A fear of the future again laid its cold touch on Lansing. Susy"s independence and self-sufficiency had been among her chief attractions; if she were to turn into an echo their delicious duet ran the risk of becoming the dullest of monologues. He forgot that five minutes earlier he had resented her being glad to see their friends, and for a moment he found himself leaning dizzily over that insoluble riddle of the sentimental life: that to be differed with is exasperating, and to be agreed with monotonous.
Once more he began to wonder if he were not fundamentally unfitted for the married state; and was saved from despair only by remembering that Susy"s subjection to his moods was not likely to last. But even then it never occurred to him to reflect that his apprehensions were superfluous, since their tie was avowedly a temporary one. Of the special understanding on which their marriage had been based not a trace remained in his thoughts of her; the idea that he or she might ever renounce each other for their mutual good had long since dwindled to the ghost of an old joke.
It was borne in on him, after a week or two of unbroken sociability, that of all his old friends it was the Mortimer Hickses who bored him the least. The Hickses had left the Ibis for an apartment in a vast dilapidated palace near the Canareggio. They had hired the apartment from a painter (one of their newest discoveries), and they put up philosophically with the absence of modern conveniences in order to secure the inestimable advantage of "atmosphere." In this privileged air they gathered about them their usual mixed company of quiet studious people and noisy exponents of new theories, themselves totally unconscious of the disparity between their different guests, and beamingly convinced that at last they were seated at the source of wisdom.
In old days Lansing would have got half an hour"s amus.e.m.e.nt, followed by a long evening of boredom, from the sight of Mrs. Hicks, vast and jewelled, seated between a quiet-looking professor of archaeology and a large-browed composer, or the high priest of a new dance-step, while Mr. Hicks, beaming above his vast white waistcoat, saw to it that the champagne flowed more abundantly than the talk, and the bright young secretaries industriously "kept up" with the dizzy cross-current of prophecy and erudition. But a change had come over Lansing. Hitherto it was in contrast to his own friends that the Hickses had seemed most insufferable; now it was as an escape from these same friends that they had become not only sympathetic but even interesting. It was something, after all, to be with people who did not regard Venice simply as affording exceptional opportunities for bathing and adultery, but who were reverently if confusedly aware that they were in the presence of something unique and ineffable, and determined to make the utmost of their privilege.
"After all," he said to himself one evening, as his eyes wandered, with somewhat of a convalescent"s simple joy, from one to another of their large confiding faces, "after all, they"ve got a religion...." The phrase struck him, in the moment of using it, as indicating a new element in his own state of mind, and as being, in fact, the key to his new feeling about the Hickses. Their muddled ardour for great things was related to his own new view of the universe: the people who felt, however dimly, the wonder and weight of life must ever after be nearer to him than those to whom it was estimated solely by one"s balance at the bank. He supposed, on reflexion, that that was what he meant when he thought of the Hickses as having "a religion"....
A few days later, his well-being was unexpectedly disturbed by the arrival of Fred Gillow. Lansing had always felt a tolerant liking for Gillow, a large smiling silent young man with an intense and serious desire to miss nothing attainable by one of his fortune and standing.
What use he made of his experiences, Lansing, who had always gone into his own modest adventures rather thoroughly, had never been able to guess; but he had always suspected the prodigal Fred of being no more than a well-disguised looker-on. Now for the first time he began to view him with another eye. The Gillows were, in fact, the one uneasy point in Nick"s conscience. He and Susy from the first, had talked of them less than of any other members of their group: they had tacitly avoided the name from the day on which Susy had come to Lansing"s lodgings to say that Ursula Gillow had asked her to renounce him, till that other day, just before their marriage, when she had met him with the rapturous cry: "Here"s our first wedding present! Such a thumping big cheque from Fred and Ursula!"
Plenty of sympathizing people were ready, Lansing knew, to tell him just what had happened in the interval between those two dates; but he had taken care not to ask. He had even affected an initiation so complete that the friends who burned to enlighten him were discouraged by his so obviously knowing more than they; and gradually he had worked himself around to their view, and had taken it for granted that he really did.
Now he perceived that he knew nothing at all, and that the "Hullo, old Fred!" with which Susy hailed Gillow"s arrival might be either the usual tribal welcome--since they were all "old," and all nicknamed, in their private jargon--or a greeting that concealed inscrutable depths of complicity.
