nick lansing arrived in paris two days after his lawyer hadannounced his coming to mr. spearman.
he had left rome with the definite purpose of freeing himselfand susy; and though he was not pledged to coral hicks he hadnot concealed from her the object of his journey. in vain hadhe tried to rouse in himself any sense of interest in his ownfuture. beyond the need of reaching a definite point in hisrelation to susy his imagination could not travel. but he hadbeen moved by coral's confession, and his reason told him thathe and she would probably be happy together, with the temperatehappiness based on a community of tastes and an enlargement ofopportunities. he meant, on his return to rome, to ask her tomarry him; and he knew that she knew it. indeed, if he had notspoken before leaving it was with no idea of evading his fate,or keeping her longer in suspense, but simply because of thestrange apathy that had fallen on him since he had receivedsusy's letter. in his incessant self-communings he dressed upthis apathy as a discretion which forbade his engaging coral'sfuture till his own was assured. but in truth he knew thatcoral's future was already engaged, and his with it: in romethe fact had seemed natural and even inevitable.
in paris, it instantly became the thinnest of unrealities. notbecause paris was not rome, nor because it was paris; butbecause hidden away somewhere in that vast unheeding labyrinthwas the half-forgotten part of himself that was susy .... forweeks, for months past, his mind had been saturated with susy:
she had never seemed more insistently near him than as theirseparation lengthened, and the chance of reunion became lessprobable. it was as if a sickness long smouldering in him hadbroken out and become acute, enveloping him in the nessus-shirtof his memories. there were moments when, to his memory, theiractual embraces seemed perfunctory, accidental, compared withthis deep deliberate imprint of her soul on his.
yet now it had become suddenly different. now that he was inthe same place with her, and might at any moment run across her,meet her eyes, hear her voice, avoid her hand--now thatpenetrating ghost of her with which he had been living wassucked back into the shadows, and he seemed, for the first timesince their parting, to be again in her actual presence. hewoke to the fact on the morning of his arrival, staring downfrom his hotel window on a street she would perhaps walk throughthat very day, and over a limitless huddle of roofs, one ofwhich covered her at that hour. the abruptness of thetransition startled him; he had not known that her meregeographical nearness would take him by the throat in that way.
what would it be, then, if she were to walk into the room?
thank heaven that need never happen! he was sufficientlyinformed as to french divorce proceedings to know that theywould not necessitate a confrontation with his wife; and withordinary luck, and some precautions, he might escape even adistant glimpse of her. he did not mean to remain in paris morethan a few days; and during that time it would be easy--knowing,as he did, her tastes and altringham's--to avoid the placeswhere she was likely to be met. he did not know where she wasliving, but imagined her to be staying with mrs. melrose, orsome other rich friend, or else lodged, in prospectiveaffluence, at the nouveau luxe, or in a pretty flat of her own.
trust susy--ah, the pang of it--to "manage"!
his first visit was to his lawyer's; and as he walked throughthe familiar streets each approaching face, each distant figureseemed hers. the obsession was intolerable. it would not last,of course; but meanwhile he had the exposed sense of a fugitivein a nightmare, who feels himself the only creature visible in aghostly and besetting multitude. the eye of the metropolisseemed fixed on him in an immense unblinking stare.
at the lawyer's he was told that, as a first step to freedom, hemust secure a domicile in paris. he had of course known of thisnecessity: he had seen too many friends through the divorcecourt, in one country or another, not to be fairly familiar withthe procedure. but the fact presented a different aspect assoon as he tried to relate it to himself and susy: it was asthough susy's personality were a medium through which eventsstill took on a transfiguring colour. he found the "domicile"that very day: a tawdrily furnished rez-de-chaussee, obviouslydestined to far different uses. and as he sat there, after theconcierge had discreetly withdrawn with the first quarter'spayment in her pocket, and stared about him at the vulgar plushyplace, he burst out laughing at what it was about to figure inthe eyes of the law: a home, and a home desecrated by his ownact! the home in which he and susy had reared their precariousbliss, and seen it crumble at the brutal touch of hisunfaithfulness and his cruelty--for he had been told that hemust be cruel to her as well as unfaithful! he looked at thewalls hung with sentimental photogravures, at the shiny bronze"nudes," the moth-eaten animal-skins and the bedizened bed-andonce more the unreality, the impossibility, of all that washappening to him entered like a drug into his veins.
to rouse himself he stood up, turned the key on the hideousplace, and returned to his lawyer's. he knew that in the harddry atmosphere of the office the act of giving the address ofthe flat would restore some kind of reality to the phantasmaltransaction. and with wonder he watched the lawyer, as a matterof course, pencil the street and the number on one of the papersenclosed in a folder on which his own name was elaboratelyengrossed.
