susy and lord altringham sat in the little drawing-room, dividedfrom each other by a table carrying a smoky lamp and heaped withtattered school-books.
in another half hour the bonne, despatched to fetch the childrenfrom their classes, would be back with her flock; and at anymoment geordie's imperious cries might summon his slave up tothe nursery. in the scant time allotted them, the two sat, andvisibly wondered what to say.
strefford, on entering, had glanced about the dreary room, withits piano laden with tattered music, the children's toyslittering the lame sofa, the bunches of dyed grass and impaledbutterflies flanking the cast-bronze clock. then he had turnedto susy and asked simply: "why on earth are you here?"she had not tried to explain; from the first, she had understoodthe impossibility of doing so. and she would not betray hersecret longing to return to nick, now that she knew that nickhad taken definite steps for his release. in dread leststrefford should have heard of this, and should announce it toher, coupling it with the news of nick's projected marriage, andlest, hearing her fears thus substantiated, she should lose herself-control, she had preferred to say, in a voice that shetried to make indifferent: "the 'proceedings,' or whatever thelawyers call them, have begun. while they're going on i like tostay quite by myself .... i don't know why ...."strefford, at that, had looked at her keenly. "ah," hemurmured; and his lips were twisted into their old mockingsmile. "speaking of proceedings," he went on carelessly, "whatstage have ellie's reached, i wonder? i saw her and vanderlynand bockheimer all lunching cheerfully together to-day atlarue's."the blood rushed to susy's forehead. she remembered her tragicevening with nelson vanderlyn, only two months earlier, andthought to herself. "in time, then, i suppose, nick and i ....
aloud she said: "i can't imagine how nelson and ellie can everwant to see each other again. and in a restaurant, of allplaces!"strefford continued to smile. "my dear, you're incorrigiblyold-fashioned. why should two people who've done each other thebest turn they could by getting out of each other's way at theright moment behave like sworn enemies ever afterward? it's tooabsurd; the humbug's too flagrant. whatever our generation hasfailed to do, it's got rid of humbug; and that's enough toimmortalize it. i daresay nelson and ellie never liked eachother better than they do to-day. twenty years ago, they'd havebeen afraid to confess it; but why shouldn't they now?"susy looked at strefford, conscious that under his words was theache of the disappointment she had caused him; and yet consciousalso that that very ache was not the overwhelming penetratingemotion he perhaps wished it to be, but a pang on a par with adozen others; and that even while he felt it he foresaw the daywhen he should cease to feel it. and she thought to herselfthat this certainty of oblivion must be bitterer than anycertainty of pain.
a silence had fallen between them. he broke it by rising fromhis seat, and saying with a shrug: "you'll end by driving me tomarry joan senechal."susy smiled. "well, why not? she's lovely.""yes; but she'll bore me.""poor streff! so should i--""perhaps. but nothing like as soon--" he grinned sardonically.
"there'd be more margin." he appeared to wait for her to speak.
"and what else on earth are you going to do?" he concluded, asshe still remained silent.
"oh, streff, i couldn't marry you for a reason like that!" shemurmured at length.
"then marry me, and find your reason afterward."her lips made a movement of denial, and still in silence sheheld out her hand for good-bye. he clasped it, and then turnedaway; but on the threshold he paused, his screwed-up eyes fixedon her wistfully.
the look moved her, and she added hurriedly: "the only reason ican find is one for not marrying you. it's because i can't yetfeel unmarried enough.""unmarried enough? but i thought nick was doing his best tomake you feel that.""yes. but even when he has--sometimes i think even that won'tmake any difference."he still scrutinized her hesitatingly, with the gravest eyes shehad ever seen in his careless face.
