-taking on the ibis. The drugs he had absorbed were of two kinds—visions of fleeing landscapes, looming up from the blue sea to vanish into it again—and visions of study absorbed from the volumes piled up day and night at his elbow. For the first time in months he was in reach of a real library—just the kind of scholarly yet miscellaneous library that his restless and impatient spirit craved. He was aware that the books he read, like the fugitive scenes on which he gazed, were merely a form of anesthetic. He swallowed them with the careless greed of the sufferer, who seeks only to still pain and dead in memory. But they were beginning to produce in him a moral languor that was not disagreeable, that indeed, compared with the fierce pain of the first days, was almost pleasurable. It was exactly the kind of drug that he needed. There is probably no point on which the average man has more definite views than on the uselessness of writing a letter that is hard to write. In the line he had sent to Susie from Genoa, Nick had told her that she would hear from him again in a few days. But when the few days had passed, and he began to consider setting himself to the task, he found fifty reasons for postponing it. Had there been any practical questions to write about, it would have been different. He could not have borne for twenty-four hours the idea that she was in uncertainty as to money. But that had all been settled long ago. From the first she had had the administering of their modest fortune. On their marriage Nick's own meager income, paid in, none too regularly, by the agent who had managed for years the dwindling family properties, had been transferred to her. It was the only wedding present he could make. And the wedding checks had of course been all deposited in her name. There were therefore no business reasons for communicating with her, and when it came to reasons of another order, the mere thought of them benumbed him. For the first few days he reproached himself for his inertia. Then he began to seek reasons for justifying it. After all, for both their sakes, a waiting policy might be the wisest he could pursue. He had left Susy because he could not tolerate the conditions on which he had discovered their life together to be based, and he had told her so. What more was there to say? Nothing was changed in their respective situations. If they came together it could be only to resume the same life, and that, as the days went by, seemed to him more and more impossible. He had not yet reached the point of facing a definite separation, but whenever his thoughts travelled back over their past life, he recoiled from any attempt to return to it. As long as this state of mind continued, there seemed nothing to add to the letter he had already written, except indeed the statement that he was cruising with the Hickses, and he saw no pressing reason for communicating that. To the Hickses he had given no hint of his situation. When Coral Hicks, a fortnight earlier, had picked him up in the broiling streets of Genoa, and carried him off to the Ibis, he had thought only of a cool dinner, and perhaps a moonlight sail. Then, in reply to their friendly urging, he had confessed that he had not been well, had indeed gone off hurriedly for a few days change of air, and that left him without defense against the immediate proposal that he should take his change of air on the Ibis. They were just off to Corsica and Sardinia, and from there to Sicily, he could rejoin the railway at Naples, and be back at Venice in ten days. Ten days of respite, the temptation was irresistible, and he really liked the kind uncomplicated Hickses. A wholesome honesty and simplicity breathed through all their opulence, as if the rich trappings of their present life still exhaled the fragrance of their native prairies. The mere fact of being with such people was like a purifying bath. When the yacht touched at Naples, he agreed since they were so awfully kind to go on to Sicily, and when the chief steward, going short, Naples for the last time before they got up steam, said, any letters for the post, sir? He answered, as he had answered at each previous halt. No, thank you, none. Now they were heading for Rhodes and Crete—Crete, where he had never been, where he had so often longed to go. In spite of the lateness of the season, the weather was still miraculously fine. The short waves danced ahead under a sky without a cloud, and the strong boughs of the ibis hardly swayed as she flew forward over the flying crests. Only his hosts and their daughter were on the yacht—of course, with Elder Otto Tooker and Mr. Beck in attendance. An eminent archaeologist, who was to have joined them at Naples, had telegraphed an excuse at the last moment, and Nick noticed that, while Mrs. Hicks was perpetually apologizing for the great man's absence, Coral merely smiled and said nothing. As a matter of fact, Mr. and Mrs. Hicks were never as pleasant as when one had them to oneself. In company, Mr. Hicks ran the risk of appearing over-hospitable, and Mrs. Hicks confused dates and names in the desire to embrace all culture in her conversation. But alone with Nick, their old travelling companion, they shone out in their native simplicity, and Mr. Hicks talked soundly of investments, and Mrs. Hicks recalled her early married days in Apex City, when, on being brought home to her new house in Escalus Avenue, her first thought had been, how on earth shall I get all those windows washed? The loss of Mr. Buttles had been as serious to them as Nick had supposed. Mr. Beck could never hope to replace him. Apart from his mysterious gift of languages, at his almost superhuman faculty for knowing how to address letters to eminent people, and in what terms to conclude them, he had a smattering of archaeology and general culture on which Mrs. Hicks had learned to depend, her own memory being, alas, so inadequate to the range of her interests. Her daughter might perhaps have helped her, but it was not Miss Hicks's way to mother her parents. She was exceedingly kind to them, but left them, as it were, to bring themselves up as best they could, while she pursued her own course of self-development. A sombre zeal for knowledge filled the mind of this strange girl. She appeared interested only in fresh opportunities of adding to her store of facts. They were illuminated by a little imagination and less poetry, but carefully catalogued and neatly sorted in her large, cool brain, they were always as accessible as the volumes in an up-to-date public library. To Nick there was something reposeful in this lucid intellectual curiosity. He wanted above all things to get away from sentiment, from seduction, from the moods and impulses and flashing contradictions that were Susy. Susy was not a great reader. Her store of facts was small, and she had grown up among people who dreaded ideas as much as if they had been a contagious disease. But in the early days especially, when Nick had put a book in her hand, or read a poem to her, her swift intelligence had instantly shed a new light on the subject, and penetrating to its depths had extracted from them whatever belonged to her. What a pity that this exquisite insight, this intuitive discrimination, should for the most part have been spent upon reading the thoughts of vulgar people and extracting a profit from them, should have been wasted since her childhood on all the hideous intricacies of managing. And visible beauty! How she cared for that, too! He had not guessed it, or rather he had not been sure of it, till the day when, on their way through Paris, he had taken her to the Louvre, and they had stood before the little crucifixion of Mantegna. He had not been looking at the picture, or watching to see what impression it produced on Susy. His own momentary mood was for Corregio and Fragonard, the laughter of the music lesson and the bold, pagan joys of the antiope. And then he had missed her from his side, and when he came to where she stood, forgetting him, forgetting everything, he had seen the glare of that tragic sky in her face, her trembling lip, the tears on her lashes. That was Susy. Closing his book, he stole a glance at Coral Hicks's profile, thrown back against the cushions of the deck-chair at his side. There was something harsh and bracing in her blunt, primitive build, in the projection of the black eyebrows that nearly met over her thick, straight nose, and the faint, barely visible black down on her upper lip. Some miracle of will-power, combined with all the artifices as wealth can buy, had turned the fat, sallow girl, he remembered, into this commanding young woman, almost handsome, at times indisputably handsome, in her big, authoritative way. Watching the arrogant lines of her profile against the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that was sweet to his vanity, how twice, under the dome of the scultsy, and in the streets of Genoa, he had seen those same lines softened at his approach, turn womanly, pleading, and almost humble. That was Coral. Suddenly she said, without turning toward him, You've had no letter since you've been on board. He looked at her, surprised. No, thank the Lord. He laughed. And you haven't written one, either. She continued in her hard, statistical tone. No, he again agreed with the same laugh. That means that you really are free. Free? He saw the cheek nearest him, redden. Really off on a holiday, I mean, not tied down. After a pause, he rejoined, No, I'm not particularly tied down. And your book? Oh, my book! He stopped and considered. He had thrust the pageant of Alexander into his handbag on the night of his flight from Venice, but since then he had never looked at it. Too many memories and illusions were pressed between its pages, and he knew just at what page he had felt Ellie Van Derlin bending over him for behind, caught a whiff of her scent, and heard her breathless, I had to thank you. My books hung up," he said impatiently, annoyed with Miss Hicks's lack of tact. There was a girl who never put out feelers. Yes, I thought it was. She went on quietly, and he gave her a startled glance. What the devil else did she think, he wondered? He had never supposed her capable of getting far enough out of her own thick carapace of self-sufficiency to penetrate into anyone else's feelings. The truth is," he continued, embarrassed. I suppose I dug away at it rather too continuously. That's probably why I felt the need of a change. You see, I'm only a beginner." She still continued her relentless questioning. But later, you'll go on with it, of course. Oh, I don't know. He paused, glanced down at the glittering deck, and then out across the glittering water. I've been dreaming dreams, you see. I'd rather think I shall have to drop the book altogether, and try to look out for a job that will pay. To indulge in my kind of literature one must first have an assured income. He was instantly annoyed with himself for having spoken. Hither too, in his relations with the Hicks's, he had carefully avoided the least illusion that might make him feel the heavy hand of their beneficence. But the idle procrastinating weeks had weakened him, and he had yielded to the need of putting into words his vague intentions. To do so would perhaps help to make them more definite. To his relief Miss Hicks made no immediate reply, and when she spoke it was in a softer voice and with an unwonted hesitation. It seems a shame that with gifts like yours you shouldn't find some kind of employment that would leave you leisure enough to do your real work. He shrugged ironically. Yes, there are a goodish number of us hunting for that particular kind of employment. Her tone became more businesslike. I know it's hard to find, almost impossible, but would you take it, I wonder, if it were offered to you? She turned her head slightly, and their eyes met. For an instant blank terror loomed upon him, but before he had time to face it she continued in the same untroubled voice. Mr. Buttle's place, I mean. My parents must absolutely have someone they can count on. You know what an easy place it is. I think you would find the salary satisfactory. Nick drew a deep breath of relief. For a moment her eyes had looked as they had in the sculptsy, and he liked the girl too much not to shrink from reawakening that look. But Mr. Buttle's place, why not? Poor Buttle's. He murmured, to gain time. Oh! she said, you won't find the same reasons as he did for throwing up the job. He was the martyr of his artistic convictions. He glanced at her sideways, wondering. After all she did not know of his meeting with Mr. Buttle's and Genoa, nor of the latter's confidences. Perhaps she did not even know of Mr. Buttle's hopeless passion. At any rate her face remained calm. Why not consider it, at least just for a few months, till after our expedition to Mesopotamia? She pressed on, a little breathlessly. You're awfully kind, but I don't know. She stood up with one of her abrupt movements. You needn't all at once. Take time to think it over. Father wanted me to ask you, she appended. He felt the inadequacy of his response. It tempts me awfully, of course, but I must wait, at any rate, wait for letters. The fact is I shall have to wire from roads to have them sent. I had chucked everything, even letters, for a few weeks. Ah! you are tired," she murmured, giving him a last downward glance as she turned away. From roads Nick Lansing telegraphed to his Paris bank to send his letters to Candia, but when the ibis reached Candia, and the mail was brought on board, the thick envelope handed to him contained no letter from Susie. Why should it, since he had not yet written to her? He had not written, no, but in sending his address to the bank, he knew he had given her the opportunity of reaching him if she wished to, and she had made no sign. Late that afternoon, when they returned to the yacht from their first expedition, a packet of newspapers lay on the deck-house table. Nick picked up one of the London journals, and his eye ran absently down the list of social events. He read, Among the visitors expected next week at Ruan Castle, let for the season to Mr. Frederick J. Gillow of New York, are Prince Altenary of Rome, the Earl of Altrangham and Mrs. Nicholas Lansing, who arrived in London last week from Paris. Nick threw down the paper. It was just a month since he had left the Palazzo Vanderlin and flung himself into the Night Express from Milan. A whole month, and Susie had not written. Only a month, and Susie and Strefford were all ready together. End of CHAPTER XVI. Part II. CHAPTER XVII. Susie had decided to wait for Strefford in London. The new Lord Altrangham was with his family in the north, and though she found a telegram on arriving saying that he would join her in town the following week, she had still an interval of several days to fill. London was a desert. The rain fell without ceasing, and alone in the shabby family hotel, which, even out of season, was the best she could afford, she sat at last face to face with herself. From the moment when Violet Melrose had failed to carry out her plan for the Fulmer children, her interest in Susie had visibly waned. Often before, in the old days, Susie Branch had felt the same abrupt change of temperature in the manner of the hostess of the moment, and often, how often, had yielded, and performed the required service, rather than risk the consequences of an estrangement. To that at least, thank heaven she need never stoop again. But as she hurriedly packed her trunks at Versailles, scraped together an adequate tip for Mrs. Match, and bad goodbye to Violet, grown suddenly fond and demonstrative as she saw her visitors safely headed for the station. As Susie went through the old familiar mummery of the enforced leave-taking, there rose in her so deep a disgust for the life of makeshifts and accommodations, that if at that moment Nick had reappeared and held out his arms to her, she was not sure she would have had the courage to return to them. In her London solitude, the thirst for independence grew fiercer—independence with ease, of course—oh, her hateful, useless love of beauty!