The Glimpses of the Moon Part 20

She shook her head with a faint smile. "I'm so sorry, Ursula: of course I want awfully to oblige you--"

Mrs. Gillow's gaze grew reproachful. "I should have supposed you would,"

she murmured. Susy, meeting her eyes, looked into them down a long vista of favours bestowed, and perceived that Ursula was not the woman to forget on which side the obligation lay between them.

Susy hesitated: she remembered the weeks of ecstasy she had owed to the Gillows' wedding cheque, and it hurt her to appear ungrateful.

"If I could, Ursula... but really... I'm not free at the moment." She paused, and then took an abrupt decision. "The fact is, I'm waiting here to see Strefford."

"Strefford' Lord Altringham?" Ursula stared. "Ah, yes-I remember. You and he used to be great friends, didn't you?" Her roving attention deepened.... But if Susy were waiting to see Lord Altringham--one of the richest men in England! Suddenly Ursula opened her gold-meshed bag and s.n.a.t.c.hed a miniature diary from it.

"But wait a moment--yes, it is next week! I knew it was next week he's coming to Ruan! But, you darling, that makes everything all right.

You'll send him a wire at once, and come with me tomorrow, and meet him there instead of in this nasty sloppy desert.... Oh, Susy, if you knew how hard life is for me in Scotland between the Prince and Fred you couldn't possibly say no!"

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? She knew he would not be likely to postpone his visit to Ruan in order to linger in London with her: such concessions had never been his way, and were less than ever likely to be, now that he could do so thoroughly and completely as he pleased.

For the first time she fully understood how different his destiny had become. Now of course all his days and hours were mapped out in advance: invitations a.s.sailed him, opportunities pressed on him, he had only to choose.... And the women! She had never before thought of the women. All the girls in England would be wanting to marry him, not to mention her own enterprising compatriots. And there were the married women, who were even more to be feared. Streff might, for the time, escape marriage; though she could guess the power of persuasion, family pressure, all the converging traditional influences he had so often ridiculed, yet, as she knew, had never completely thrown off.... Yes, those quiet invisible women at Altringham-his uncle's widow, his mother, the spinster sisters--it was not impossible that, with tact and patience--and the stupidest women could be tactful and patient on such occasions--they might eventually persuade him that it was his duty, they might put just the right young loveliness in his way.... But meanwhile, now, at once, there were the married women. Ah, they wouldn't wait, they were doubtless laying their traps already! Susy s.h.i.+vered at the thought. She knew too much about the way the trick was done, had followed, too often, all the sinuosities of such approaches. Not that they were very sinuous nowadays: more often there was just a swoop and a pounce when the time came; but she knew all the arts and the wiles that led up to it. She knew them, oh, how she knew them--though with Streff, thank heaven, she had never been called upon to exercise them! His love was there for the asking: would she not be a fool to refuse it?

Perhaps; though on that point her mind still wavered. But at any rate she saw that, decidedly, it would be better to yield to Ursula's pressure; better to meet him at Ruan, in a congenial setting, where she would have time to get her bearings, observe what dangers threatened him, and make up her mind whether, after all, it was to be her mission to save him from the other women.

"Well, if you like, then, Ursula...."

"Oh, you angel, you! I'm so glad! We'll go to the nearest post office, and send off the wire ourselves."

As they got into the motor Mrs. Gillow seized Susy's arm with a pleading pressure. "And you will let Fred make love to you a little, won't you, darling?"

XVIII

"BUT I can't think," said Ellie Vanderlyn earnestly, "why you don't announce your engagement before waiting for your divorce. People are beginning to do it, I a.s.sure you--it's so much safer!"

Mrs. Vanderlyn, on the way back from St. Moritz to England, had paused in Paris to renew the depleted wardrobe which, only two months earlier, had filled so many trunks to bursting. Other ladies, flocking there from all points of the globe for the same purpose, disputed with her the Louis XVI suites of the Nouveau Luxe, the pink-candled tables in the restaurant, the hours for trying-on at the dressmakers'; and just because they were so many, and all feverishly fighting to get the same things at the same time, they were all excited, happy and at ease. It was the most momentous period of the year: the height of the "dress makers' season."

