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They heard Strefford's shrill voice on the stairs. "Ellie, where the deuce are you? Susy's in the gondola. You'll miss the train!" Lansing stood up and caught Mrs. Vanderlyn by the wrist. "What do you mean? What are you talking about?" "Oh, nothing... But you were both such bricks about the letters.... And when Nelson was here, too.... Nick, don't hurt my wrist so! I must run!"
Susy, bareheaded and laughing, a light scarf slipping from her bare shoulders, a cigarette between her fingers, took Strefford's arm and turned in the direction of Florian's, with Gillow, the Prince and young Breckenridge in her wake.... Nick had relived this rapid scene hundreds of times during his hours in the train and his aimless trampings through the streets of Genoa.
She flushed to the temples, remembering that Nick had; and the remembrance made Strefford's sneering philosophy seem less unbearable. Why should she not lunch with him, after all? In the first days of his mourning he had come to Paris expressly to see her, and to offer her one of the oldest names and one of the greatest fortunes in England.
Everybody Strefford's everybody and Susy's was sure to be there; and these, as she knew, were the occasions that revived Strefford's intermittent interest in art. He really liked picture shows as much as the races, if one could be sure of seeing as many people there. With Nick how different it would have been!
And what irony in that double turn of the wheel which, in one day, had plunged him, Nick Lansing, into nethermost misery, while it tossed the other to the stars! With an intenser precision he saw again Susy's descent from the gondola at the calle steps, the sound of her laughter and of Strefford's chaff, the way she had caught his arm and clung to it, sweeping the other men on in her train.
The mere fact that he was engaged on a philosophic romance, and not a mere novel, seemed the proof of an intrinsic superiority. And if she had mistrusted her impartiality Strefford's approval would have reassured her. Among their friends Strefford passed as an authority on such matters: in summing him up his eulogists always added: "And you know he writes."
Perhaps that was what Strefford's sharply narrowed eyes were seeing now, that same illimitable distance that she had lost forever perhaps he was saying to himself, as she had said to herself when her lips left Nick's: "Each time we kiss we shall see it all again...." Whereas all she herself had felt was the gasping recoil from Strefford's touch, and an intenser vision of the sordid room in which he and she sat, and of their two selves, more distant from each other than if their embrace had been a sudden thrusting apart....
But since then she had spoken the language of real love, looked with its eyes, embraced with its hands; and now the other trumpery art had failed her, and she was conscious of bungling and groping like a beginner under Strefford's ironic scrutiny. They had reached their obscure destination and he opened the door and glanced in. "It's jammed not a table. And stifling! Where shall we go?
Hicks's letter in the mail awaiting him at Venice. The day was associated in his mind with the ridiculous and mortifying episode of the cigars the expensive cigars that Susy had wanted to carry away from Strefford's villa. Their brief exchange of views on the subject had left the first blur on the perfect surface of his happiness, and he still felt an uncomfortable heat at the remembrance.
The maid stood looking at her with a puzzled gaze, and Susy somewhat sharply repeated her order. "But don't wake him on purpose," she added, foreseeing the probable effect on Strefford's temper. "But, signora, the gentleman is already out." "Already out?" Strefford, who could hardly be routed from his bed before luncheon-time! "Is it so late?" Susy cried, incredulous. "After nine.
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