—the curse it had always been to her, the blessing it might have been if only she had had the material means to gratify and to express it. And instead it only gave her a morbid loathing of that hideous hotel bedroom drowned in yellow rain-light, of the smell of soot and cabbage through the window, the blistered wallpaper, the dusty wax bouquet under glass globes, and the electric lighting so contrived that as you turned on the feeble globe hanging from the middle of the ceiling, the feebler one beside the bed went out. What a sham world she and Nick had lived in during their few months together! What right had either of them to those exquisite settings of the life of leisure, the long white house hidden in chameleons and cypresses above the lake, or the great rooms on the gydeca with the shimmer of the canal always playing over their frescoed ceilings? Yet she had come to imagine that these places really belonged to them, that they would always go on living, fondly and irreproachably, in the frame of other people's wealth. That, again, was the curse of her love of beauty, the way she always took to it as if it belonged to her. Well, the awakening was bound to come, and it was perhaps better that it should have come so soon. At any rate there was no use in letting her thoughts wander back to that shattered fool's paradise of theirs. Only, as she sat there and reckoned up the days till Strefford arrived, what else in the world was there to think of? Her future and his? But she knew that future by heart already. She had not spent her life among the rich and fashionable without having learned every detail of the trappings of a rich and fashionable marriage. She had calculated long ago just how many dinner-dresses, how many tea-gowns, and how much lacy lingerie would go to make up the outfit of the future countess of Alteringham. She had even decided to which dressmaker she would go for her chinchilla cloak, for she meant to have one, and down to her feet, and softer and more voluminous and more extravagantly sumptuous than violets or Ursula's, not to speak of silver foxes and sables, nor yet of the Alteringham jewels. She knew all this by heart, had always known it. It all belonged to the makeup of the life of elegance. There is nothing new about it. What had been new to her was just that short interval with Nick, a life unreal indeed in its setting, but so real in its essentials, the one reality she had ever known. As she looked back on it, she saw how much it had given her besides the golden flush of her happiness, the sudden flowering of sensuous joy in heart and body. Yes, there had been the flowering, too, in pain like birth-pangs, of something graver, stronger, fuller of future power, something she had hardly heated in her first light rapture, but that always came back and possessed her stilled soul when the rapture sank, the deep, disquieting sense of something that Nick and love had taught her, but that reached out even beyond love and beyond Nick. Her nerves were wracked by the ceaseless swish-swish of the rain on the dirty panes, and the smell of cabbage and coal that came in under the door when she shut the window. This nauseating foretaste of the luncheon she must presently go down to was more than she could bear. It brought with it a vision of the dank coffee-room below, the sooty, smirner rug, the rain on the skylight, the listless waitresses handing about food that tasted as if it had been rained on, too. There was really no reason why she should let such material miseries add to her depression. She sprang up, put on her hat and jacket, and calling for a taxi drove to the London branch of the Nouveau Lux Hotel. It was just one o'clock, and she was sure to pick up a luncheon, for though London was empty, that great establishment was not. It never was. Along those sultry velvet carpeted halls, in that great flowered and scented dining-room, there was always a common go of rich, aimless people, the busy people, who, having nothing to do, perpetually pursue their inexorable task from one end of the earth to the other. Oh! the monotony of those faces! The faces one always knew, whether one knew the people they belonged to or not. A fresh disgust seized her at the sight of them. She wavered, and then turned, and fled. But on the threshold a still more familiar figure met her. That of a lady in exaggerated pearls and sables, descending from an exaggerated motor, like the motors and magazine advertisements, the huge arcs in which jeweled beauties and slender youths paused to gaze at snow-peaks from an alpine summit. It was Ursula Gillow. Dear old Ursula, on her way to Scotland, and she and Susie fell on each other's necks. It appeared that Ursula, detained till the next evening by a dressmaker's delay, was also out of a job and killing time, and the two were soon smiling at each other over the exquisite preliminaries of a luncheon which the head-waiter had authoritatively asked Mrs. Gillow to leave to him, as usual. Ursula was in a good humour. It did not often happen, but when it did, her benevolence knew no bounds. Like Mrs. Melrose, like all her tribe, in fact, she was too much absorbed in her own affairs to give more than a passing thought to any one else's, but she was delighted at the meeting with Susie, as her wandering kind always were when they ran across fellow wanderers, unless the meeting happened to interfere with choicer pleasures. Not to be alone was the urgent thing. And Ursula, who had been forty-eight hours alone in London, had once exacted from her friend a promise that they should spend the rest of the day together. But once the bargain struck, her mind turned again to her own affairs, as she poured out her confidences to Susie over a succession of dishes that manifested the head-waiter's understanding of the case. Ursula's confidences were always the same, though they were usually about a different person. She demolished and rebuilt her sentimental life with the same frequency and impetuosity as that with which she changed her dressmakers, did over her drawing-rooms, ordered new motors, altered the mounting of her jewels, and generally renewed the setting of her life. Susie knew in advance what the tale would be, but to listen to it over perfect coffee, an amber-scented cigarette at her lips, was pleasanter than consuming cold mutton alone in a moldy coffee-room. The contrast was so soothing that she even began to take a languid interest in her friend's narrative. After luncheon they got into the motor together and began a systematic round of the West End shops—furriers, jewelers, and dealers in old furniture. Nothing could be more unlike Violet Melrose's long hesitating sessions before the things she thought she wanted till the moment came to decide. Ursula pounced on silver foxes and old lacquer as promptly and decisively as on the objects of her surplus sentimentality. She knew at once what she wanted, and valued it more, after it was hers. And now I wonder if you couldn't help me choose a grand piano, she suggested, as the last antiquarian bowed them out. A piano? Yes, for Ruan. I'm sending one down for Grace Fulmer. She's coming to stay. Did I tell you? I want people to hear her. I want her to get engagements in London. My dear, she's a genius! A genius! Grace! Susie gasped. I thought it was Nat. Nat! Nat, Fulmer! Ursula laughed derisively. Of course, you've been staying with that silly Violet. The poor thing is off her head about Nat. It's really pitiful. Of course he has talent. I saw that long before Violet had ever heard of him. While on the opening day of the American Artist's Exhibition last winter, I stopped short before his spring snowstorm, which nobody else had noticed till that moment, and said to the Prince, who was with me, the man has talent. But genius! Why it's his wife who has genius! Have you ever heard Grace play the violin? Poor Violet, as usual, is off on the wrong tack. I've given Fulmer my garden-house to do. No doubt Violet has told you, because I wanted to help him. But Grace is my discovery, and I'm determined to make her known, and to have everyone understand that she is the genius of the two. I've told her she simply must come to Ruan, and bring the best accompanist that she can find. You know poor Naroni is dreadfully bored by sport, though of course he goes out with the guns. And if one didn't have a little art in the evening—Oh, Susie, do you mean to tell me you don't know how to choose a piano? I thought you were so fond of music. I am fond of it, but without knowing anything about it, in the way where all of us fond of the worthwhile things in our stupid set, she added to herself, since it was obviously useless to impart such reflections to Ursula. But are you sure Grace is coming? she questioned aloud. Quite sure. Why shouldn't she? I wired to her yesterday. I'm giving her a thousand dollars and all her expenses. It was not till they were having tea in a Piccadilly tea-room that Mrs. Gillow began to manifest some interest in her companion's plans. The thought of losing Susie became suddenly intolerable to her. The prince, who did not see why he should be expected to linger in London out of season, was already at Ruan, and Ursula could not face the evening and the whole of the next day by herself. But what are you doing in town, darling? I don't remember if I've asked you." She said, resting her firm elbows on the tea-table while she took a light from Susie's cigarette. Susie hesitated. She had foreseen that the time must soon come when she should have to give some account of herself, and why should she not begin by telling Ursula? But telling her what? Her silence appeared to strike Mrs. Gillow as a reproach, and she continued with compunction. And Nick—Nicks with you? How is he? I thought to you and he still were in Venice with Ellie Vanderlin. We were for a few weeks. She studied her voice. It was delightful, but now we're both on our own again—for a while. Mrs. Gillow scrutinized her more searchingly. Oh! You're alone here, then—quite alone! Yes, Nick's cruising with some friends in the Mediterranean. Ursula's shallow gaze deepened singularly. But Susie, darling—then if you're alone, and out of a job just for the moment—Susie smiled. Well, I'm not sure. Oh! But if you are, darling, and you would come to Ruan—I know Fred asked you, didn't he? And he told me that both you and Nick had refused. He was awfully huffed at your not coming. But I suppose that was because Nick had other plans. We couldn't have him now, because there's no room for another gun. But since he's not here, and you're free—why, you know, dearest, don't you, how we'd love to have you. Fred would be too glad—too outrageously glad—but you don't much mind Fred's love-making, do you? And you'd be such a help to me, if that's any argument, with that big houseful of men and people flocking over every night to dine, Fred caring only for sport, and Narone simply loathing it and ridiculing it—not a minute to myself to try to keep him in a good humour. Oh! Susie, darling, don't say no! But let me telephone it once for a place in the train to-morrow night." Susie leaned back, letting the ash lengthen on her cigarette. How familiar—how hatefully familiar—was that old appeal? Ursula felt the pressing need of someone to flirt with Fred for a few weeks. And here was the very person she needed. Susie shivered at the thought. She had never really meant to go to Ruan. She had simply used the moor as a pretext when Violet Melrose had gently put her out of doors. Rather than do what Ursula asked, she would borrow a few hundred pounds of Strefford, as he had suggested, and then look about for some temporary occupation until—until she became Lady Alteringham. Well, perhaps. At any rate, she was not going back to Slave for Ursula. She shook her head with a faint smile. I'm so sorry, Ursula. Of course I want awfully to oblige you. Mrs. Gillow's gaze grew reproachful. I should have supposed you would! she murmured. Susie, meeting her eyes, looked into them down a long vista of favours bestowed, and perceived that Ursula was not the woman to forget on which side the obligation lay between them. Susie hesitated. She remembered the weeks of ecstasy she had owed to the Gillow's wedding-check, and it hurt her to appear ungrateful. If I could, Ursula, but really I'm not free at the moment. She paused, and then took an abrupt decision. The fact is, I'm waiting here to see Strefford. Strefford! Lord Alteringham! Ursula stared. Oh yes! I remember. You and he used to be great friends, didn't you? Her roving attention deepened. But if Susie were waiting to see Lord Alteringham, one of the richest men in England, suddenly Ursula opened her gold-meshed bag and snatched a