Mrs. Vanderlyn had run across Susy Lansing at one of the Rue de la Paix openings, where rows of ladies wan with heat and emotion sat for hours in rapt attention while spectral apparitions in incredible raiment tottered endlessly past them on aching feet.

Distracted from the regal splendours of a chinchilla cloak by the sense that another lady was also examining it, Mrs. Vanderlyn turned in surprise at sight of Susy, whose head was critically bent above the fur.

"Susy! I'd no idea you were here! I saw in the papers that you were with the Gillows." The customary embraces followed; then Mrs. Vanderlyn, her eyes pursuing the matchless cloak as it disappeared down a vista of receding mannequins, interrogated sharply: "Are you shopping for Ursula?

If you mean to order that cloak for her I'd rather know."

Susy smiled, and paused a moment before answering. During the pause she took in all the exquisite details of Ellie Vanderlyn's perpetually youthful person, from the plumed crown of her head to the perfect arch of her patent-leather shoes. At last she said quietly: "No--to-day I'm shopping for myself."

"Yourself? Yourself?" Mrs. Vanderlyn echoed with a stare of incredulity.

"Yes; just for a change," Susy serenely acknowledged.

"But the cloak--I meant the chinchilla cloak... the one with the ermine lining...."

"Yes; it is awfully good, isn't it? But I mean to look elsewhere before I decide."

Ah, how often she had heard her friends use that phrase; and how amusing it was, now, to see Ellie's amazement as she heard it tossed off in her own tone of contemptuous satiety! Susy was becoming more and more dependent on such diversions; without them her days, crowded as they were, would nevertheless have dragged by heavily. But it still amused her to go to the big dressmakers', watch the mannequins sweep by, and be seen by her friends superciliously examining all the most expensive dresses in the procession. She knew the rumour was abroad that she and Nick were to be divorced, and that Lord Altringham was "devoted" to her.

She neither confirmed nor denied the report: she just let herself be luxuriously carried forward on its easy tide. But although it was now three months since Nick had left the Palazzo Vanderlyn she had not yet written to him--nor he to her.

Meanwhile, in spite of all that she packed into them, the days pa.s.sed more and more slowly, and the excitements she had counted on no longer excited her. Strefford was hers: she knew that he would marry her as soon as she was free. They had been together at Ruan for ten days, and after that she had motored south with him, stopping on the way to see Altringham, from which, at the moment, his mourning relatives were absent.

At Altringham they had parted; and after one or two more visits in England she had come back to Paris, where he was now about to join her.

After her few hours at Altringham she had understood that he would wait for her as long as was necessary: the fear of the "other women" had ceased to trouble her. But, perhaps for that very reason, the future seemed less exciting than she had expected. Sometimes she thought it was the sight of that great house which had overwhelmed her: it was too vast, too venerable, too like a huge monument built of ancient territorial traditions and obligations. Perhaps it had been lived in for too long by too many serious-minded and conscientious women: somehow she could not picture it invaded by bridge and debts and adultery. And yet that was what would have to be, of course... she could hardly picture either Strefford or herself continuing there the life of heavy county responsibilities, dull parties, laborious duties, weekly church-going, and presiding over local committees.... What a pity they couldn't sell it and have a little house on the Thames!

Nevertheless she was not sorry to let it be known that Altringham was hers when she chose to take it. At times she wondered whether Nick knew... whether rumours had reached him. If they had, he had only his own letter to thank for it. He had told her what course to pursue; and she was pursuing it.

For a moment the meeting with Ellie Vanderlyn had been a shock to her; she had hoped never to see Ellie again. But now that they were actually face to face Susy perceived how dulled her sensibilities were. In a few moments she had grown used to Ellie, as she was growing used to everybody and to everything in the old life she had returned to. What was the use of making such a fuss about things? She and Mrs. Vanderlyn left the dress-maker's together, and after an absorbing session at a new milliner's were now taking tea in Ellie's drawing-room at the Nouveau Luxe.

