V.
IT was a trifling enough sign, but it had remained in Susy's mind: thatfirst morning in Venice Nick had gone out without first coming in to seeher. She had stayed in bed late, chatting with Clarissa, and expectingto see the door open and her husband appear; and when the child left,and she had jumped up and looked into Nick's room, she found it empty,and a line on his dressing table informed her that he had gone out tosend a telegram.
It was lover-like, and even boyish, of him to think it necessary toexplain his absence; but why had he not simply come in and told her! Sheinstinctively connected the little fact with the shade of preoccupationshe had noticed on his face the night before, when she had gone to hisroom and found him absorbed in letter; and while she dressed she hadcontinued to wonder what was in the letter, and whether the telegram hehad hurried out to send was an answer to it.
She had never found out. When he reappeared, handsome and happy as themorning, he proffered no explanation; and it was part of her life-longpolicy not to put uncalled-for questions. It was not only that herjealous regard for her own freedom was matched by an equal respect forthat of others; she had steered too long among the social reefs andshoals not to know how narrow is the passage that leads to peace ofmind, and she was determined to keep her little craft in mid-channel.But the incident had lodged itself in her memory, acquiring a sort ofsymbolic significance, as of a turning-point in her relations with herhusband. Not that these were less happy, but that she now beheld them,as she had always formerly beheld such joys, as an unstable islet ina sea of storms. Her present bliss was as complete as ever, but it wasringed by the perpetual menace of all she knew she was hiding from Nick,and of all she suspected him of hiding from her....
She was thinking of these things one afternoon about three weeks aftertheir arrival in Venice. It was near sunset, and she sat alone on thebalcony, watching the cross-lights on the water weave their patternabove the flushed reflection of old palace-basements. She wasalmost always alone at that hour. Nick had taken to writing in theafternoons--he had been as good as his word, and so, apparently, had theMuse and it was his habit to join his wife only at sunset, for a laterow on the lagoon. She had taken Clarissa, as usual, to the GiardinoPubblico, where that obliging child had politely but indifferently"played"--Clarissa joined in the diversions of her age as if conformingto an obsolete tradition--and had brought her back for a music lesson,echoes of which now drifted down from a distant window.
Susy had come to be extremely thankful for Clarissa. But for the littlegirl, her pride in her husband's industry might have been tinged witha faint sense of being at times left out and forgotten; and as Nick'sindustry was the completest justification for their being where theywere, and for her having done what she had, she was grateful to Clarissafor helping her to feel less alone. Clarissa, indeed, represented theother half of her justification: it was as much on the child's accountas on Nick's that Susy had held her tongue, remained in Venice, andslipped out once a week to post one of Ellie's numbered letters. Aday's experience of the Palazzo Vanderlyn had convinced Susy of theimpossibility of deserting Clarissa. Long experience had shown her thatthe most crowded households often contain the loneliest nurseries,and that the rich child is exposed to evils unknown to less pamperedinfancy; but hitherto such things had merely been to her one of theuglier bits in the big muddled pattern of life. Now she found herselffeeling where before she had only judged: her precarious bliss came toher charged with a new weight of pity.
She was thinking of these things, and of the approaching date of EllieVanderlyn's return, and of the searching truths she was storing up forthat lady's private ear, when she noticed a gondola turning itsprow toward the steps below the balcony. She leaned over, and a tallgentleman in shabby clothes, glancing up at her as he jumped out, waveda mouldy Panama in joyful greeting.
"Streffy!" she exclaimed as joyfully; and she was half-way down thestairs when he ran up them followed by his luggage-laden boatman.
"It's all right, I suppose?--Ellie said I might come," he explained ina shrill cheerful voice; "and I'm to have my same green room with theparrot-panels, because its furniture is already so frightfully stainedwith my hair-wash."
Susy was beaming on him with the deep sense of satisfaction which hispresence always produced in his friends. There was no one in the world,they all agreed, half as ugly and untidy and delightful as Streffy; noone who combined such outspoken selfishness with such imperturbable goodhumour; no one who knew so well how to make you believe he was beingcharming to you when it was you who were being charming to him.
In addition to these seductions, of which none estimated the valuemore accurately than their possessor, Strefford had for Susy anotherattraction of which he was probably unconscious. It was that of beingthe one rooted and stable being among the fluid and shifting figuresthat composed her world. Susy had always lived among people sodenationalized that those one took for Russians generally turned out tobe American, and those one was inclined to ascribe to New York proved tohave originated in Rome or Bucharest. These cosmopolitan people, who, incountries not their own, lived in houses as big as hotels, or inhotels where the guests were as international as the waiters, hadinter-married, inter-loved and inter-divorced each other over the wholeface of Europe, and according to every code that attempts to regulatehuman ties. Strefford, too, had his home in this world, but only oneof his homes. The other, the one he spoke of, and probably thoughtof, least often, was a great dull English country-house in a northerncounty, where a life as monotonous and self-contained as his own waschequered and dispersed had gone on for generation after generation;and it was the sense of that house, and of all it typified even to hisvagrancy and irreverence, which, coming out now and then in his talk, orin his attitude toward something or somebody, gave him a firmeroutline and a steadier footing than the other marionettes in the dance.Superficially so like them all, and so eager to outdo them in detachmentand adaptability, ridiculing the prejudices he had shaken off, and thepeople to whom he belonged, he still kept, under his easy pliancy, theskeleton of old faiths and old fashions. "He talks every language aswell as the rest of us," Susy had once said of him, "but at least hetalks one language better than the others"; and Strefford, told of theremark, had laughed, called her an idiot, and been pleased.