miniature diary from it. But wait a moment! Yes, it is next week! I knew it was next week. He's coming to Juan. But, you darling, that makes everything all right. You'll send him a wire at once, and come with me to-morrow, and meet him there instead of in this nasty, sloppy desert. Oh, Susie, if you only knew how hard life is for me in Scotland between the Prince and Fred, you couldn't possibly say no. Susie still wavered. But after all, if Strefford were really bound for Juan, why not see him there, agreeably and at leisure, instead of spending a dreary day with him in roaming the wet London streets, or screaming at him through the rattle of a restaurant orchestra? She knew he would not be likely to postpone his visit to Juan in order to linger in London with her. Such concessions had never been his way, and were less than ever likely to be, now that he could do so thoroughly and completely as he pleased. For the first time she fully understood how difficult his destiny had become. Now, of course, all his days and hours were mapped out in advance. Invitations assailed him. Opportunities pressed on him. He had only to choose. And the women! She had never before thought of the women. All the girls in England would be wanting to marry him, not to mention her own enterprising compatriots. And there were the married women, who were even more to be feared. Streff might, for the time, escape marriage, though she could guess the power of persuasion, family pressure, all the converging traditional influences he had so often ridiculed. Yet, as she knew, had never completely thrown off. Yes. Those quiet, invisible women at Altingham, his uncle's widow, his mother, the spinster's sisters—it was not impossible that, with tact and patience, and the stupidest women could be tactful and patient on such occasions, they might eventually persuade him that it was his duty, they might put just the right young loveliness in his way. But meanwhile, now, at once, there were the married women. Ah, they wouldn't wait. They were doubtless laying their traps already. Susie shivered at the thought. She knew too much about the way the trick was done, had followed too often all the sinuosities of such approaches. Not that they were very sinuous nowadays. More often there was just a swoop and a pounce when the time came. But she knew all the arts and the wiles that led up to it. She knew them. Oh, how she knew them! Though with Streff, thank heaven, she had never been called upon to exercise them. His love was there for the asking. Would she not be a fool to refuse it? Perhaps, though on that point her mind still wavered. But at any rate she saw that, decidedly, it would be better to yield to Ursula's pressure, better to meet him at Rouen in a congenial setting, where she would have time to get her bearings, observe what dangers threatened him, and make up her mind whether, after all, it was to be her mission to save him from the other women. Well, if you like, then, Ursula—oh, you angel, you! I'm so glad! We'll go to the nearest post-office and send off the wire ourselves. As they got into the motor, Mrs. Gillow seized Susie's arm with a pleading pressure. And you will let Fred make love to you a little, won't you, darling? Recording by Elizabeth Klett. The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton Part II CHAPTER XVIII But I can't think, said Ellie Van der Lin earnestly, why you don't announce your engagement before waiting for your divorce? People are beginning to do it, I assure you, it's so much safer. Mrs. Van der Lin, on the way back from San Maritz to England, had paused in Paris to renew the depleted wardrobe, which, only two months earlier, had filled so many trunks to bursting. Other ladies, flocking there from all points of the globe for the same purpose, disputed with her the Louis XVI sweets of the nouveau luxe, the pink candled tables in the restaurant, the hours for trying on at the dressmakers, and just because they were so many and all feverishly fighting to get the same things at the same time, they were all excited, happy, and at ease. It was the most momentous period of the year—the height of the dressmaker's season. Mrs. Van der Lin had run across Susie Lansing at one of the Rue de la Paix openings, where rows of ladies, worn with heat and emotion, sat for hours in rapt attention, while spectral apparitions and incredible raiment tottered endlessly past them on aching feet. Distracted from the regal splendours of a chinchilla cloak by the sense that another lady was also examining it, Mrs. Van der Lin turned in surprise at the sight of Susie, whose head was critically bent above the fur. Susie! I had no idea you were here. I saw on the papers that you were with the Gillows. The customary embraces followed. Then Mrs. Van der Lin, her eyes pursuing the matchless cloak as it disappeared down a vista of receding mannequins, interrogated sharply. Are you shopping for Ursula? If you mean to order that cloak for her, I'd rather know. Susie smiled, and paused a moment before answering. During the pause she took in all the exquisite details of Ellie Van der Lin's perpetually youthful person, from the plumed crown of her head to the perfect arch of her patent leather shoes. At last she said quietly, No. Today I'm shopping for myself. Your self? Your self? Mrs. Van der Lin echoed with a stare of incredulity. Yes. Just for a change. Susie serenely acknowledged. But the cloak? I meant the chinchilla cloak, the one with the ermine lining. Yes, it is awfully good, isn't it? But I mean to look elsewhere before I decide. Ah, how often had she heard her friends use that phrase, and how amusing it was now to see Ellie's amazement as she heard it tossed off in her own tone of contemptuous satiety. Susie was becoming more and more dependent on such diversions. Without them, her days, crowded as they were, would nevertheless have dragged by heavily. But it still amused her to go to the big dress-makers, watch the mannequins sweep by, and be seen by her friends superciliously examining all the most expensive dresses in the procession. She knew the rumor was abroad that she and Nick were to be divorced, and that Lord Alteringham was devoted to her. She neither confirmed nor denied the report. She just let herself be luxuriously carried forward on its easy tide. But although it was now three months since Nick had left the Palazzo Vanderlin, she had not yet written to him, nor he to her. Meanwhile, in spite of all that she packed into them, the days passed more and more slowly, and the excitements that she had counted on no longer excited her. Strefford was hers. She knew that he would marry her as soon as she was free. They had been together at Ruan for ten days, and after that she had motored south with him, stopping on the way to see Alteringham, from which at the moment his mourning relatives were absent. At Alteringham they had parted, and after one or two more visits in England she had come back to Paris, where he was now about to join her. After her few hours at Alteringham she had understood that he would wait for her as long as was necessary. The fear of the other women had ceased to trouble her. Perhaps for that very reason the future seemed less exciting than she had expected. Sometimes she thought it was the sight of that great house which had overwhelmed her. It was too vast, too venerable, too like a huge monument built of ancient territorial traditions and obligations. Perhaps it had been lived in for too long by too many serious-minded and conscientious women. Somehow she could not picture it invaded by bridge and debts and adultery. And yet that was what would have to be, of course. She could hardly picture her at the Strefford or herself continuing there the life of heavy county responsibilities, dull parties, laborious duties, weekly church-going, and presiding over local committees. What a pity they couldn't sell it and have a little house on the Thames. Nevertheless she was not sorry to let it be known that Alteringham was hers when she chose to take it. At times she wondered whether Nick knew, whether rumours had reached him. If they had, he had only his own letter to thank for it. He had told her what course to pursue, and she was pursuing it. For a moment the meeting with Ellie Vanderlin had been a shock to her. She had hoped never to see Ellie again. But now that they were actually face to face, Susie perceived how dulled her own sensibilities were. In a few moments she had grown used to Ellie, as she was growing used to everybody and to everything in the old life she had returned to. What was the use of making such a fuss about things? She and Mrs. Vanderlin left the dressmakers together, and after an absorbing session at a new milliner's were now taking tea in Ellie's drawing-room at the Nouveau Luxe. Ellie, with her spoiled child's persistency, had come back to the question of the chinchilla cloak. It was the only one she had seen that she fancied in the very least, and as she hadn't a decent fur garment left to her name, she was naturally in somewhat of a hurry. But, of course, if Susie had been choosing that model for a friend. Susie, leaning back against her cushions, examined through half-closed lids Mrs. Vanderlin's small, delicately restored countenance, which wore the same expression of childish eagerness as when she discoursed of the young davenant of the moment. Once again Susie remarked that, in Ellie's agitated existence, every interest appeared to be on exactly the same plane. The poor shivering deer! she answered, laughing. Of course it shall have its nice warmant or cloak, and I'll choose another one instead. Oh, you darling you! If you would! Of course, whoever you were ordering it for, need never know. Ha! you can't comfort yourself with that, I'm afraid. I've already told you that I was ordering it for myself. Susie paused to savor to the full Ellie's look of blank bewilderment. Then her amusement was checked by an indefinable change in her friend's expression. Oh, dearest! Seriously! I didn't know there was someone. Susie flushed the forehead. A horror of humiliation overwhelmed her. That Ellie should dare to think that of her. That anyone should dare to. Someone buying chinchilla cloaks for me! Thanks! she flared out. I suppose I ought to be glad that the idea didn't immediately occur to you. At least there was a decent interval of doubt. She stood up, laughing again, and began to wander about the room. In the mirror above the mantel she caught sight of her flushed, angry face, and of Mrs. Vanderlyn's disconcerted stare. She turned toward her friend. I suppose everybody else will think it if you do, so perhaps I'd better explain. She paused and drew a quick breath. Nick and I mean to part. Have parted, in fact. He's decided that the whole thing was a mistake. He will probably marry again soon, and so shall I. She flung the avowal out breathlessly, in her nervous dread of letting Ellie Vanderlyn think for an instant longer that any other explanation was conceivable. She had not meant to be so explicit, but once the words were spoken she was not altogether sorry. Of course people would soon begin to wonder why she was again straying about the world alone, and since it was by Nick's choice, why should she not say so? During the burning anguish of those last hours in Venice she asked herself what possible consideration she owed to the man who had so humbled her. Ellie Vanderlyn glanced at her in astonishment. You—you and Nick—are going to part." A light appeared to dawn on her. Ah! Then that's why he sent me back my pin, I suppose. Your pin? Suzy wondered, not at once remembering. The poor little scarf-pin I gave him before I left Venice. He sent it back almost at once, with the oddest note. Just—I haven't earned it, really. I couldn't think why he didn't care for the pin. But now I suppose it was because you and he had quarreled. Though really even so I can't see why he should bear me a grudge. Suzy's quick blood surged up. Nick had sent back the pin—the fatal pin. And she, Suzy, had kept the bracelet, locked it up out of sight, shrunk away from the little packet whenever her hand touched it in packing or unpacking, but never thought of returning it—no, not once. Which of the two she wondered had been right? Was it not an indirect slight to her that Nick should fling back the gift to poor, uncomprehending Ellie? Or was it not rather another proof of his finer moral sensitiveness? And how could one tell in their bewildering world? It was not because we've quarreled. We haven't quarreled. She said slowly, moved by the sudden desire to defend her privacy and Nick's, to screen from every eye their last bitter hour together. We've simply decided that our experiment was impossible—for two paupers. Ah, well, of course we all felt that at the time. And now somebody else wants to marry you. And it's your true so you were choosing that cloak for. Ellie cried an incredulous rapture. Then she flung her arms about Suzy's shrinking shoulders. You lucky, lucky girl! You clever, clever darling! But who on earth can he be? And it was then that Suzy, for the first time, had pronounced the name of Lord Alteringham. Stref! Stref! How, dear old Stref, you mean to say he wants to marry you? As the news took possession of her mind, Ellie became Dithy Rambeck. But, my dearest, what a miracle of luck! Of course I always knew he was awfully gone on you. Fred Davenant used to say so, I remember. And even Nelson, who's so stupid about such things, noticed it in Venice. But then it was so different. No one could possibly have thought of marrying him then. Whereas now, of course, every woman is trying for him. Oh, Suzy, whatever you do, don't miss your chance. You can't conceive of the wicked plotting and intriguing there will be to get him. On all sides, and even where one least suspects it. You don't know what horrors women will do. And even girls. A shutter ran through her at the thought, and she caught Suzy's wrists and vehement fingers. But I can't think, my dear, why you don't announce your engagement at once. People are beginning to do what I assure you. It's so much safer. Suzy looked at her, wondering—not a word of sympathy for the ruin of her brief bliss, not even a gleam of curiosity as to its cause. No doubt, Ellie Vanderlin, like all Suzy's other friends, had long since discounted the brevity of her dream, and perhaps planned a sequel to it before she herself had