"my dear, that's rather the way i feel about you," he saidsimply as he turned to go.
that evening after the children had gone to bed susy sat up latein the cheerless sitting-room. she was not thinking ofstrefford but of nick. he was coming to paris--perhaps he hadalready arrived. the idea that he might be in the same placewith her at that very moment, and without her knowing it, was sostrange and painful that she felt a violent revolt of all herstrong and joy-loving youth. why should she go on suffering sounbearably, so abjectly, so miserably? if only she could seehim, hear his voice, even hear him say again such cruel andhumiliating words as he had spoken on that dreadful day invenice when that would be better than this blankness, this utterand final exclusion from his life! he had been cruel to her,unimaginably cruel: hard, arrogant, unjust; and had been so,perhaps, deliberately, because he already wanted to be free.
but she was ready to face even that possibility, to humbleherself still farther than he had humbled her--she was ready todo anything, if only she might see him once again.
she leaned her aching head on her hands and pondered. doanything? but what could she do? nothing that should hurt him,interfere with his liberty, be false to the spirit of theirpact: on that she was more than ever resolved. she had made abargain, and she meant to stick to it, not for any abstractreason, but simply because she happened to love him in that way.
yes--but to see him again, only once!
suddenly she remembered what strefford had said about nelsonvanderlyn and his wife. "why should two people who've just doneeach other the best turn they could behave like sworn enemiesever after?" if in offering nick his freedom she had indeeddone him such a service as that, perhaps he no longer hated her,would no longer be unwilling to see her .... at any rate, whyshould she not write to him on that assumption, write in aspirit of simple friendliness, suggesting that they should meetand "settle things"? the business-like word "settle" (how shehated it) would prove to him that she had no secret designs uponhis liberty; and besides he was too unprejudiced, too modern,too free from what strefford called humbug, not to understandand accept such a suggestion. after all, perhaps strefford wasright; it was something to have rid human relations ofhypocrisy, even if, in the process, so many exquisite thingsseemed somehow to have been torn away with it ....
she ran up to her room, scribbled a note, and hurried with itthrough the rain and darkness to the post-box at the corner. asshe returned through the empty street she had an odd feelingthat it was not empty--that perhaps nick was already there,somewhere near her in the night, about to follow her to thedoor, enter the house, go up with her to her bedroom in the oldway. it was strange how close he had been brought by the merefact of her having written that little note to him!
in the bedroom, geordie lay in his crib in ruddy slumber, andshe blew out the candle and undressed softly for fear of wakinghim.
nick lansing, the next day, received susy's letter, transmittedto his hotel from the lawyer's office.
he read it carefully, two or three times over, weighing andscrutinizing the guarded words. she proposed that they shouldmeet to "settle things." what things? and why should he accedeto such a request? what secret purpose had prompted her? itwas horrible that nowadays, in thinking of susy, he shouldalways suspect ulterior motives, be meanly on the watch for somehidden tortuousness. what on earth was she trying to "manage"now, he wondered.
a few hours ago, at the sight of her, all his hardness hadmelted, and he had charged himself with cruelty, with injustice,with every sin of pride against himself and her; but theappearance of strefford, arriving at that late hour, and soevidently expected and welcomed, had driven back the rising tideof tenderness.
yet, after all, what was there to wonder at? nothing waschanged in their respective situations. he had left his wife,deliberately, and for reasons which no subsequent experience hadcaused him to modify. she had apparently acquiesced in hisdecision, and had utilized it, as she was justified in doing, toassure her own future.
in all this, what was there to wail or knock the breast betweentwo people who prided themselves on looking facts in the face,and making their grim best of them, without vain repinings? hehad been right in thinking their marriage an act of madness.
her charms had overruled his judgment, and they had had theiryear ... their mad year ... or at least all but two or threemonths of it. but his first intuition had been right; and nowthey must both pay for their madness. the fates seldom forgetthe bargains made with them, or fail to ask for compoundinterest. why not, then, now that the time had come, pay upgallantly, and remember of the episode only what had made itseem so supremely worth the cost?
he sent a pneumatic telegram to mrs. nicholas lansing to saythat he would call on her that afternoon at four. "that oughtto give us time," he reflected drily, "to 'settle things,' asshe calls it, without interfering with strefford's afternoonvisit."
