that were not, in one way or another, constricting! As she looked back on her past it lay before her as a very network of perpetual concessions and contrivings. But never before had she had such a sense of being tripped up, gagged and pinioned. The little misery of the cigars still galled her, and now this big humiliation superposed itself on the raw wound. Decidedly, the second month of their honeymoon was beginning cloudily….
She glanced at the enamel led travelling-clock on her dressing table—one of the few wedding-presents she had consented to accept in kind—and was startled at the lateness of the hour. In a moment Nick would be coming; and an uncomfortable sensation in her throat warned her that through sheer nervousness and exasperation she might blurt out something ill-advised. The old habit of being always on her guard made her turn once more to the looking-glass. Her face was pale and haggard; and having, by a swift and skilful application of cosmetics, increased its appearance of fatigue, she crossed the room and softly opened her husband’s door.
He too sat by a lamp, reading a letter which he put aside as she entered. His face was grave, and she said to herself that he was certainly still thinking about the cigars.
“I’m very tired, dearest, and my head aches so horribly that I’ve come to bid you good-night.” Bending over the back of his chair, she laid her arms on his shoulders. He lifted his hands to clasp hers, but, as he threw his head back to smile up at her she noticed that his look was still serious, almost remote. It was as if, for the first time, a faint veil hung between his eyes and hers.
“I’m so sorry: it’s been a long day for you,” he said absently, pressing his lips to her hands
She felt the dreaded twitch in her throat.
“Nick!” she burst out, tightening her embrace, “before I go, you’ve got to swear to me on your honour that you know I should never have taken those cigars for myself!”
For a moment he stared at her, and she stared back at him with equal gravity; then the same irresistible mirth welled up in both, and Susy’s compunctions were swept away on a gale of laughter.
When she woke the next morning the sun was pouring in between her curtains of old brocade, and its refraction from the ripples of the Canal was drawing a network of golden scales across the vaulted ceiling. The maid had just placed a tray on a slim marquetry table near the bed, and over the edge of the tray Susy discovered the small serious face of Clarissa Vanderlyn. At the sight of the little girl all her dormant qualms awoke.
Clarissa was just eight, and small for her age: her little round chin was barely on a level with the tea-service, and her clear brown eyes gazed at Susy between the ribs of the toast-rack and the single tea-rose in an old Murano glass. Susy had not seen her for two years, and she seemed, in the interval, to have passed from a thoughtful infancy to complete ripeness of feminine experience. She was looking with approval at her mother’s guest.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said in a small sweet voice. “I like you so very much. I know I’m not to be often with you; but at least you’ll have an eye on me, won’t you?”
“An eye on you! I shall never want to have it off you, if you say such nice things to me!” Susy laughed, leaning from her pillows to draw the little girl up to her side.
Clarissa smiled and settled herself down comfortably on the silken bedspread. “Oh, I know I’m not to be always about, because you’re just married; but could you see to it that I have my meals regularly?”
“Why, you poor darling! Don’t you always?”
“Not when mother’s away on these cures. The servants don’t always obey me: you see I’m so little for my age. In a few years, of course, they’ll have to—even if I don’t grow much,” she added judiciously. She put out her hand and touched the string of pearls about Susy’s throat. “They’re small, but they’re very good. I suppose you don’t take the others when you travel?”
“The others? Bless you! I haven’t any others—and never shall have, probably.”
“No other pearls?”
“No other jewels at all.”
Clarissa stared. “Is that really true?” she asked, as if in the presence of the unprecedented.
“Awfully true,” Susy confessed. “But I think I can make the servants obey me all the same.”
This point seemed to have lost its interest for Clarissa, who was still gravely scrutinizing her companion. After a while she brought forth another question.
“Did you have to give up all your jewels when you were divorced?”
“Divorced—?” Susy threw her head back against the pillows and laughed. “Why, what are you thinking of? Don’t you remember that I wasn’t even married the last time you saw me?”
“Yes; I do. But that was two years ago.” The little girl wound her arms about Susy’s neck and leaned against her caressingly. “Are you going to be soon, then? I’ll promise not to tell if you don’t want me to.”
“Going to be divorced? Of course not! What in the world made you think so? ”
“Because you look so awfully happy,” said Clarissa Vanderlyn simply.
V.
IT was a trifling enough sign, but it had remained in Susy’s mind: that first morning in Venice Nick had gone out without first coming in to see her. She had stayed in bed late, chatting with Clarissa, and expecting to 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 to send a telegram.
It was lover-like, and even boyish, of him to think it necessary to explain his absence; but why had he not simply come in and told her! She instinctively connected the little fact with the shade of preoccupation she had noticed on his face the night before, when she had gone to his room and found him absorbed in letter; and while she dressed she had continued to wonder what was in the letter, and whether the telegram he had hurried out to send was an answer to it.
She had never found out. When he reappeared, handsome and happy as the morning, he proffered no explanation; and it was part of her life-long policy not to put uncalled-for questions. It was not only that her jealous regard for her own freedom was matched by an equal respect for that of others; she had steered too long among the social reefs and shoals not to know how narrow is the passage that leads to peace of mind, and she was determined to keep her little craft in mid-channel. But the incident had lodged itself in her memory, acquiring a sort of symbolic significance, as of a turning-point in her relations with her husband. Not that these were less happy, but that she now beheld them, as she had always formerly beheld such joys, as an unstable islet in a sea of storms. Her