seen the glory fading. She and Nick had spent the greater part of their few weeks together under Ellie Vanderlin's roof. But to Ellie, obviously, the fact meant no more than her own escapade, at the same moment, with young Davenants supplant her, the bounder whom Strefford had never named. Her one thought for her friend was that Suzy should at last secure her prize—her incredible prize. And therein, at any rate, Ellie showed the kind of cold disinterestedness that raised her above the smiling perfidy of the majority of her kind. At least her advice was sincere, and perhaps it was wise. Why should Suzy not let everyone know that she meant to marry Strefford as soon as the formalities were fulfilled? She did not immediately answer Mrs. Vanderlin's question, and the latter, repeating it, added impatiently, I don't understand you—if Nick agrees—oh, he agrees—said Suzy. Then what more do you want? Oh, Suzy, if you'd only follow my example—your example—Suzy paused, weighed the word, was struck by something embarrassed, arched, yet half-apologetic in her friend's expression—your example—she repeated. Why, Ellie, what on earth do you mean? Nor that you're going to part from poor Nelson? Mrs. Vanderlin met her of approachful gaze with a crystalline glance. I don't want to, heaven knows, poor dear Nelson. I assure you I simply hate it. He's always such an angel to Clarissa, and then we're used to each other. But what in the world am I to do? Algie's so rich—so appallingly rich—that I have to be perpetually on the watch to keep other women away from him—and it's too exhausting. Algie? Mrs. Vanderlin's lovely eyebrows rose. Algie! Algie Baughheimer! Didn't you know I think he said you've dined with his parents? Nobody else in the world is as rich as the Baughheimers, and Algie's their only child. Yes. It was with him. With him I was so dreadfully happy last spring. And now I'm in mortal terror of losing him—and I do assure you there's no other way of keeping them when they're as hideously rich as that. Susy rose to her feet. A little shudder ran over her. She remembered now, having seen Algie Baughheimer at one of his parents' first entertainments in their newly inaugurated marble halls in Fifth Avenue. She recalled his two faultless clothes and his small glossy, furtive countenance. She looked at Alie Vanderlin with sudden scorn. I think you're abominable, she exclaimed. The other's perfect little face collapsed. Abominable? Abominable? Susy! Yes, with Nelson and Clarissa, and your past together, and all the money you can possibly want—and that man! Abominable! Ellie stood up trembling. She was not used to scenes, and they disarranged her thoughts as much as her complexion. You are very cruel, Susy! So cruel and dreadful that I hardly know how to answer you! She stammered. But you simply don't know what you're talking about, as if anybody ever had all the money they wanted. She wiped her dark-rimmed eyes with a cautious handkerchief, glanced at herself in the mirror, and added magnanimously, but I shall try to forget what you've said. END OF CHAPTER XVIII. RECORDING BY ELIZABETH CLUT. THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON. BY EDEATH WARTON. PART II. CHAPTER XIX. Just such a revolt as she had felt as a girl, such a disgusted recoil from the standards and ideals of everybody about her, as had flung her into her mad marriage with Nick, now flamed in Susy Lansing's bosom. How could she ever go back into that world again? How echo its appraisals of life and bow down to its judgments? Alas! it was only by marrying according to its standards that she could escape such subjection. Perhaps the same thought had actuated Nick. Perhaps he had understood sooner than she that to attain moral freedom they must both be above material cares. Perhaps. Her talk with Ellie Vanderlin had left Susy so oppressed and humiliated that she almost shrank from her meeting with Alteringham the next day. She knew that he was coming to Paris for his final answer, he would wait as long as was necessary if only she would consent to take immediate steps for a divorce. She was staying at a modest hotel in the Faux-Bourg Saint-Germain, and had once more refused to suggestion that they should lunch at the nouveau Luxe, or at some fashionable restaurant of the Boulevard. As before, she insisted on going to an out-of-the-way place near the Luxembourg, where the prices were moderate enough for her own purse. I can't understand, Strefford objected as they turned from her hotel door towards this obscure retreat. Why you insist on giving me bad food, and depriving me of the satisfaction of being seen with you? Why must we be so dreadfully clandestine? Don't people know by this time that we're to be married? Susy winced a little. She wondered if the word would always sound so unnatural on his lips. No, she said with a laugh. They simply think that for the present you are giving me pearls and chinchilla cloaks. He wrinkled his brows good-humoredly. Well, so I would with joy at this particular minute. Don't you think perhaps you'd better take advantage of it? I don't wish to insist, but I foresee that I much too rich not to become stingy. She gave a slight shrug. At present there's nothing I love more than pearls and chinchilla, or anything else in the world that's expensive and enviable. Suddenly she broke off, colouring with the consciousness that she had said exactly the kind of thing that all the women who were trying for him, except the very cleverest, would be sure to say, and that he would certainly suspect her of attempting the conventional comedy of disinterestedness, than which nothing was less likely to deceive or to flatter him. His twinkling eyes played curiously over her face, and she went on meeting them with a smile. But don't imagine all the same that if I should—decide—it would be all together for your beau-yeur. He laughed, she thought, rather dryly. No, he said, I don't suppose that's ever likely to happen to me again. Oh, Streff! she faltered with compunction. It was odd. Once upon a time she had known exactly what to say to the man of the moment, whomever he was, and whatever kind of talk he required. She had even in the difficult days before her marriage reeled off glibly enough the sort of limelight sentimentality that plunged for Fred Gillow into such speechless beatitude. But since then she had spoken the language of real love, looked with its eyes, embraced with its hands, and now the other trumpery art had failed her, and she was conscious of bungling and groping like a beginner under Strefford's ironic scrutiny. They had reached their obscure destination, and he opened the door and glanced in. It's jammed, not a table, and stifling. Where shall we go? Perhaps they could give us a room to ourselves, he suggested. She assented, and they were led up a corkscrew staircase to a squat-ceilinged closet, lit by the arched top of a high window, the lower panes of which served the floor below. Strefford opened the window, and Susie, throwing her cloak on the divan, leaned on the balcony while he ordered luncheon. On the whole she was glad they were to be alone. Just because she felt so sure of Strefford it seemed ungenerous to keep him longer in suspense. The moment had come when they must have a decisive talk, and in the crowded rooms below it would have been impossible. Strefford, when the waiter had brought the first course and left them to themselves, made no effort to revert to personal matters. He turned instead to the topic always most congenial to him—the humours and ironies of the human comedy—as presented by his own particular group. His malicious commentary on life had always amused Susie because of the shrewd flashes of philosophy he shared on the social antics they had so often watched together. He was, in fact, the one person she knew—accepting Nick—who was in the show and yet outside of it. And she was surprised, as the talk proceeded, to find herself so little interested in his scraps of gossip, and so little amused by his comments on them. With an inward shrug of discouragement, she said to herself that probably nothing would ever really amuse her again. Then, as she listened, she began to understand that her disappointment arose from the fact that Strefford, in reality, could not live without these people whom he saw through and satirised, and that the rather commonplace scandals he narrated interested him as much as his own racy considerations on them, and she was filled with terror at the thought that the inmost core of the richly decorated life of the Countess of Altrangham would be just as poor and low-ceiling to place as the little room in which he and she now sat, elbow to elbow, yet so unapproachably apart. If Strefford could not live without these people, neither could she and Nick. But for reasons how different! And if his opportunities had been theirs, what a world they would have created for themselves! Such imaginings were vain, and she shrank back from them into the present. After all, as Lady Altrangham, she would have the power to create that world which she and Nick had dreamed. Only she must create it alone. Well, that was probably the law of things. All human happiness was thus conditioned and circumscribed, and hers no doubt must always be of the lonely kind, since material things did not suffice for it, even though it depended on them as Grace Fulmer's, for instance, never had. Yet even Grace Fulmer had succumbed to Ursula's offer, and had arrived at Rouen the day before Susie left, instead of going to Spain with her husband and Violet Melrose. But then Grace was making the sacrifice for her children, and somehow one had the feeling that in giving up her liberty she was not surrendering a title of herself. But the difference was there. Now I do bore you!" Susie heard Strefford exclaim. She became aware that she had not been listening. Stray echoes of names, of places and people—Violet Melrose, Ursula, Prince Altenary, others of their group and persuasion—had vainly knocked at her barricaded brain. What had he been telling her about them? She turned to him and their eyes met. His were full of a melancholy irony. Susie, old girl, what's wrong? She pulled herself together. I was thinking, Streff, just now, when I said I hated the very sound of pearls and chinchilla. How impossible it was that you should have believed me! In fact, what a blunder I'd made in saying it! He smiled. Because it was what so many other women might be likely to say—so awfully unoriginal, in fact—she laughed for sheer joy at his insight. It's going to be easier than I imagined, she thought. Allowed, she rejoined. Oh, Streff! How you're always going to find me out! Where on earth shall I ever hide from you? Where? he echoed her laugh, laying his hand lightly on hers. In my heart, I'm afraid. In spite of the laugh, his accent shook her. Something about it took all the mockery from his retort, checked on her lips the—what!—a valentine, and made her suddenly feel that, if he were afraid, so was she. Yet she was touched also, and wondered half exultingly if any other woman had ever caught that particular deep inflection of his shrill voice. She had never liked him as much as at that moment, and she said to herself, with an odd sense of detachment, as if she had been rather breathlessly observing the vacillations of someone whom she longed to persuade, but dared not. Now, now if he speaks, I shall say yes. He did not speak, but abruptly and as startlingly to her as if she had just dropped from a sphere whose inhabitants had other methods of expressing their sympathy, he slipped his arm around her, and bent his keen, ugly, melting face to hers. It was the lightest touch. In an instant she was free again. But something within her gasped and resisted, long after his arm and his lips were gone, and he was proceeding with a two-studied ease to light a cigarette, and sweeten his coffee. He had kissed her. Well, naturally, why not? It was not the first time she had been kissed. It was true that one didn't habitually associate strife with such demonstrations, but she had not that excuse for surprise, for even in Venice she had begun to notice that he looked at her differently, and avoided her hand when he used to seek it. No. She ought not to have been surprised, nor ought a kiss to have been so disturbing. Such incidents had punctuated the career of Susie Branch. There had been, in particular, in far-off, discarded times, Fred Gillow's large but artless embraces. Well, nothing of that kind had seemed of any more account than the click of a leaf in a woodland walk. It had all been merely epidermal, ephemeral, part of the trivial accepted business of the social comedy. But this kiss of Strefford's was what Nick's had been, under the New Hampshire pines, on the day that had decided their fate. It was a kiss with a future in it, like a ring slipped upon her soul. And now, in the dreadful pause that followed, while Strefford fidgeted with his cigarette case and rattled the spoon in his cup, Susie remembered what she had seen through the circle of Nick's kiss—that blue, illimitable distance which was at once the landscape at their feet, and the future in their souls. Perhaps that was what Strefford sharply narrowed eyes were seeing now—that same illimitable distance that she had lost for ever. Perhaps he was saying to himself, as she had said to herself when her lips left Nick's, each time we kiss we shall see it all again. Whereas all she herself had felt was the gasping recoil from Strefford's touch, and an intenser vision of the sordid room in which he and she sat, and of their two selves, more distant from each other than if their embrace had been a sudden thrusting apart. The moment prolonged itself, and they sat numb. How long had it lasted? How long ago was it that he had thought, it's going to be easier than I imagined? Suddenly she felt Strefford's queer smile upon her, and saw in his eyes a look, not of reproach or disappointment, but of deep and anxious comprehension. Instead of being angry or hurt, he had seen, he had understood, he was sorry for her. Impulsively she slipped her hand into his, and they sat silent for another moment. Then he stood up and took her cloak from the divan. Shall we go now? I've got cars for the private view of the Reynolds's exhibition at the Petit Palais. There are some portraits from Aldringham. It might amuse you. In the taxi she had time, through their