United States or Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And the letter was not cruel: there were tender things in it, showing through the curt words. She smiled at herself a little stiffly in the glass, put a dash of red on her colourless lips, and rang for the maid. "Coffee, Giovanna, please; and will you tell Mr. Strefford that I should like to see him presently."
Strefford vetoed the Lido, on the ground that he'd just come back from there, and proposed that they should go out on foot for a change. "Why not? What fun!" Susy was up in an instant. "Let's pay somebody a surprise visit I don't know who! Streffy, Prince, can't you think of somebody who'd be particularly annoyed by our arrival?" "Oh, the list's too long.
Yet his mind dwelt on Coral with tenderness, with compunction, with remorse; and he was almost sure that Susy had already put Strefford utterly out of her mind.
Before it had been discovered in the depths of the gondola they had reached the station, and there was just time to thrust her into her "sleeper," from which she was seen to wave an unperturbed farewell to her friends. "Well, my dear, we've been it through," Strefford remarked with a deep breath as the St. Moritz express rolled away.
She remained silent, and Strefford, after a moment, drew her gently down to the seat beside him. "Susy, 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 villa 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!
They did not even suggest that Strefford or Nick should be of the party, or that any of the other young men of the group should be summoned; as Susy said, Nelson wanted to go off alone with his harem. And Lansing and Strefford were left to watch the departure of the happy Pasha ensconced between attentive beauties. "Well that's what you call being married!"
It was not that her own feelings were in any like measure engaged; but because, as the decision to give up Strefford affirmed itself, she remembered only his kindness, his forbearance, his good humour, and all the other qualities she had always liked in him; and because she felt ashamed of the hesitations which must cause him so much pain and humiliation. Yes: humiliation chiefly.
She looked so strong and so assured that Susy, taking her measure in a flash, saw that her position at the head of the procession was not fortuitous, and murmured inwardly: "Thank goodness she's not pretty too!" If she was not pretty, she was well-dressed; and if she was overeducated, she seemed capable, as Strefford had suggested, of carrying off even this crowning disadvantage.
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 Susy not let every one know that she meant to marry Strefford as soon as the "formalities" were fulfilled? She did not immediately answer Mrs.
The sense of it gave Susy the grace to answer amicably: "If I could possibly help you out, Violet, I shouldn't want a present to persuade me. And, as you say, there's no reason why I should sacrifice myself to Ursula or to anybody else. Only, as it happens" she paused and took the plunge "I'm going to England because I've promised to see a friend." That night she wrote to Strefford.
Word Of The Day