Susy was visibly glad to see Gillow; but she was glad of everything just then, and so glad to show her gladness! The fact disarmed her husband and made him ashamed of his uneasiness. "You ought to have thought this all out sooner, or else you ought to chuck thinking of it at all,"
was the sound but ineffectual advice he gave himself on the day after Gillow"s arrival; and immediately set to work to rethink the whole matter.
Fred Gillow showed no consciousness of disturbing any one"s peace of mind. Day after day he sprawled for hours on the Lido sands, his arms folded under his head, listening to Streffy"s nonsense and watching Susy between sleepy lids; but he betrayed no desire to see her alone, or to draw her into talk apart from the others. More than ever he seemed content to be the gratified spectator of a costly show got up for his private entertainment. It was not until he heard her, one morning, grumble a little at the increasing heat and the menace of mosquitoes, that he said, quite as if they had talked the matter over long before, and finally settled it: "The moor will be ready any time after the first of August."
Nick fancied that Susy coloured a little, and drew herself up more defiantly than usual as she sent a pebble skimming across the dying ripples at their feet.
"You"ll be a lot cooler in Scotland," Fred added, with what, for him, was an unusual effort at explicitness.
"Oh, shall we?" she retorted gaily; and added with an air of mystery and importance, pivoting about on her high heels: "Nick"s got work to do here. It will probably keep us all summer."
"Work? Rot! You"ll die of the smells." Gillow stared perplexedly skyward from under his tilted hat-brim; and then brought out, as from the depth of a rankling grievance: "I thought it was all understood."
"Why," Nick asked his wife that night, as they re-entered Ellie"s cool drawing-room after a late dinner at the Lido, "did Gillow think it was understood that we were going to his moor in August?" He was conscious of the oddness of speaking of their friend by his surname, and reddened at his blunder.
Susy had let her lace cloak slide to her feet, and stood before him in the faintly-lit room, slim and shimmering-white through black transparencies.
She raised her eyebrows carelessly. "I told you long ago he"d asked us there for August."
"You didn"t tell me you"d accepted."
She smiled as if he had said something as simple as Fred. "I accepted everything--from everybody!"
What could he answer? It was the very principle on which their bargain had been struck. And if he were to say: "Ah, but this is different, because I"m jealous of Gillow," what light would such an answer shed on his past? The time for being jealous-if so antiquated an att.i.tude were on any ground defensible-would have been before his marriage, and before the acceptance of the bounties which had helped to make it possible. He wondered a little now that in those days such scruples had not troubled him. His inconsistency irritated him, and increased his irritation against Gillow. "I suppose he thinks he owns us!" he grumbled inwardly.
He had thrown himself into an armchair, and Susy, advancing across the shining arabesques of the floor, slid down at his feet, pressed her slender length against him, and whispered with lifted face and lips close to his: "We needn"t ever go anywhere you don"t want to." For once her submission was sweet, and folding her close he whispered back through his kiss: "Not there, then."
In her response to his embrace he felt the acquiescence of her whole happy self in whatever future he decided on, if only it gave them enough of such moments as this; and as they held each other fast in silence his doubts and distrust began to seem like a silly injustice.
"Let us stay here as long as ever Ellie will let us," he said, as if the shadowy walls and shining floors were a magic boundary drawn about his happiness.
She murmured her a.s.sent and stood up, stretching her sleepy arm above her shoulders. "How dreadfully late it is.... Will you unhook me?... Oh, there"s a telegram."
She picked it up from the table, and tearing it open stared a moment at the message. "It"s from Ellie. She"s coming to-morrow."
She turned to the window and strayed out onto the balcony. Nick followed her with enlacing arm. The ca.n.a.l below them lay in moonless shadow, barred with a few lingering lights. A last s.n.a.t.c.h of gondola-music came from far off, carried upward on a sultry gust.
"Dear old Ellie. All the same... I wish all this belonged to you and me." Susy sighed.
VIII.
IT was not Mrs. Vanderlyn"s fault if, after her arrival, her palace seemed to belong any less to the Lansings.
She arrived in a mood of such general benevolence that it was impossible for Susy, when they finally found themselves alone, to make her view even her own recent conduct in any but the most benevolent light.
"I knew you"d be the veriest angel about it all, darling, because I knew you"d understand me--especially now," she declared, her slim hands in Susy"s, her big eyes (so like Clarissa"s) resplendent with past pleasures and future plans.