light rattle of talk, to readjust herself and drop back into her usual feeling of friendly ease with him. He had been extraordinarily considerate for anyone who always so undisguisedly sought his own satisfaction above all things, and if his considerateness were just an indirect way of seeking that satisfaction now, well, that proved how much he cared for her, how necessary to his happiness she had become. The sense of power was undeniably pleasant. Pleasanter still was the feeling that someone really needed her, that the happiness of the man at her side depended on her yes or no. She abandoned herself to the feeling, forgetting the abysmal interval of his caress, or at least saying to herself that in time she would forget it, that really there was nothing to make a fuss about and being kissed by anyone she liked as much as Streff. She had guessed at once why he was taking her to see the Reynolds's. Fashionable and artistic Paris had recently discovered English eighteenth-century art. The principal collections of England had yielded up their best examples of the great portrait painter's work, and the private view at the Petit Palais was to be the social event of the afternoon. Everybody—Strefford's everybody and Suzie's—was sure to be there, and these, as she knew, were the occasions that revived Strefford's intermittent interest in art. He really liked picture shows as much as the races, if one could be sure of seeing as many people there, with Nick how different it would have been. Nick hated openings and varnishing days and worldly aesthetics in general. He would have waited till the tide of fashion had ebbed, and slipped off with Suzie to see the picture some morning when they were sure to have the place to themselves. But Suzie divined that there was another reason for Strefford's suggestion. She had never yet shown herself with him publicly, among their group of people. Now he had determined that she should do so, and she knew why. She had humbled his pride. He had understood and forgiven her. But she still continued to treat him as she had always treated the Strefford of old—Charlie Strefford—dear old negligible, impecunious Streff—and he wanted to show her, ever so casually and adroitly, that the man who had asked her to marry him was no longer Strefford, but Lord Alteringham. At the very threshold, his ambassadors' greeting marked the difference. It was followed wherever they turned by ejaculations of welcome from the rulers of the world they moved in. Everybody rich enough or titled enough or clever enough or stupid enough to have forced away into the social citadel was there, waving and flag-flying from the battlements, and to all of them Lord Alteringham had become a marked figure. During their slow progress through the dense mass of important people who made the approach to the pictures so well worth fighting for, he never left Susie's side, or failed to make her feel herself a part of his triumphal advance. She heard her name mentioned—Lansing, a Mrs. Lansing, an American—Susie Lansing—yes, of course, you remember her—at Newport, at San Maritz—exactly—divorced already, they say so. Susie, darling, I'd no idea you were here—and Lord Alteringham—you've forgotten me, I know Lord Alteringham—yes, last year in Cairo—or at Newport—or in Scotland—Susie, dearest, when will you bring Lord Alteringham to Dine—any night that you and he are free I'll arrange to be? You and he—they were you and he already. Ah! there's one of them—of my great-grandmothers," Strefford explained, giving a last push that drew him and Susie to the front rank, before a tall, isolated portrait, which, by sheer majesty of presentment, sat in its great carved golden frame as on a throne above the other pictures. Susie read on the scroll beneath it, the honourable Diana Lafannou, fifteenth countess of Alteringham, and heard Strefford say, Do you remember? It hangs where you notice the empty space above the mantelpiece in the Van Dyke room. They say Reynolds stipulated that it should be put with the Van Dykes. She had never before heard him speak of his possessions, whether ancestral or merely material, in just that full and satisfied tone of voice—the rich man's voice. She saw that he was already feeling the influence of his surroundings, that he was glad the portrait of a countess of Alteringham should occupy the central place in the principal room of the exhibition, that the crowd about it should be denser there than before any of the other pictures, and that he should be standing there with Susie, letting her feel, and letting all the people about them guess, that the day she chose, she could wear the same name as his pictured ancestors. On the way back to her hotel, Strefford made no farther allusion to their future. They chatted like old comrades in their respective corners of the taxi. But as the carriage stopped at her door, he said, I must go back to England the day after to-morrow, worse luck. Why not dine with me to-night at the Nouveau Luxe? I've got to have the ambassador and Lady Ascot, with their youngest girl, and my old dunes aunt, the dowager Dushes, who's over here hiding from her creditors. But I'll try to get two or three amusing men to leaven the lump. We might go on to a boate afterwards, if you're bored—unless the dancing amuses you more. She understood that he had decided to hasten his departure rather than linger on in uncertainty. She also remembered having heard the Ascot's youngest daughter, Lady Joan Seneshaw, spoken of as one of the prettiest girls of the season, and she recalled the almost exaggerated warmth of the ambassador's greeting at the private view. Of course I'll come, stref dear! she cried, with an effort at gaiety that sounded successful to her own strained ears, and reflected itself in the sudden lighting up of his face. She waved a good-bye from the step, saying to herself as she looked after him—he'll drive me home to-night, and I shall say yes—and then he'll kiss me again. But the next time it won't be nearly as disagreeable. She turned into the hotel, glanced automatically at the empty pigeon-hole for letters under her key-hook, and mounted the stairs following the same train of images. Yes. I shall say yes to-night—she repeated firmly—her hand on the door of her room. That is, unless they've brought up a letter. She never re-entered the hotel without imagining that the letter she had not found below had already been brought up. Opening the door, she turned on the light and sprang to the table on which her correspondence sometimes awaited her. There was no letter, but the morning papers, still unread, lay at hand, and glancing listlessly down the column which chronicles the doings of society, she read, After an extended cruise in the Aegean and the Black Sea on their steam-yacht Ibis, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Hicks and their daughter are established at the Nouveau-Locks in Rome. They have lately had the honour of entertaining at dinner the reigning prince of Tutto-Burger Waldheim and his mother, the Princess Dowager, with their suite. Among those invited to meet their serene hynuses were the French and Spanish ambassadors, the Duchess de Vichy, Prince and Princess Banni de Lucca, Lady Penelope Pentiles. Susie's eye flew impatiently on the long list of titles, and Mr. Nicholas Lansing of New York, who has been cruising with Mr. and Mrs. Hicks on the Ibis for the last few months. The Mortimer Hickses were in Rome, not, as they would in former times have been, in one of the antiquated hostilities of the Piazza di Spagna or the Porta del Popolo, where of old they had so gaily defied fever and nourished themselves on local colour, but spread out, with all the ostentation of Philistine millionaires, under the piano nobile ceilings of one of the high-perched palaces, where, as Mrs. Hicks shamelessly declared, they could rely on the plumbing and have the privilege of overlooking the Queen Mother's gardens. It was that speech, uttered with beaming applause at a dinner-table surrounded by the cosmopolitan nobility of the Eternal City, that had suddenly revealed to Lansing the profound change in the Hicks' point of view. As he looked back over the four months since he had so unexpectedly joined the Ibis at Genoa, he saw that the change, at first insidious and unperceived, dated from the ill-fated day when the Hickses had run across a reigning prince on his travels. Hither, too, they had been proof against such perils. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hicks had often declared that the aristocracy of the intellect was the only one which attracted them. But, in this case, the prince possessed an intellect, in addition to his few square miles of territory, and to one of the most beautiful field-martials uniforms that had ever encased a royal warrior. The prince was not a warrior, however, he was stooping, pacific, and spectacled, and his possession of the uniform had been revealed to Mrs. Hicks only by the gift of a full-length photograph in a Bond Street frame, with Anastasius written slantingly across its legs. The prince—and herein lay the Hicks' undoing—the prince was an archaeologist, an earnest, anxious, inquiring, and scrupulous archaeologist. Delicate health, so his sweet hinted, banished him for a part of each year from his cold and foggy principality, and in the company of his mother, the active and enthusiastic Dowager Princess, he wandered from one Mediterranean shore to another, now assisting at the exhumation of Ptolemaic mummies, now at the excavation of Delphic temples, or of North African basilicas. The beginning of winter usually brought the prince and his mother to Rome, or Nice, unless indeed they were summoned by family duties to Berlin, Vienna, or Madrid, for an extended connection with the principal royal houses of Europe compelled them, as the princess mother said, to be always burying or marrying a cousin. At other moments they were seldom seen in the glacial atmosphere of courts, preferring to royal palaces those of the other and more modern type, in one of which the Hicks' were now lodged. Yes, the prince and his mother, they gaily avowed it, reveled in palace hotels, and being unable to afford the luxury of inhabiting them, they liked, as often as possible, to be invited to dine there by their friends, or even to tea, my dear, the princess laughingly avowed, for I am so awfully fond of buttered scums, and anesthesias gives me so little to eat in the desert. The encounter with these ambulent hynuses had been fatal, Lansing now perceived it, to Mrs. Hicks's principles. She had known a great many archaeologists, but never one as agreeable as the prince, and above all never one who had left a throne to camp in the desert and delve in Libyan tombs. And it seemed to her infinitely pathetic that these two gifted beings, who grumbled when they had to go to marry a cousin at the palace of St. James, or of Madrid, and hastened back breathlessly to the far-off point, where, metaphorically speaking, pickaxe and spade had dropped from their royal hands, that these heirs of the ages should be unable to offer themselves the comforts of up-to-date hotel life, and should enjoy themselves, like babies, when they were invited to the other kind of palace to feast on buttered scones and watch the tango. She simply could not bear the thought of their privations, and neither after a time could Mr. Hicks, who found the prince more democratic than any one he had ever known at Apec City, and was immensely interested by the fact that their spectacles came from the same optician. But it was, above all, the artistic tendencies of the prince and his mother which had conquered the Hickses. There was fascination in the thought that, among the rabble of vulgar uneducated royalties who overran Europe from Buritz to the Angadine, gambling, tangoing, and sponging on no less vulgar plebeians, they, the unobtrusive and self-respecting Hickses, should have had the luck to meet this cultivated pair, who joined them in gentle ridicule of their own frivolous kinsfolk, and whose tastes were exactly those of the eccentric, unreliable, and sometimes money-borrowing persons who had hitherto represented the higher life to the Hickses. Now, at last Mrs. Hicks saw the possibility of being at once artistic and luxurious, of surrendering herself to the joys of modern plumbing, and yet keeping the talk on the highest level. If the poor dear princess wants to dine at the nouveau luxe, why shouldn't we give her that pleasure? Mrs. Hicks smilingly inquired. And as for her enjoying her buttered scones like a baby, as she says, I think it's the sweetest thing about her. Coral Hicks did not join in this chorus. But she accepted, with her curious air of impartiality, the change in her parents' manner of life. And for the first time, as Nick observed, occupied herself with her mother's toilet. With the result that Mrs. Hicks's outline became firmer, her garments soberer and hue and finer in material. So that, should anyone's chance to detect the daughter's likeness to her mother, the result was less likely to be disturbing. Such precautions were the more needful. Lansing could not but note because of the different standards of the society in which the Hicks is now moved. For it was a curious fact that admission to the intimacy of the prince and his mother, who continually declared themselves to be the pariahs, the outlaws, the bohemians, among crowned heads, nevertheless involved not only living in the palace hotels, but mixing with those who frequented them. The prince's aide-de-camp, an agreeable young man of easy manners, had smilingly hinted that their serene highnesses, though so thoroughly democratic and unceremonious, were yet accustomed to inspecting in advance the names of the persons whom their hosts wished to invite with them, and Lansing noticed that Mrs. Hicks's lists, having been submitted, usually came back lengthened by the addition of numerous wealthy and titled guests. Their highnesses never struck out a name. They welcomed with enthusiasm and curiosity the Hicks's oddest and most inexplicable friends, at most putting off some of them to a later day on the plea that it would be cozier to meet them on a more private occasion. But they invariably added to the list any friends of their own, with the gracious hint that they wished these latter, though socially so well provided for, to have the immense privilege of knowing the Hicks's. And