the next day a lot of people turned up unannounced for luncheon.
they were not of the far-fetched and the exotic, in whom mrs.
melrose now specialized, but merely commonplace fashionablepeople belonging to susy's own group, people familiar with theamusing romance of her penniless marriage, and to whom she hadto explain (though none of them really listened to theexplanation) that nick was not with her just now but had goneoff cruising ... cruising in the aegean with friends ... gettingup material for his book (this detail had occurred to her in thenight).
it was the kind of encounter she had most dreaded; but itproved, after all, easy enough to go through compared with thoseendless hours of turning to and fro, the night before, in thecage of her lonely room. anything, anything, but to bealone ....
gradually, from the force of habit, she found herself actuallyin tune with the talk of the luncheon table, interested in thereferences to absent friends, the light allusions to last year'sloves and quarrels, scandals and absurdities. the women, intheir pale summer dresses, were so graceful, indolent and sureof themselves, the men so easy and good-humoured! perhaps,after all, susy reflected, it was the world she was meant for,since the other, the brief paradise of her dreams, had alreadyshut its golden doors upon her. and then, as they sat on theterrace after luncheon, looking across at the yellow tree-topsof the park, one of the women said something--made just anallusion--that susy would have let pass unnoticed in the olddays, but that now filled her with a sudden deep disgust ....
she stood up and wandered away, away from them all through thefading garden.
two days later susy and strefford sat on the terrace of thetuileries above the seine. she had asked him to meet her there,with the desire to avoid the crowded halls and drawing-room ofthe nouveau luxe where, even at that supposedly "dead" season,people one knew were always drifting to and fro; and they sat ona bench in the pale sunlight, the discoloured leaves heaped attheir feet, and no one to share their solitude but a lameworking-man and a haggard woman who were lunching togethermournfully at the other end of the majestic vista.
strefford, in his new mourning, looked unnaturally prosperousand well-valeted; but his ugly untidy features remained asundisciplined, his smile as whimsical, as of old. he had beenon cool though friendly terms with the pompous uncle and thepoor sickly cousin whose joint disappearance had so abruptlytransformed his future; and it was his way to understate hisfeelings rather than to pretend more than he felt.
nevertheless, beneath his habitual bantering tone susy discerneda change. the disaster had shocked him profoundly; already, inhis brief sojourn among his people and among the greatpossessions so tragically acquired, old instincts had awakened,forgotten associations had spoken in him. susy listened to himwistfully, silenced by her imaginative perception of thedistance that these things had put between them.
"it was horrible ... seeing them both there together, laid outin that hideous pugin chapel at altringham ... the poor boyespecially. i suppose that's really what's cutting me up now,"he murmured, almost apologetically.
"oh, it's more than that--more than you know," she insisted; buthe jerked back: "now, my dear, don't be edifying, please," andfumbled for a cigarette in the pocket which was alreadybeginning to bulge with his miscellaneous properties.
"and now about you--for that's what i came for," he continued,turning to her with one of his sudden movements. "i couldn'tmake head or tail of your letter."she paused a moment to steady her voice. "couldn't you? isuppose you'd forgotten my bargain with nick. he hadn't-andhe's asked me to fulfil it."strefford stared. "what--that nonsense about your setting eachother free if either of you had the chance to make a goodmatch?"she signed "yes.""and he's actually asked you--?""well: practically. he's gone off with the hickses. beforegoing he wrote me that we'd better both consider ourselves free.
and coral sent me a postcard to say that she would take the bestof care of him."strefford mused, his eyes upon his cigarette. "but what thedeuce led up to all this? it can't have happened like that, outof a clear sky."susy flushed, hesitated, looked away. she had meant to tellstrefford the whole story; it had been one of her chief reasonsfor wishing to see him again, and half-unconsciously, perhaps,she had hoped, in his laxer atmosphere, to recover something ofher shattered self-esteem. but now she suddenly felt theimpossibility of confessing to anyone the depths to which nick'swife had stooped. she fancied that her companion guessed thenature of her hesitation.
"don't tell me anything you don't want to, you know, my dear.""no; i do want to; only it's difficult. you see--we had so verylittle money ....""yes?""and nick--who was thinking of his book, and of all sorts of bigthings, fine things--didn't realise ... left it all to me ... tomanage ...."she stumbled over the word, remembering how nick had alwayswinced at it. but strefford did not seem to notice her, and shehurried on, unfolding in short awkward sentences the avowal oftheir pecuniary difficulties, and of nick's inability tounderstand that, to keep on with the kind of life they wereleading, one had to put up with things ... accept favours ....
"borrow money, you mean?""well--yes; and all the rest." no--decidedly she could notreveal to strefford the episode of ellie's letters. "nicksuddenly felt, i suppose, that he couldn't stand it," shecontinued; "and instead of asking me to try--to try to livedifferently, go off somewhere with him and live, like work-people, in two rooms, without a servant, as i was ready to do;well, instead he wrote me that it had all been a mistake fromthe beginning, that we couldn't keep it up, and had betterrecognize the fact; and he went off on the hickses' yacht. thelast evening that you were in venice--the day he didn't comeback to dinner--he had gone off to genoa to meet them. isuppose he intends to marry coral."strefford received this in silence. "well--it was your bargain,wasn't it?" he said at length.