as he took leave it occurred to him to ask where susy wasliving. at least he imagined that it had just occurred to him,and that he was making the enquiry merely as a measure ofprecaution, in order to know what quarter of paris to avoid; butin reality the question had been on his lips since he had firstentered the office, and lurking in his mind since he had emergedfrom the railway station that morning. the fact of not knowingwhere she lived made the whole of paris a meaninglessunintelligible place, as useless to him as the face of a hugeclock that has lost its hour hand.
the address in passy surprised him: he had imagined that shewould be somewhere in the neighborhood of the champs elysees orthe place de l'etoile. but probably either mrs. melrose orellie vanderlyn had taken a house at passy. well--it wassomething of a relief to know that she was so far off. nobusiness called him to that almost suburban region beyond thetrocadero, and there was much less chance of meeting her than ifshe had been in the centre of paris.
all day he wandered, avoiding the fashionable quarters, thestreets in which private motors glittered five deep, and furredand feathered silhouettes glided from them into tea-rooms,picture-galleries and jewellers' shops. in some such scenessusy was no doubt figuring: slenderer, finer, vivider, than theother images of clay, but imitating their gestures, chatteringtheir jargon, winding her hand among the same pearls and sables.
he struck away across the seine, along the quays to the cite,the net-work of old paris, the great grey vaults of st.
eustache, the swarming streets of the marais. he gazed atmonuments dawdled before shop-windows, sat in squares and onquays, watching people bargain, argue, philander, quarrel, work-girls stroll past in linked bands, beggars whine on the bridges,derelicts doze in the pale winter sun, mothers in mourninghasten by taking children to school, and street-walkers beattheir weary rounds before the cafes.
the day drifted on. toward evening he began to grow afraid ofhis solitude, and to think of dining at the nouveau luxe, orsome other fashionable restaurant where he would be fairly sureto meet acquaintances, and be carried off to a theatre, a boiteor a dancing-hall. anything, anything now, to get away from themaddening round of his thoughts. he felt the same blank fear ofsolitude as months ago in genoa .... even if he were to runacross susy and altringham, what of it? better get the jobover. people had long since ceased to take on tragedy airsabout divorce: dividing couples dined together to the last, andmet afterward in each other's houses, happy in the consciousnessthat their respective remarriages had provided two new centresof entertainment. yet most of the couples who took their re-matings so philosophically had doubtless had their hour ofenchantment, of belief in the immortality of loving; whereas heand susy had simply and frankly entered into a business contractfor their mutual advantage. the fact gave the last touch ofincongruity to his agonies and exaltations, and made him appearto himself as grotesque and superannuated as the hero of aromantic novel.
he stood up from a bench on which he had been lounging in theluxembourg gardens, and hailed a taxi. dusk had fallen, and hemeant to go back to his hotel, take a rest, and then go out todine. but instead, he threw susy's address to the driver, andsettled down in the cab, resting both hands on the knob of hisumbrella and staring straight ahead of him as if he wereaccomplishing some tiresome duty that had to be got through withbefore he could turn his mind to more important things.
"it's the easiest way," he heard himself say.
at the street-corner--her street-corner--he stopped the cab, andstood motionless while it rattled away. it was a short vaguestreet, much farther off than he had expected, and fading awayat the farther end in a dusky blur of hoardings overhung bytrees. a thin rain was beginning to fall, and it was alreadynight in this inadequately lit suburban quarter. lansing walkeddown the empty street. the houses stood a few yards apart, withbare-twigged shrubs between, and gates and railings dividingthem from the pavement. he could not, at first, distinguishtheir numbers; but presently, coming abreast of a street-lamp,he discovered that the small shabby facade it illuminated wasprecisely the one he sought. the discovery surprised him. hehad imagined that, as frequently happened in the outlyingquarters of passy and la muette, the mean street would lead to astately private hotel, built upon some bowery fragment of an oldcountry-place. it was the latest whim of the wealthy toestablish themselves on these outskirts of paris, where therewas still space for verdure; and he had pictured susy behindsome pillared house-front, with lights pouring across glossyturf to sculptured gateposts. instead, he saw a six-windowedhouse, huddled among neighbours of its kind, with the familywash fluttering between meagre bushes. the arc-light beatironically on its front, which had the worn look of a tiredwork-woman's face; and lansing, as he leaned against theopposite railing, vainly tried to fit his vision of susy into sohumble a setting.