thus it happened that one October Gales necessitated laying up the ibis, the Hicks's, finding again in Rome the august travellers from whom they had parted the previous month in Athens, also found their visiting list enlarged by all that the capital contained of fashion. It was true enough, as Lansing had not failed to note, that the princess mother adored prehistoric art and Russian music and the paintings of Gauguin and Matisse, but she also, and with a beaming unconsciousness of perspective, adored large pearls and powerful motors, caravan tea and modern plumbing, perfumed cigarettes and society scandals, and her son, while apparently less sensible to these forms of luxury, adored his mother and was charmed to gratify her inclinations without cost to himself, since poor Mama, as he observed, is so courageous when we are roughing it in the desert. The smiling aide-de-camp, who explained these things to Lansing, added with an intense smile that the prince and his mother were under obligations, either social or cousinly, to most of the titled persons whom they begged Mrs. Hicks to invite, and it seems to their serene hynuses, he added, the most flattering return they can make for the hospitality of their friends to give them such an intellectual opportunity. The dinner-table at which their hynuses friends were seated on the evening in question represented, numerically, one of the greatest intellectual opportunities yet afforded them. Thirty guests were grouped about the flower-wreathed board, from which Eldorada and Mr. Beck had been excluded on the plea that the princess mother liked cozy parties, and begged her host that there should never be more than thirty at table. Such, at least, was the reason given by Mrs. Hicks to her faithful followers, but Lansing had observed that of late, the same skilled hand which had refashioned the Hicks's social circle, usually managed to exclude from it the timid presences of the two secretaries. Their banishment was the more displeasing to Lansing from the fact that, for the last three months, he had filled Mr. Buttle's place, and was himself their salaried companion. But since he had accepted the post, his obvious duty was to fill it in accordance with his employer's requirements, and it was clear, even to Eldorada and Mr. Beck, that he had, as Eldorada ungrudgingly said, something of Mr. Buttle's marvellous social gifts. During the cruise his task had not been distasteful to him. He was glad of any definite duties, however trivial, he felt more independent as the Hicks's secretary than as their pampered guest, and the large check which Mr. Hicks handed over to him on the first of each month refreshed his languishing sense of self-respect. He considered himself absurdly overpaid—but that was the Hicks's affair—and he saw nothing humiliating in being in the employ of people he liked and respected. But from the moment of the ill-fated encounter with the wandering princes, his position had changed as much as that of his employers. He was no longer, to Mr. and Mrs. Hicks, a useful and estimable assistant, on the same level as Eldorada and Mr. Beck. He had become a social asset of unsuspected value, equalling Mr. Buttle's and his capacity for dealing with the mysteries of foreign etiquette, and surpassing him in the art of personal attraction. Nick Lansing, the Hicks's found, already knew most of the princess's mother's rich and aristocratic friends. Many of them hailed him with enthusiastic, old nicks, and he was almost as familiar with his Highness's own aide-de-camp, as with all the secret ramifications of love and hate that made dinner giving so much more of a science in Rome than in Apex City. Mrs. Hicks at first had hopelessly lost her way in this labyrinth of subterranean scandals, rivalries and jealousies, and finding Lansing's hand within reach, she clung to it with pathetic tenacity. But if the young man's value had risen in the eyes of his employers, it had deteriorated in his own. He was condemned to play a part he had not bargained for, and it seemed to him more degrading when paid in banknotes than if his retribution had consisted merely in good dinners and luxurious lodgings. The first time the smiling aide-de-camp had caught his eye over a verbal slip of Mrs. Hicks's, Nick had flushed the forehead and gone to bed swearing that he would chuck his job the next day. Two months had passed since then, and he was still the paid secretary. He had contrived to let the aide-de-camp feel that he was too deficient in humour to be worth exchanging glances with, but even this had not restored his self-respect, and on the evening in question, as he looked about the long table, he said to himself for the hundredth time that he would give up his position on the morrow. Only, what was the alternative? The alternative, apparently, was Coral Hicks. He glanced down the line of diners, beginning with the tall, lean countenance of the Princess Mother, with its small inquisitive eyes perched as high as attic windows under a frizzled thatch of hair and a pediment of uncleaned diamonds, passed on to the vacuous and overfed or fashionably haggard masks of the ladies next in rank, and finally caught, between branching orchids, a distant glimpse of Miss Hicks. In contrast with the others, he thought, she looked surprisingly noble. Her large grave features made her appear like an old monument in a street of palace hotels, and he marvelled at the mysterious law which had brought this archaic face out of Apex City, and given to the oldest society of Europe a look of such mixed modernity. Lansing perceived that the aide-de-camp, who was his neighbour, was also looking at Miss Hicks. His expression was serious and even thoughtful, but as his eyes met Lansing's, he readjusted his official smile. I was admiring our hostess's daughter. Her absence of jewels is—er—an inspiration, he remarked in the confidential tone which Lansing had come to dread. Oh, Miss Hicks is full of inspirations, he returned curtly, and the aide-de-camp bowed with an admiring air, as if inspirations were rarer than pearls, as in his milieu they undoubtedly were. She is the equal of any situation, I am sure," he replied, and then abandoned the subject with one of his automatic transitions. After dinner, in the embrasure of a drawing-room window, he surprised Nick by returning to the same topic, and this time without thinking it needful to readjust his smile. His face remained serious, though his manner was studiously informal. I was admiring at dinner Miss Hicks's invariable sense of appropriateness. It must permit her friends to foresee for her almost any future, however exalted. Lansing hesitated and controlled his annoyance. Decidedly he wanted to know what was in his companion's mind. What do you mean by exalted? he asked, with a smile of faint amusement. Well, equal to her marvellous capacity for shining in the public eye. Lansing still smiled. The question is, I suppose, whether her desire to shine equals her capacity. The aide-de-camp stared. You mean she's not ambitious? On the contrary, I believe her to be immeasurably ambitious. Immeasurably? The aide-de-camp seemed to try to measure it. But not surely beyond—beyond what we can offer. His eyes completed the sentence, and it was Lansing's turn to stare. The aide-de-camp faced the stare. Yes, his eyes concluded in a flash, while his lips let fall. The princess' mother admires her immensely. But at that moment a wave of Mrs. Hicks' fan drew them hurriedly from their embrasure. Professor Dorchivio had promised to explain to us the difference between the Sasanian Byzantine motives and Carolingian art, but the manager has sent up word that the two new Creole dancers from Paris have arrived, and her serene highness wants to pop down to the ballroom and take a peek at them. She's sure the professor will understand. And accompany us, of course, the princess irresistibly added. Lansing's brief colloquy in the Nouveau Luxe window had lifted the scales from his eyes. Innumerable dim corners of memory had been flooded with light by that one quick glance of the aide-de-camp's. Things he had heard, hints he had let pass, smiles insinuations, cordialities, rumors of the improbability of the princess' founding of family, suggestions as to the urgent need of replenishing the Tuto burger treasury. Miss Hicks Perforce had accompanied her parents and their princely guests to the ballroom, but as she did not dance, and took little interest in the sight of others so engaged, she remained aloof from the party, absorbed in archaeological discussion, with the baffled but smiling savant who was to have enlightened the party on the difference between Sasanian and Byzantine ornament. Lansing, also aloof, had picked out a post from which he could observe the girl. She wore a new look to him since he had seen her as the centre of all these scattered threads of intrigue. Yes, decidedly she was growing handsomer, or else she had learnt how to set off her massive lines instead of trying to disguise them. As she held up her long eyeglass to glance absently at the dancers, he was struck by the large beauty of her arm and the careless assurance of the gesture. There was nothing nervous or fussy about Coral Hicks, and he was not surprised that, plastically at least, the princess mother had discerned her possibilities. Nick Lansing, all that night, sat up and stared at his future. He knew enough of the society into which the Hickses had drifted, to guess that, within a very short time, the hint of the prince's aide-de-camp would reappear in the form of a direct proposal. Lansing himself would probably, as the one person in the Hicks entourage with whom one could intelligibly commune, be entrusted with the next step in the negotiations. He would be asked, as the aide-de-camp would have said, to feel the ground. It was clearly part of the state policy of Tutoburg to offer Miss Hicks, with the hand of its sovereign, an opportunity to replenish its treasury. What would the girl do? Lansing could not guess, yet he dimly felt that her attitude would depend in a great degree upon his own, and he knew no more what his own was going to be than on the night, four months earlier, when he had flung out of his wife's room in Venice to take the Midnight Express for Genoa. The whole of his past, and above all the tendency on which he had once prided himself to live in the present, and take whatever chances it offered, now made it harder for him to act. He began to see that he had never, even in the closest relations of life, looked ahead of his immediate satisfaction. He had thought it rather fine to be able to give himself so intensely to the fullness of each moment, instead of hurrying past it in pursuit of something more, or something else, in the manner of the overscrupulous or the under-imaginative, whom he had always grouped together and equally pitied. It was not till he had linked his life with Susie's that he'd begun to feel it reaching forward into a future he longed to make sure of, to fasten upon and shape to his own wants and purposes, till by an imperceptible substitution, that future had become his real present, his all-absorbing moment of time. Now the moment was shattered, and the power to rebuild it failed him. He had never before thought about putting together broken bits. He felt like a man whose house has been wrecked by an earthquake, and who, for lack of skilled labour, is called upon for the first time to wield a trowel and carry bricks. He simply did not know how. Will-power, he saw, was not a thing one could suddenly decree oneself to possess. It must be built up imperceptibly and laboriously out of a succession of small efforts to meet definite objects, out of the facing of daily difficulties instead of cleverly eluding them or shifting their burden on others. The making of the substance called character was a process about as slow and arduous as the building of the pyramids, and the thing itself, like those awful edifices, was mainly useful to lodge one's descendants in after they too were dust. Yet the pyramid instinct was the one which had made the world, made man, and caused his fugitive joys to linger like fading frescoes on imperishable walls. 20 On the drive back from her dinner at the Nouveau Lux, events had followed the course foreseen by Susie. She had promised Streffer to seek legal advice about her divorce, and he had kissed her, and the promise had been easier to make than she had expected, the kiss less difficult to receive. She had gone to the dinner aquiver with the mortification of learning that her husband was still with the Hickses. Morally sure of it, though she had been, the discovery was a shock, and she measured for the first time the abyss between fearing and knowing. No wonder he had not written. The modern husband did not have to. He had only to leave it to time in the newspapers to make known his intentions. Susie could imagine Nicks saying to himself, as he sometimes used to say when she reminded him of an unanswered letter. But there are lots of ways of answering a letter, and writing doesn't happen to be mine. Well, he had done it in his way, and she was answered. For a minute as she laid aside the paper, darkness submerged her, and she felt herself dropping down into the bottomless anguish of her dreadful vigil in the Palazzo Vanderland. But she was weary of anguish. Her healthy body and nerves instinctively rejected it. The wave was spent, and she felt herself irresistibly struggling back to light and life and youth. He didn't want her. Well, she would try not to want him. There lay all the old expedience at her hand, the rouge for her white lips, the atropine for her blurred eyes, the new dress on her bed, the thought of Strefford and his guests awaiting her, and of the conclusions that the diners of the nouveau luxe would draw from seeing them together. Thank heaven no one would say, poor old Susie, did you know Nick has chucked her? They would all say, poor old Nick! Yes, I daresay she was sorry to chuck him, but Aldringham's mad to marry her, and what could she do? And once again events had followed the course she had foreseen. Seeing her at Lord Aldringham's table, with the ascots and the old Duchess of Dunes, the interested spectators could not but regard the diner as confirming the rumour of her marriage. As Ellie said, people didn't wait nowadays to announce their engagements till the tiresome divorce