Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 4, 2025
She had always admired Strefford's ruthless talent for using and discarding the human material in his path, but now she began to hope that Nick would not remember her suggestion that he should mete out that measure to the Hickses.
She understood that he had snatched the time for this hasty trip solely in the hope of seeing her, and her eyes filled. The more bitterly she thought of Nick the more this proof of Strefford's friendship moved her. The clock, to her relief, reminded her that it was time to dress for dinner.
Nick hated openings and varnishing days, and worldly aesthetics in general; he would have waited till the tide of fashion had ebbed, and slipped off with Susy to see the pictures some morning when they were sure to have the place to themselves. But Susy divined that there was another reason for Strefford's suggestion.
A few days later she began to wonder how the thought of Strefford's endearments could have been so alarming. To be sure he was not lavish of them; but when he did touch her, even when he kissed her, it no longer seemed to matter. An almost complete absence of sensation had mercifully succeeded to the first wild flurry of her nerves.
She saw now that her idea of a divorce had been that it was something one went out or sent out to buy in a shop: something concrete and portable, that Strefford's money could pay for, and that it required no personal participation to obtain. What a fool the lawyer must think her! Stiffening herself, she rose from her seat.
She had never before known children who cared to be read aloud to; she remembered with a shiver her attempts to interest Clarissa in anything but gossip and the fashions, and the tone in which the child had said, showing Strefford's trinket to her father: "Because I said I'd rather have it than a book."
The moment prolonged itself, and they sat numb. How long had it lasted? How long ago was it that she had thought: "It's going to be easier than I imagined"? Suddenly she felt Strefford's queer smile upon her, and saw in his eyes a look, not of reproach or disappointment, but of deep and anxious comprehension. Instead of being angry or hurt, he had seen, he had understood, he was sorry for her!
She was not afraid that the discovery would diminish her in Strefford's eyes: he was untroubled by moral problems, and would laugh away her avowal, with a sneer at Nick in his new part of moralist. But that was just what she could not bear: that anyone should cast a doubt on the genuineness of Nick's standards, or should know how far below them she had fallen.
"Lord!" grasped Gillow, inarticulate: while the Prince displayed the unsurprised smile which Susy accused him of practicing every morning with his Mueller exercises. Suddenly Susy felt Strefford's eyes upon her. "What's the matter with me? Too much rouge?" she asked, passing her arm in his as they left the table. "No: too little. Look at yourself," he answered in a low tone.
Ursula was running amuck when I was in Newport last Summer; it was just when people were beginning to say that you were going to marry Nick. I was afraid she'd put a spoke in your wheel; and I hear she put a big cheque in your hand instead." Susy was silent. From the first moment of Strefford's appearance she had known that in the course of time he would put that question.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking