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In dread lest Strefford should have heard of this, and should announce it to her, coupling it with the news of Nick's projected marriage, and lest, hearing her fears thus substantiated, she should lose her self-control, she had preferred to say, in a voice that she tried to make indifferent: "The 'proceedings, or whatever the lawyers call them, have begun.
Susy still wavered; but, after all, if Strefford were really bound for Ruan, 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?
The blood rushed to Susy's forehead. She remembered her tragic evening with Nelson Vanderlyn, only two months earlier, and thought to herself. "In time, then, I suppose, Nick and I...." Aloud she said: "I can't imagine how Nelson and Ellie can ever want to see each other again. And in a restaurant, of all places!" Strefford continued to smile. "My dear, you're incorrigibly old-fashioned.
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.
He wandered away to his own room, leaving Strefford to philosophize to his pipe. Lansing had always known about poor old Nelson: who hadn't, except poor old Nelson? The case had once seemed amusing because so typical; now, it rather irritated Nick that Vanderlyn should be so complete an ass.
Susy, that evening, at the head of the dinner table, saw in the breaks between her scudding thoughts the nauseatingly familiar faces of the people she called her friends: Strefford, Fred Gillow, a giggling fool of a young Breckenridge, of their New York group, who had arrived that day, and Prince Nerone Altineri, Ursula's Prince, who, in Ursula's absence at a tiresome cure, had, quite simply and naturally, preferred to join her husband at Venice.
I must wait " "Oh, naturally. Don't do anything in a hurry." Strefford also glanced at his watch. "Garcon, l'addition! I'm taking the train back to-night, and I've a lot of things left to do. But look here, my dear when you come to a decision one way or the other let me know, will you? Oh, I don't mean in the matter I've most at heart; we'll consider that closed for the present.
I'm not going to marry Strefford after all!" but to do so would seem like an appeal to his compassion, to his indulgence; and that was not what she wanted. She could never forget that he had left her because he had not been able to forgive her for "managing" and not for the world would she have him think that this meeting had been planned for such a purpose.
That evening after the children had gone to bed Susy sat up late in the cheerless sitting-room. She was not thinking of Strefford but of Nick. He was coming to Paris perhaps he had already arrived. The idea that he might be in the same place with her at that very moment, and without her knowing it, was so strange and painful that she felt a violent revolt of all her strong and joy-loving youth.
Vanderlyn instructed her child to be awfully good, and not to forget to feed the mongoose. Susy noticed that this missive had been posted in Milan. She communicated her apprehensions to Strefford. "I don't trust that green-eyed nurse. She's forever with the younger gondolier; and Clarissa's so awfully sharp. I don't see why Ellie hasn't come: she was due last Monday."
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