proceedings were over. Ellie herself, prodigally purled and ermined, had floated inlaid with algae Bachheimer in her wake, and sat in conspicuous tet-a-tet, nodding and signalling her sympathy to Susie. Approval beamed from every eye. It was awfully exciting, they all seemed to say, seeing Susie Lansing pull it off. As the party, after dinner, drifted from the restaurant back into the hall, she caught in the smiles and hand-pressures crowding about her the scarcely repressed hint of official congratulations. And Violet Melrose, seated in a corner with Fulmer, drew her down with a wand jade-circled arm to whisper tenderly,—'It's most awfully clever of you, darling, not to be wearing any jewels.' In all the women's eyes she read the reflected luster of the jewels she could wear when she chose. It was as though their glitter reached her from the far-off bank where they lay sealed up in the Alterham strongbox. What a fool she had been to think that Strefford would ever believe she didn't care for them. The ambassador's, a blank, perpendicular person, had been a shade less affable than Susie could have wished. But then there was Lady Joan. And the girl was handsome, alarmingly handsome to account for that. Probably every one in the room had guessed it. And the old Duchess of Dunes was delightful. She looked rather like Strefford in a wig and false pearls. Susie was surely worse false as her teeth. And her cordiality was so demonstrative that the future bride found it more difficult to account for than Lady Ascot's coldness, till she heard the old lady, as they passed into the hall, breathe in a hissing whisper to her nephew, Streff. Dearest, when you have a minute's time and can drop in at my wretched little pension, I know you can explain in two words what I ought to do to pacify those awful moneylenders. And you'll bring your exquisite American to see me, won't you? No. Joan Senneschal's too fair for my taste. Insipid. Yes, the taste of it all was again sweet on her lips. A few days later she began to wonder how the thought of Strefford's endearments could have been so alarming. To be sure he was not lavish of them, but when he did touch her, even when he kissed her, it no longer seemed to matter. In almost complete absence of sensation had mercifully succeeded to the first wild flurry of her nerves. And so it would be no doubt with everything else in her new life. If it failed to provoke any acute reactions, whether of pain or pleasure, the very absence of sensation would make for peace. And in the meanwhile she was tasting what she had begun to suspect was the maximum of bliss to most of the women she knew. Days packed with engagements, the exhilaration of fashionable crowds, the thrill of snapping up a jewel or a be-below or a new model that one's best friend wanted, or of being invited to some private show or some exclusive entertainment that one's best friend couldn't get to. There was nothing now that she couldn't buy, nowhere that she couldn't go. She had only to choose and to triumph. And for a while the surface excitement of her life gave her the illusion of enjoyment. Strefford, as she had expected, had postponed his return to England, and now they had been for nearly three weeks together in their new and virtually avowed relation. She had fancied that, after all, the easiest part of it would be just the being with Strefford, the falling back on their old tried friendship to efface the sense of strangeness. But, though she had so soon grown used to his caresses, he himself remained curiously unfamiliar. She was hardly sure at times that it was the old Strefford she was talking to. It was not that his point of view had changed, but that new things occupied and absorbed him. In all the small sides of his great situation, he took an almost childish satisfaction, and though he still laughed at both its privileges and its obligations, it was now with a jealous laughter. It amused him inexhaustably, for instance, to be made up to by all the people who had always disapproved of him, and to unite at the same table persons who had to dissemble their annoyance at being invited together, lest they should not be invited at all. Equally exhilarating was the capricious favouring of the dull and dowdy on occasions when the brilliant and disreputable expected his notice. It enchanted him, for example, to ask the old Duchess of Dunes and Violet Melrose to dine with the vicar of Altrangham, on his way to Switzerland for a month's holiday, and to watch the face of the vicar's wife, while the Duchess narrated her last difficulties with bookmakers and moneylenders, and Violet proclaimed the rights of love and genius to all that had once been supposed to belong exclusively to respectability and dullness. Susie had to confess that her own amusements were hardly of a higher order, but then she put up with them for lack of better, whereas Strefford, who might have had what he pleased, was completely satisfied with such triumphs. Somehow, in spite of his honours and his opportunities, he seemed to have shrunk. The old Strefford had certainly been a larger person, and she wondered if material prosperity were always a beginning of ossification. Strefford had been much more fun when he lived by his wits. Sometimes, now, when he tried to talk of politics, or assert himself on some question of public interest, she was startled by his limitations. Formerly, when he was not sure of his ground, it had been his way to turn the difficulty by glib nonsense or easy irony. Now, he was actually dull, at times almost pompous. She noticed, too, for the first time that he did not always hear clearly when several people were talking at once, or when he was at the theatre, and he developed a habit of saying over and over again, until so and so speak indistinctly, or am I getting deaf, I wonder, which wore on her nerves by its suggestion of a corresponding mental infirmity. These thoughts did not always trouble her. The current of idle activity on which they were both gliding was her native element as well as his, and never had its tide been as swift, its waves as buoyant. In his relation to her, too, he was full of tact and consideration. She saw that he still remembered their frightened exchange of glances after their first kiss, and the sense of this little hidden spring of imagination in him was sometimes enough for her thirst. She had always had a rather masculine punctuality in keeping her word, and after she had promised Strefford to take steps toward a divorce, she had promptly set about doing it. A sudden reluctance prevented her asking the advice of friends like Ellie Vanderlin, whom she knew to be in the thick of the same negotiations, and all she could think of was to consult a young American lawyer practising in Paris, with whom she felt she could talk the more easily because he was not from New York, and probably unacquainted with her history. She was so ignorant of the procedure in such matters that she was surprised and relieved at his asking few personal questions, but it was a shock to learn that a divorce could not be obtained either in New York or Paris merely on the ground of desertion or incompatibility. I thought nowadays, if people preferred to live apart, it could always be managed. She stammered, wondering at her own ignorance, after the many conjugal ruptures she had assisted at. The young lawyer smiled and coloured slightly. His lovely client evidently intimidated him by her grace, and still more by her inexperience. It can be, generally, he admitted, and especially so if, as I gather is the case, your husband is equally anxious. Oh, quite! she exclaimed, suddenly humiliated by having to admit it. Well, then, may I suggest that, to bring matters to a point, the best way would be for you to write to him? She recoiled slightly. It had never occurred to her that the lawyers would not manage it without her intervention. Write to him. But what about? Well, expressing your wish to recover your freedom. The rest, I assume, said the young lawyer, may be left to Mr. Lansing. She did not know exactly what he meant, and was too much perturbed by the idea of having to communicate with Nick to follow any other train of thought. How could she write such a letter? And yet how could she confess to the lawyer that she had not had the courage to do so? He would, of course, tell her to go home and be reconciled. She hesitated perplexedly. Wouldn't it be better, she suggested, if the letter were to come from—from your office? He considered this politely. On the whole, no. If, as I take it, an amicable arrangement is necessary, to secure the requisite evidence, then a line from you, suggesting an interview, seems to be more advisable. An interview? Is an interview necessary? She was ashamed to show her agitation to this cautiously smiling young man, who must wonder at her childish lack of understanding. But the break in her voice was uncontrollable. Oh, please, write to him! I can't—and I can't see him! Oh, can't you arrange it for me? She pleaded. She saw now that her idea of a divorce had been that it was something one went out, or sent out, to buy in a shop—something concrete and portable, that Strefford's money could pay for, and that it required no personal participation to obtain. What a fool the lawyer must think her. Stiffening herself, she rose from her seat. My husband and I don't wish to see each other again. I'm sure it would be useless, and very painful. You are the best judge, of course, but in any case a letter from you, a friendly letter, seems wiser, considering the apparent lack of evidence. Very well, then. I'll write," she agreed, and hurried away, scarcely hearing his parting injunction that she should take a copy of her letter. That night she wrote, At the last moment it might have been impossible, if, at the theatre, little Breckenridge had not bobbed into her box. He was just back from Rome, where he had dined with the Hickses. A bang-up show! They're really lances! You wouldn't know them! And he had met their Lansing, whom he reported as intending to marry Coral, as soon as things were settled. You were dead right, weren't you, Susie? He snickered. That night in Venice last summer, when we all thought you were joking about their engagement. Pity now you chucked our surprise visit to the Hickses and sent Streff up to drag us back just as we were breaking in. You remember? He flung off the Streff, airily, in the old way, but with a tentative side-glance at his host. And Lord Alteringham, leading toward Susie, said coldly, Was Breckenridge speaking about me? I didn't catch what he said. Does he speak indistinctly, or am I getting deaf, I wonder? After that it seemed comparatively easy, when Strefford had dropped her at her hotel, to go upstairs and write. She dashed off the date and her address, and then stopped, but suddenly she remembered Breckenridge's snicker, and the words rushed from her. Nick, dear, it was July when you left Venice, and I have had no word from you since the note in which you said you had gone for a few days, and that I should hear soon again. You haven't written yet, and it is five months since you left me. That means, I suppose, that you want to take back your freedom and give me mine. Wouldn't it be kinder in that case, to tell me so? It is worse than anything to go on as we are now. I don't know how to put these things, but since you seem unwilling to write to me, perhaps you would prefer to send your address to Mr. Frederick Spearman, the American lawyer here. His address is one hundred Boulevard Housemen. I hope—she broke off in the last word. Hope? What did she hope? Either for him or for herself. Wishes for his welfare would sound like a mockery, and she would rather her letter should seem bitter than unfeeling. Above all, she wanted to get it done. To have to rewrite even those few lines would be torture. So she left, I hope, and simply added, to hear before long what you have decided. She read it over and shivered. Not one word of the past, not one allusion to that mysterious interweaving of their lives which had enclosed them one and the other like the flower in its sheath. What place had such memories in such a letter? She had the feeling that she wanted to hide that other nick away in her bosom, and with him, the other Susie, the Susie he had once imagined her to be. Neither of them seemed concerned with the present business. The letter done, she stared at the sealed envelope till its presence in the room became intolerable, and she understood that she must either tear it up or post it immediately. She went down to the hall of the sleeping hotel, and bribed the night porter to carry the letter to the nearest post office, though he objected that at that hour no time would be gained. I want it out of the house, she insisted, and waited sternly by the desk, in her dressing-gown, till he had performed the errand. As she re-entered her room, the disordered writing-table struck her, and she remembered the lawyer's injunction to take a copy of her letter—a copy to be filed away with the documents in Lansing v. Lansing. She burst out laughing at the idea. What were lawyers made of, she wondered? Didn't the man guess by the mere look in her eyes and the sound of her voice that she would never, as long as she lived, forget a word of that letter? That night after night she would lie down as she was lying down to-night to stare wide-eyed for hours into the darkness, while a voice in her brain may notnessly hammered out, Nick, dear, it was July when you left me. And so on, word after word, down to the last fatal syllable. CHAPTER XXII Strefford was leaving for England. Once assured that Susie had taken the first step towards freeing herself, he frankly regarded her as his affianced wife, and could see no reason for further mystery. She understood his impatience to have their plans settled. It would protect him from the formidable menace of the marriageable, and cause people, as he said, to stop meddling. Now that the novelty of his situation was wearing off, his natural indolence reasserted itself, and there was nothing he dreaded more than having to be on his guard against the innumerable plans that his well-wishers were perpetually making for him. Sometimes Susie fancied he was marrying her because to do so was to follow the line of least resistance. To marry me is the easiest way of not marrying all the others, she laughed, as he stood before her one day in