Ellie, with her spoiled child's persistency, had come back to the question of the chinchilla cloak. It was the only one she had seen that she fancied in the very least, and as she hadn't a decent fur garment left to her name she was naturally in somewhat of a hurry... but, of course, if Susy had been choosing that model for a friend....

Susy, leaning back against her cus.h.i.+ons, examined through half-closed lids Mrs. Vanderlyn's small delicately-restored countenance, which wore the same expression of childish eagerness as when she discoursed of the young Davenant of the moment. Once again Susy remarked that, in Ellie's agitated existence, every interest appeared to be on exactly the same plane.

"The poor s.h.i.+vering dear," she answered laughing, "of course it shall have its nice warm winter cloak, and I'll choose another one instead."

"Oh, you darling, you! If you would! Of course, whoever you were ordering it for need never know...."

"Ah, you can't comfort yourself with that, I'm afraid. I've already told you that I was ordering it for myself." Susy paused to savour to the full Ellie's look of blank bewilderment; then her amus.e.m.e.nt was checked by an indefinable change in her friend's expression.

"Oh, dearest--seriously? I didn't know there was someone...."

Susy flushed to the forehead. A horror of humiliation overwhelmed her.

That Ellie should dare to think that of her--that anyone should dare to!

"Someone buying chinchilla cloaks for me? Thanks!" she flared out. "I suppose I ought to be glad that the idea didn't immediately occur to you. At least there was a decent interval of doubt...." She stood up, laughing again, and began to wander about the room. In the mirror above the mantel she caught sight of her flushed angry face, and of Mrs.

Vanderlyn's disconcerted stare. She turned toward her friend.

"I suppose everybody else will think it if you do; so perhaps I'd better explain." She paused, and drew a quick breath. "Nick and I mean to part--have parted, in fact. He's decided that the whole thing was a mistake. He will probably; marry again soon--and so shall I."

She flung the avowal out breathlessly, in her nervous dread of letting Ellie Vanderlyn think for an instant longer that any other explanation was conceivable. She had not meant to be so explicit; but once the words were spoken she was not altogether sorry. Of course people would soon begin to wonder why she was again straying about the world alone; and since it was by Nick's choice, why should she not say so? Remembering the burning anguish of those last hours in Venice she asked herself what possible consideration she owed to the man who had so humbled her.

Ellie Vanderlyn glanced at her in astonishment. "You? You and Nick--are going to part?" A light appeared to dawn on her. "Ah--then that's why he sent me back my pin, I suppose?"

"Your pin?" Susy wondered, not at once remembering.

"The poor little scarf-pin I gave him before I left Venice. He sent it back almost at once, with the oddest note--just: 'I haven't earned it, really.' I couldn't think why he didn't care for the pin. But, now I suppose it was because you and he had quarrelled; though really, even so, I can't see why he should bear me a grudge...."

Susy's quick blood surged up. Nick had sent back the pin-the fatal pin!

And she, Susy, had kept the bracelet--locked it up out of sight, shrunk away from the little packet whenever her hand touched it in packing or unpacking--but never thought of returning it, no, not once! Which of the two, she wondered, had been right? Was it not an indirect slight to her that Nick should fling back the gift to poor uncomprehending Ellie? Or was it not rather another proof of his finer moral sensitiveness!...

And how could one tell, in their bewildering world, "It was not because we've quarrelled; we haven't quarrelled," she said slowly, moved by the sudden desire to defend her privacy and Nick's, to screen from every eye their last bitter hour together. "We've simply decided that our experiment was impossible-for two paupers."

"Ah, well--of course we all felt that at the time. And now somebody else wants to marry you! And it's your trousseau you were choosing that cloak for?" Ellie cried in incredulous rapture; then she flung her arms about Susy's shrinking shoulders. "You lucky lucky girl! You clever clever darling! But who on earth can he be?"

And it was then that Susy, for the first time, had p.r.o.nounced the name of Lord Altringham.