the probable explanation was that his lawyer had given him thewrong address; not only the wrong number but the wrong street.
he pulled out the slip of paper, and was crossing over todecipher it under the lamp, when an errand-boy appeared out ofthe obscurity, and approached the house. nick drew back, andthe boy, unlatching the gate, ran up the steps and gave the bella pull.
almost immediately the door opened; and there stood susy, thelight full upon her, and upon a red-checked child against hershoulder. the space behind them was dark, or so dimly lit thatit formed a black background to her vivid figure. she looked atthe errand-boy without surprise, took his parcel, and after hehad turned away, lingered a moment in the door, glancing downthe empty street.
that moment, to her watcher, seemed quicker than a flash yet aslong as a life-time. there she was, a stone's throw away, bututterly unconscious of his presence: his susy, the old susy,and yet a new susy, curiously transformed, transfigured almost,by the new attitude in which he beheld her.
in the first shock of the vision he forgot his surprise at herbeing in such a place, forgot to wonder whose house she was in,or whose was the sleepy child in her arms. for an instant shestood out from the blackness behind her, and through the veil ofthe winter night, a thing apart, an unconditioned vision, theeternal image of the woman and the child; and in that instanteverything within him was changed and renewed. his eyes werestill absorbing her, finding again the familiar curves of herlight body, noting the thinness of the lifted arm that upheldthe little boy, the droop of the shoulder he weighed on, thebrooding way in which her cheek leaned to his even while shelooked away; then she drew back, the door closed, and thestreet-lamp again shone on blankness.
"but she's mine!" nick cried, in a fierce triumph ofrecovery ...
his eyes were so full of her that he shut them to hold in thecrowding vision.
it remained with him, at first, as a complete picture; thengradually it broke up into its component parts, the childvanished, the strange house vanished, and susy alone stoodbefore him, his own susy, only his susy, yet changed, worn,tempered--older, even--with sharper shadows under the cheek-bones, the brows drawn, the joint of the slim wrist moreprominent. it was not thus that his memory had evoked her, andhe recalled, with a remorseful pang, the fact that something inher look, her dress, her tired and drooping attitude, suggestedpoverty, dependence, seemed to make her after all a part of theshabby house in which, at first sight, her presence had seemedso incongruous.
"but she looks poor!" he thought, his heart tightening. andinstantly it occurred to him that these must be the fulmerchildren whom she was living with while their parents travelledin italy. rumours of nat fulmer's sudden ascension had reachedhim, and he had heard that the couple had lately been seen innaples and palermo. no one had mentioned susy's name inconnection with them, and he could hardly tell why he hadarrived at this conclusion, except perhaps because it seemednatural that, if susy were in trouble, she should turn to herold friend grace.
but why in trouble? what trouble? what could have happened tocheck her triumphant career?
"that's what i mean to find out!" he exclaimed.
his heart was beating with a tumult of new hopes and oldmemories. the sight of his wife, so remote in mien and mannerfrom the world in which he had imagined her to be re-absorbed,changed in a flash his own relation to life, and flung a mist ofunreality over all that he had been trying to think most solidand tangible. nothing now was substantial to him but the stonesof the street in which he stood, the front of the house whichhid her, the bell-handle he already felt in his grasp. hestarted forward, and was halfway to the threshold when a privatemotor turned the corner, the twin glitter of its lamps carpetingthe wet street with gold to susy's door.
lansing drew back into the shadow as the motor swept up to thehouse. a man jumped out, and the light fell on strefford'sshambling figure, its lazy disjointed movements so unmistakablythe same under his fur coat, and in the new setting ofprosperity.
lansing stood motionless, staring at the door. strefford rang,and waited. would susy appear again? perhaps she had done sobefore only because she had been on the watch ....
but no: after a slight delay a bonne appeared --the breathlessmaid-of-all-work of a busy household--and at once effacedherself, letting the visitor in. lansing was sure that not aword passed between the two, of enquiry on lord altringham'spart, or of acquiescence on the servant's. there could be nodoubt that he was expected.
the door closed on him, and a light appeared behind the blind ofthe adjoining window. the maid had shown the visitor into thesitting-room and lit the lamp. upstairs, meanwhile, susy was nodoubt running skilful fingers through her tumbled hair anddaubing her pale lips with red. ah, how lansing knew everymovement of that familiar rite, even to the pucker of the browand the pouting thrust-out of the lower lip! he was seized witha sense of physical sickness as the succession of rememberedgestures pressed upon his eyes .... and the other man? theother man, inside the house, was perhaps at that very instantsmiling over the remembrance of the same scene!
at the thought, lansing plunged away into the night.