As he shambled up the stairs with her, arm in arm, she was thinking ofthis quality with a new appreciation of its value. Even she and Lansing,in spite of their unmixed Americanism, their substantial background ofold-fashioned cousinships in New York and Philadelphia, were asmentally detached, as universally at home, as touts at an InternationalExhibition. If they were usually recognized as Americans it was onlybecause they spoke French so well, and because Nick was too fair to be"foreign," and too sharp-featured to be English. But Charlie Streffordwas English with all the strength of an inveterate habit; and somethingin Susy was slowly waking to a sense of the beauty of habit.
Lounging on the balcony, whither he had followed her without pausingto remove the stains of travel, Strefford showed himself immenselyinterested in the last chapter of her history, greatly pleased at itshaving been enacted under his roof, and hugely and flippantly amusedat the firmness with which she refused to let him see Nick till thelatter's daily task was over.
"Writing? Rot! What's he writing? He's breaking you in, my dear; that'swhat he's doing: establishing an alibi. What'll you bet he's justsitting there smoking and reading Le Rire? Let's go and see."
But Susy was firm. "He's read me his first chapter: it's wonderful. It'sa philosophic romance--rather like Marius, you know."
"Oh, yes--I do!" said Strefford, with a laugh that she thought idiotic.
She flushed up like a child. "You're stupid, Streffy. You forget thatNick and I don't need alibis. We've got rid of all that hyprocrisy byagreeing that each will give the other a hand up when either of us wantsa change. We've not married to spy and lie, and nag each other; we'veformed a partnership for our mutual advantage."
"I see; that's cap
ital. But how can you be sure that, when Nick wants achange, you'll consider it for his advantage to have one?"
It was the point that had always secretly tormented Susy; she oftenwondered if it equally tormented Nick.
"I hope I shall have enough common sense--" she began.
"Oh, of course: common sense is what you're both bound to base yourargument on, whichever way you argue."
This flash of insight disconcerted her, and she said, a littleirritably: "What should you do then, if you married?--Hush, Streffy! Iforbid you to shout like that--all the gondolas are stopping to look!"
"How can I help it?" He rocked backward and forward in his chair. "'Ifyou marry,' she says: 'Streffy, what have you decided to do if yousuddenly become a raving maniac?'"
"I said no such thing. If your uncle and your cousin died, you'd marryto-morrow; you know you would."
"Oh, now you're talking business." He folded his long arms and leanedover the balcony, looking down at the dusky ripples streaked with fire."In that case I should say: 'Susan, my dear--Susan--now that bythe merciful intervention of Providence you have become Countess ofAltringham in the peerage of Great Britain, and Baroness Dunstervilleand d'Amblay in the peerages of Ireland and Scotland, I'll thank you toremember that you are a member of one of the most ancient houses in theUnited Kingdom--and not to get found out.'"
Susy laughed. "We know what those warnings mean! I pity my namesake."
He swung about and gave her a quick look out of his small ugly twinklingeyes. "Is there any other woman in the world named Susan?"
"I hope so, if the name's an essential. Even if Nick chucks me, don'tcount on me to carry out that programme. I've seen it in practice toooften."
"Oh, well: as far as I know, everybody's in perfect health atAltringham." He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a fountain pen,a handkerchief over which it had leaked, and a packet of dishevelledcigarettes. Lighting one, and restoring the other objects to his pocket,he continued calmly: "Tell me how did you manage to smooth things overwith the Gillows? Ursula was running amuck when I was in Newport lastSummer; it was just when people were beginning to say that you weregoing to marry Nick. I was afraid she'd put a spoke in your wheel; and Ihear she put a big cheque in your hand instead."
Susy was silent. From the first moment of Strefford's appearance she hadknown that in the course of time he would put that question. He was asinquisitive as a monkey, and when he had made up his mind to find outanything it was useless to try to divert his attention. After a moment'shesitation she said: "I flirted with Fred. It was a bore but he was verydecent."
"He would be--poor Fred. And you got Ursula thoroughly frightened!"
"Well--enough. And then luckily that young Nerone Altineri turned upfrom Rome: he went over to New York to look for a job as an engineer,and Ursula made Fred put him in their iron works." She paused again,and then added abruptly: "Streffy! If you knew how I hate that kind ofthing. I'd rather have Nick come in now and tell me frankly, as I knowhe would, that he's going off with--"
"With Coral Hicks?" Strefford suggested.
She laughed. "Poor Coral Hicks! What on earth made you think of theHickses?"
"Because I caught a glimpse of them the other day at Capri. They'recruising about: they said they were coming in here."
"What a nuisance! I do hope they won't find us out. They wereawfully kind to Nick when he went to India with them, and they're sosimple-minded that they would expect him to be glad to see them."
Strefford aimed his cigarette-end at a tourist on a puggaree who wasgazing up from his guidebook at the palace. "Ah," he murmured withsatisfaction, seeing the shot take effect; then he added: "Coral Hicksis growing up rather pretty."
"Oh, Streff--you're dreaming! That lump of a girl with spectacles andthick ankles! Poor Mrs. Hicks used to say to Nick: 'When Mr. Hicks andI had Coral educated we presumed culture was in greater demand in Europethan it appears to be.'"
"Well, you'll see: that girl's education won't interfere with her, onceshe's started. So then: if Nick came in and told you he was going off--"
"I should be so thankful if it was with a fright like Coral! But youknow," she added with a smile, "we've agreed that it's not to happen fora year."