"yes; but--""exactly: i always told you so. you weren't ready to have himgo yet--that's all."she flushed to the forehead. "oh, streff--is it really all?""a question of time? if you doubt it, i'd like to see you try,for a while, in those two rooms without a servant; and then letme hear from you. why, my dear, it's only a question of time ina palace, with a steam yacht lying off the door-step, and aflock of motors in the garage; look around you and see. and didyou ever imagine that you and nick, of all people, were going toescape the common doom, and survive like mr. and mrs. tithonus,while all about you the eternal passions were crumbling topieces, and your native divorce-states piling up theirrevenues?"she sat with bent head, the weight of the long years to comepressing like a leaden load on her shoulders.
"but i'm so young ... life's so long. what does last, then?""ah, you're too young to believe me, if i were to tell you;though you're intelligent enough to understand.""what does, then?""why, the hold of the things we all think we could do without.
habits--they outstand the pyramids. comforts, luxuries, theatmosphere of ease ... above all, the power to get away fromdulness and monotony, from constraints and uglinesses. youchose that power, instinctively, before you were even grown up;and so did nick. and the only difference between you is thathe's had the sense to see sooner than you that those are thethings that last, the prime necessities.""i don't believe it!""of course you don't: at your age one doesn't reason one'smaterialism. and besides you're mortally hurt that nick hasfound out sooner than you, and hasn't disguised his discoveryunder any hypocritical phrases.""but surely there are people--""yes--saints and geniuses and heroes: all the fanatics! towhich of their categories do you suppose we soft people belong?
and the heroes and the geniuses--haven't they their enormousfrailties and their giant appetites? and how should we escapebeing the victims of our little ones?"she sat for a while without speaking. "but, streff, how can yousay such things, when i know you care: care for me, forinstance!""care?" he put his hand on hers. "but, my dear, it's just thefugitiveness of mortal caring that makes it so exquisite! it'sbecause we know we can't hold fast to it, or to each other, orto anything ....""yes ... yes ... but hush, please! oh, don't say it!" shestood up, the tears in her throat, and he rose also.
"come along, then; where do we lunch?" he said with a smile,slipping his hand through her arm.
"oh, i don't know. nowhere. i think i'm going back toversailles.""because i've disgusted you so deeply? just my luck--when icame over to ask you to marry me!"she laughed, but he had become suddenly grave. "upon my soul, idid.""dear streff! as if--now--""oh, not now--i know. i'm aware that even with your accelerateddivorce methods--""it's not that. i told you it was no use, streff--i told youlong ago, in venice."he shrugged ironically. "it's not streff who's asking you now.
streff was not a marrying man: he was only trifling with you.
the present offer comes from an elderly peer of independentmeans. think it over, my dear: as many days out as you like, andfive footmen kept. there's not the least hurry, of course; buti rather think nick himself would advise it."she flushed to the temples, remembering that nick had; and theremembrance made strefford's sneering philosophy seem lessunbearable. why should she not lunch with him, after all? inthe first days of his mourning he had come to paris expressly tosee her, and to offer her one of the oldest names and one of thegreatest fortunes in england. she thought of ursula gillow,ellie vanderlyn, violet melrose, of their condescendingkindnesses, their last year's dresses, their christmas cheques,and all the careless bounties that were so easy to bestow and sohard to accept. "i should rather enjoy paying them back,"something in her maliciously murmured.
she did not mean to marry strefford--she had not even got as faras contemplating the possibility of a divorce but it wasundeniable that this sudden prospect of wealth and freedom waslike fresh air in her lungs. she laughed again, but now withoutbitterness.
"very good, then; we'll lunch together. but it's streff i wantto lunch with to-day.""ah, well," her companion agreed, "i rather think that for atete-a-tete he's better company."during their repast in a little restaurant over the seine, whereshe insisted on the cheapest dishes because she was lunchingwith "streff," he became again his old whimsical companionableself. once or twice she tried to turn the talk to his alteredfuture, and the obligations and interests that lay before him;but he shrugged away from the subject, questioning her insteadabout the motley company at violet melrose's, and fitting adroll or malicious anecdote to each of the people she named.
it was not till they had finished their coffee, and she wasglancing at her watch with a vague notion of taking the nexttrain, that he asked abruptly: "but what are you going to do?
you can't stay forever at violet's.""oh, no!" she cried with a shiver.
"well, then--you've got some plan, i suppose?""have i?" she wondered, jerked back into grim reality from thesoothing interlude of their hour together.
"you can't drift indefinitely, can you? unless you mean to goback to the old sort of life once for all."she reddened and her eyes filled. "i can't do that, streff--iknow i can't!""then what--?"she hesitated, and brought out with lowered head: "nick said hewould write again--in a few days. i must wait--""oh, naturally. don't do anything in a hurry." strefford alsoglanced at his watch. "garcon, l'addition! i'm taking thetrain back to-night, and i've a lot of things left to do. butlook here, my dear--when you come to a decision one way or theother let me know, will you? oh, i don't mean in the matteri've most at heart; we'll consider that closed for the present.
but at least i can be of use in other ways--hang it, you know, ican even lend you money. there's a new sensation for our jadedpalates!""oh, streff ... streff!" she could only falter; and he pressedon gaily: "try it, now do try it--i assure you there'll be nointerest to pay, and no conditions attached. and promise to letme know when you've decided anything. "she looked into his humorously puckered eyes, answering. theirfriendly smile with hers.
"i promise!" she said.