a quiet alley of the Bois de Boulogne, insisting on the settlement of various preliminaries. I believe I am only a protection to you." An odd gleam passed behind his eyes, and she instantly guessed that he was thinking, and what else am I to you? She changed colour, and he rejoined, laughing also. Well, you're that at any rate, thank the Lord. She pondered, and then questioned, but in the interval, how are you going to defend yourself for another year? Ah! you've got to see to that. You've got to take a little house in London. You've got to look after me, you know. It was on the tip of her tongue to flash back, oh, if that's all you care! But caring was exactly the factor she wanted, as much as possible, to keep out of their talk and their thoughts. She could not ask him how much he cared without laying herself open to the same question, and that way, terror lay. As a matter of fact, though Strefford was not an ardent wooer, perhaps from tact, perhaps from temperament, perhaps merely from the long habit of belittling and disintegrating every sentiment and every conviction, yet she knew he did care for her as much as he was capable of caring for any one. If the element of habit entered largely into the feeling, if he liked her, above all, because he was used to her, knew her views, her indulgences, her allowances, knew he was never likely to be bored, and almost certain to be amused by her, why such ingredients, though not of the fireiest, were perhaps those most likely to keep his feeling for her at a pleasant temperature. She had had a taste of the tropics, and wanted more equitable weather, but the idea of having to fan his flame gently for a year was unspeakably depressing to her. Yet all this was precisely what she could not say. The long period of probation, during which, as she knew, she would have to amuse him, to guard him, to hold him, and to keep off the other women, was a necessary part of their situation. She was sure that, as little Breckenridge would have said, she could pull it off, but she did not want to think about it. What she would have preferred would have been to go away, no matter where, and not see Strefford again till they were married. But she dared not tell him that, either. A little house in London, she wondered. Well, I suppose you've got to have some sort of a roof over your head. I suppose so. He sat down beside her. If you like me well enough to live at Aldringham some day, won't you in the meantime let me provide you with a smaller and more convenient establishment? Still, she hesitated. The alternative she knew would be to live on Ursula Gillow, Violet Melrose, or some other of her rich friends, any one of whom would be ready to lavish the largest hospitality on the prospective Lady Aldringham. Such an arrangement in the long run would be no less humiliating to her pride, no less destructive to her independence than Aldringham's little establishment. But she temporised. I shall go over to London in December, and stay for a while with various people, then we can look about. All right. As you like. He obviously considered her hesitation ridiculous, but was too full of satisfaction at her having started divorce proceedings to be chilled by her reply. And now, look here, my dear, couldn't I give you some sort of a ring? A ring? she flushed at the suggestion. What's the use, stref dear, with all those jewels lopped away in London? Oh, I daresay you'll think them old-fashioned. And hang it, why shouldn't I give you something new? I ran across Ellie and Bokkaima yesterday in the Rue de La Paix, picking out sapphires. Do you like sapphires? Or emeralds? Or just a diamond? I've seen a thumping one. I'd like you to have it." Ellie and Bokkaima. How she hated the conjunction of the names. Their case always seemed to her like a caricature of her own, and she felt an unreasoning resentment against Ellie for having selected the same season for her unmating and remating. I wish she wouldn't speak of them, stref, as if they were like us, and can hardly bear to sit in the same room with Ellie Vanderlin. Hello! What's wrong? You mean because of her giving up Clarissa? Not that only. You don't know. I can't tell you. She shivered at the memory, and rose restlessly from the bench where they had been sitting. Streford gave his careless shrug. Well, my dear, you can hardly expect me to agree, for after all it was to Ellie I owed the luck of being so long alone with you in Venice, if she and Algie hadn't prolonged their honeymoon at the villa. He stopped abruptly, and looked at Susie. She was conscious that every drop of blood had left her face. She felt it ebbing away from her heart, flowing out of her, as if from all her severed arteries, till it seemed as though nothing were left of life in her, but one point of irreducible pain. Ellie, at your villa! What do you mean? Was it Ellie and Bokkaima who— Streford still stared? You mean to say you didn't know? Who came after Nick and me? She insisted. Why, do you suppose I'd have turned you out, otherwise? That beastly Bokkaima simply smothered me with gold. Ah, well, there's one good thing—I shall never have to let the villa again. I'd rather like the little place myself, and I dare say once in a while we might go there for a day or two. Susie wants the matter, he exclaimed. She returned his stare but without seeing him. Everything swam and danced before her eyes. Then she was there while I was posting all those letters for her. Letters? What letters? What makes you look so frightfully upset? She pursued her thoughts as if he had not spoken. She and Algie Bokkaima arrived there the very day that Nick and I left. I suppose so. I thought she'd told you. Ellie always tells everybody everything. She would have told me, I dare say, but I wouldn't let her. Well, my dear, that was hardly my fault, was it? Though I really don't see. But Susie still blinded to everything but the dance of dizzy sparks before her eyes, pressed on as if she had not heard him. It was their motor, then, that took us to Milan. It was Algie Bokkaima's motor. She did not know why, but this seemed to her the most humiliating incident in the whole hateful business. She remembered Nick's reluctance to use the motor. She remembered his look when she had boasted of her managing. The nausea mounted to her throat. Strefford burst out laughing. I say, you borrowed their motor, and you didn't know whose it was. How could I know? I persuaded the chauffeur for a little tip. It was to save our railway fares to Milan. Extra luggage cost so frightfully in Italy. Good old Susie! Well done! I can see you doing it. Oh, how horrible! How horrible! she groaned. Horrible, what's horrible? Why, you're not seeing! Not feeling! she began impetuously, and then stopped. How could she explain to him that what revolted her was not so much the fact of his having given the little house as soon as she and Nick had left it to those two people of all others, though the vision of them in the sweet secret house and under the plain trees of the terrace drew such a trail of slime across her golden hours. No, it was not that from which she most recoiled, but from the fact that Strefford, living in luxury in Nelson Vanderland's house, should at the same time have secretly abetted Ellie Vanderland's love affairs, and allowed her, for a handsome price, to shelter them under his own roof. The reproach trembled on her lip, but she remembered her own part in the wretched business, and the impossibility of avowing it to Strefford, and of revealing to him that Nick had left her for that very reason. She was not afraid that the discovery would diminish her in Strefford's eyes. He was untroubled by moral problems, and would laugh away her avowal with a sneer at Nick in his new part of moralist. But that was just what she could not bear, that anyone should cast a doubt on the genuineness of Nick's standards, or should know how far below them she had fallen. She remained silent, and Strefford after a moment drew her gently down to the seat beside him. Suzy, upon my soul, I don't know what you're driving at. Is it me you're angry with, or yourself? And what's it all about? Are you disgusted because I let the villager to a couple who weren't married? But hang it, they're the kind that pay the highest price, and I had to earn my living somehow. One doesn't run across a bridal pair every day. She lifted her eyes to his puzzled incredulous face. Poor Streff. No, it was not with him that she was angry. Why should she be? Even that ill-advised disclosure had told her nothing she had not already known about him. It had simply revealed to her once more the real point of view of the people he and she lived among had shown her that in spite of the superficial difference, he felt as they felt, judged as they judged, was blind as they were, and as she would be expected to be, should she once again become one of them? What was the use of being placed by fortune above such shifts and compromises if in one's heart one still condoned them? And she would have to. She would catch the general note, grow blunted as those other people were blunted, and gradually come to wonder at her own revolt, as Strefford now honestly wondered at it. She felt as though she were on the point of losing some newfound treasure, a treasure precious only to herself, but beside which all he offered her was nothing, the triumph of her wounded pride, nothing, the security of her future, nothing. What is it, Susie? He asked, with the same puzzled gentleness. Ah, the loneliness of never being able to make him understand. She had felt lonely enough when the flaming sword of Nick's indignation had shut her out from their paradise, but there had been a cruel bliss in the pain. Nick had not opened her eyes to new truths, but had waked in her again something which had lain unconscious under years of accumulated indifference, and that reawakened sense had never left her since, and had somehow kept her from utter loneliness because it was a secret shared with Nick, a gift she owed to Nick, and which, in leaving her, he could not take from her. It was almost, she suddenly felt, as if he had left her with a child. My dear girl, Strefford said, with resigned glance at his watch, you know with dining at the Embassy. At the Embassy? She looked at him vaguely. Then she remembered. Yes, they were dining that night at the Ascotts, with Strefford's cousin the Duke of Dunes, and his wife the handsome, irreproachable young Duchess, with the old gambling Dowager Duchess, whom her son and daughter-in-law had come over from England to see, and with other English and French guests of a rank and standing worthy of the Dunes'es. Susie knew that her inclusion in such a dinner could mean but one thing. It was her definite recognition as Altingham's future wife. She was the little American, whom one had to ask when one invited him, even on ceremonial occasions. The family had accepted her. The Embassy could but follow suit. It's late, dear, and I've got to see someone on business first. Strefford reminded her patiently. Oh, Streff! I can't! I can't! The words broke from her without her knowing what she was saying. I can't go with you! I can't go to the Embassy! I can't go on any longer like this!" She lifted her eyes to his in desperate appeal. Oh, understand! Please do understand! She wailed, knowing while she spoke the utter impossibility of what she asked. Strefford's face had gradually paled and hardened. From shallow it turned to a dusky white, and lines of obstinacy deepened between the ironic eyebrows and about the weak, amused mouth. Understand! What do you want me to understand? he laughed, that you're trying to chuck me already. She shrank at the sneer of the already, but instantly remembered that it was the only thing he could be expected to say, since it was just because he couldn't understand that she was flying from him. Oh, Strefford, I only knew how to tell you. It doesn't matter so much about the how. Is that what you're trying to say? Her head drooped, and she saw the dead leaves whirling across the path at her feet, lifted on a sudden wintry gust. The reason, he continued, clearing his throat with a stiff smile, is not quite as important to me as the fact. She stood speechless, agonized by his pain. But still she thought he had remembered the dinner at the Embassy. The thought gave her courage to go on. It wouldn't do, Streff. I'm not a bit the kind of person to make you happy. Oh, leave that to me, please, won't you? No, I can't. Because I should be unhappy, too. He clicked at the leaves as they whirled past. You've taken a rather long time to find it out. She saw that his newborn sense of his own consequence was making him suffer even more than his wounded affection, and that again gave her courage. If it's taken long, it's all the more reason why I shouldn't take longer. If I've made a mistake, it's you who would have suffered from it. Thanks, he said, for your extreme solicitude. She looked at him helplessly, penetrated by the despairing sense of their inaccessibility to each other. Then she remembered that Nick, during their last talk together, had seemed as inaccessible, and wondered if, when human souls try to get to near each other, they do not inevitably become mere blurs to each other's vision. She would have liked to say this to Streff, but he would not have understood it either. The sense of loneliness once more enveloped her, and she groped in vain for a word that should reach him. Let me go home alone, won't you? She appealed to him. Alone. She nodded. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. He tried rather valiantly to smile. Hang, tomorrow. Whatever is wrong, it needn't prevent my seeing you home. He glanced toward the taxi that awaited them at the end of the deserted drive. No, please, you're in a hurry. Take the taxi. I want immensely a long walk by myself, through the streets with the lights coming out. He laid his hand on her arm. I say, my dear, you're not ill. No, I'm not ill. But you may say I am, to-night, at the embassy. He released her and drew back. Oh, very well! he answered coldly, and she understood by his tone that the knot was cut, and that at that moment he almost hated her. She turned away, hastening down the deserted alley, flying from him, and knowing as she fled that he was still standing there motionless, staring after her, wounded, humiliated, uncomprehending. It was neither her fault, nor his.