The expression of her confidence was unexpectedly distasteful to Susy Lansing, who had never lent so cold an ear to such warm avowals. She had always imagined that being happy one"s self made one--as Mrs. Vanderlyn appeared to a.s.sume--more tolerant of the happiness of others, of however doubtful elements composed; and she was almost ashamed of responding so languidly to her friend"s outpourings. But she herself had no desire to confide her bliss to Ellie; and why should not Ellie observe a similar reticence?
"It was all so perfect--you see, dearest, I was meant to be happy,"
that lady continued, as if the possession of so unusual a characteristic singled her out for special privileges.
Susy, with a certain sharpness, responded that she had always supposed we all were.
"Oh, no, dearest: not governesses and mothers-in-law and companions, and that sort of people. They wouldn"t know how if they tried. But you and I, darling--"
"Oh, I don"t consider myself in any way exceptional," Susy intervened.
She longed to add: "Not in your way, at any rate--" but a few minutes earlier Mrs. Vanderlyn had told her that the palace was at her disposal for the rest of the summer, and that she herself was only going to perch there--if they"d let her!--long enough to gather up her things and start for St. Moritz. The memory of this announcement had the effect of curbing Susy"s irony, and of making her shift the conversation to the safer if scarcely less absorbing topic of the number of day and evening dresses required for a season at St. Moritz.
As she listened to Mrs. Vanderlyn--no less eloquent on this theme than on the other--Susy began to measure the gulf between her past and present. "This is the life I used to lead; these are the things I used to live for," she thought, as she stood before the outspread glories of Mrs. Vanderlyn"s wardrobe. Not that she did not still care: she could not look at Ellie"s laces and silks and furs without picturing herself in them, and wondering by what new miracle of management she could give herself the air of being dressed by the same consummate artists. But these had become minor interests: the past few months had given her a new perspective, and the thing that most puzzled and disconcerted her about Ellie was the fact that love and finery and bridge and dining-out were seemingly all on the same plane to her.
The inspection of the dresses lasted a long time, and was marked by many fluctuations of mood on the part of Mrs. Vanderlyn, who pa.s.sed from comparative hopefulness to despair at the total inadequacy of her wardrobe. It wouldn"t do to go to St. Moritz looking like a frump, and yet there was no time to get anything sent from Paris, and, whatever she did, she wasn"t going to show herself in any dowdy re-arrangements done at home. But suddenly light broke on her, and she clasped her hands for joy. "Why, Nelson"ll bring them--I"d forgotten all about Nelson!
There"ll be just time if I wire to him at once."
"Is Nelson going to join you at St. Moritz?" Susy asked, surprised.
"Heavens, no! He"s coming here to pick up Clarissa and take her to some stuffy cure in Austria with his mother. It"s too lucky: there"s just time to telegraph him to bring my things. I didn"t mean to wait for him; but it won"t delay me more than day or two."
Susy"s heart sank. She was not much afraid of Ellie alone, but Ellie and Nelson together formed an incalculable menace. No one could tell what spark of truth might dash from their collision. Susy felt that she could deal with the two dangers separately and successively, but not together and simultaneously.
"But, Ellie, why should you wait for Nelson? I"m certain to find someone here who"s going to St. Moritz and will take your things if he brings them. It"s a pity to risk losing your rooms."
This argument appealed for a moment to Mrs. Vanderlyn. "That"s true; they say all the hotels are jammed. You dear, you"re always so practical!" She clasped Susy to her scented bosom. "And you know, darling, I"m sure you"ll be glad to get rid of me--you and Nick! Oh, don"t be hypocritical and say "Nonsense!" You see, I understand... I used to think of you so often, you two... during those blessed weeks when we two were alone...."
The sudden tears, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over Ellie"s lovely eyes, and threatening to make the blue circles below them run into the adjoining carmine, filled Susy with compunction.
"Poor thing--oh, poor thing!" she thought; and hearing herself called by Nick, who was waiting to take her out for their usual sunset on the lagoon, she felt a wave of pity for the deluded creature who would never taste that highest of imaginable joys. "But all the same," Susy reflected, as she hurried down to her husband, "I"m glad I persuaded her not to wait for Nelson."
Some days had elapsed since Susy and Nick had had a sunset to themselves, and in the interval Susy had once again learned the superior quality of the sympathy that held them together. She now viewed all the rest of life as no more than a show: a jolly show which it would have been a thousand pities to miss, but which, if the need arose, they could get up and leave at any moment--provided that they left it together.