Part 22 (1/2)

No--she ought not to have been surprised; nor ought a kiss to have been so disturbing. Such incidents had punctuated the career of Susy Branch: there had been, in particular, in far-off discarded times, Fred Gillow's large but artless embraces. Well--nothing of that kind had seemed of any more account than the click of a leaf in a woodland walk. It had all been merely epidermal, ephemeral, part of the trivial accepted ”business” of the social comedy. But this kiss of Strefford's was what Nick's had been, under the New Hamps.h.i.+re pines, on the day that had decided their fate. It was a kiss with a future in it: like a ring slipped upon her soul. And now, in the dreadful pause that followed--while Strefford fidgeted with his cigarette-case and rattled the spoon in his cup, Susy remembered what she had seen through the circle of Nick's kiss: that blue illimitable distance which was at once the landscape at their feet and the future in their souls....

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....

The moment prolonged itself, and they sat numb. How long had it lasted?

How long ago was it that she had thought: ”It's going to be easier than I imagined”? Suddenly she felt Strefford's queer smile upon her, and saw in his eyes a look, not of reproach or disappointment, but of deep and anxious comprehension. Instead of being angry or hurt, he had seen, he had understood, he was sorry for her!

Impulsively she slipped her hand into his, and they sat silent for another moment. Then he stood up and took her cloak from the divan.

”Shall we go now! I've got cards for the private view of the Reynolds exhibition at the Pet.i.t Palais. There are some portraits from Altringham. It might amuse you.”

In the taxi she had time, through their light rattle of talk, to readjust herself and drop back into her usual feeling of friendly ease with him. He had been extraordinarily considerate, for anyone who always so undisguisedly sought his own satisfaction above all things; and if his considerateness were just an indirect way of seeking that satisfaction now, well, that proved how much he cared for her, how necessary to his happiness she had become. The sense of power was undeniably pleasant; pleasanter still was the feeling that someone really needed her, that the happiness of the man at her side depended on her yes or no. She abandoned herself to the feeling, forgetting the abysmal interval of his caress, or at least saying to herself that in time she would forget it, that really there was nothing to make a fuss about in being kissed by anyone she liked as much as Streff....

She had guessed at once why he was taking her to see the Reynoldses.

Fas.h.i.+onable and artistic Paris had recently discovered English eighteenth century art. The princ.i.p.al collections of England had yielded up their best examples of the great portrait painter's work, and the private view at the Pet.i.t Palais was to be the social event of the afternoon. 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! Nick hated openings and varnis.h.i.+ng days, and worldly aesthetics in general; he would have waited till the tide of fas.h.i.+on had ebbed, and slipped off with Susy to see the pictures some morning when they were sure to have the place to themselves.

But Susy divined that there was another reason for Strefford's suggestion. She had never yet shown herself with him publicly, among their own group of people: now he had determined that she should do so, and she knew why. She had humbled his pride; he had understood, and forgiven her. But she still continued to treat him as she had always treated the Strefford of old, Charlie Strefford, dear old negligible impecunious Streff; and he wanted to show her, ever so casually and adroitly, that the man who had asked her to marry him was no longer Strefford, but Lord Altringham.

At the very threshold, his Amba.s.sador's greeting marked the difference: it was followed, wherever they turned, by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of welcome from the rulers of the world they moved in. Everybody rich enough or t.i.tled enough, or clever enough or stupid enough, to have forced a way into the social citadel, was there, waving and flag-flying from the battlements; and to all of them Lord Altringham had become a marked figure. During their slow progress through the dense ma.s.s of important people who made the approach to the pictures so well worth fighting for, he never left Susy's side, or failed to make her feel herself a part of his triumphal advance. She heard her name mentioned: ”Lansing--a Mrs. Lansing--an American... Susy Lansing? Yes, of course.... You remember her? At Newport, At St. Moritz? Exactly.... Divorced already? They say so...

Susy darling! I'd no idea you were here... and Lord Altringham! You've forgotten me, I know, Lord Altringham.... Yes, last year, in Cairo... or at Newport... or in Scotland ... Susy, dearest, when will you bring Lord Altringham to dine? Any night that you and he are free I'll arrange to be....”

”You and he”: they were ”you and he” already!

”Ah, there's one of them--of my great-grandmothers,” Strefford explained, giving a last push that drew him and Susy to the front rank, before a tall isolated portrait which, by sheer majesty of presentment, sat in its great carved golden frame as on a throne above the other pictures.

Susy read on the scroll beneath it: ”The Hon'ble Diana Lefanu, fifteenth Countess of Altringham”--and heard Strefford say: ”Do you remember? It hangs where you noticed the empty s.p.a.ce above the mantel-piece, in the Vand.y.k.e room. They say Reynolds stipulated that it should be put with the Vand.y.k.es.”

She had never before heard him speak of his possessions, whether ancestral or merely material, in just that full and satisfied tone of voice: the rich man's voice. She saw that he was already feeling the influence of his surroundings, that he was glad the portrait of a Countess of Altringham should occupy the central place in the princ.i.p.al room of the exhibition, that the crowd about it should be denser there than before any of the other pictures, and that he should be standing there with Susy, letting her feel, and letting all the people about them guess, that the day she chose she could wear the same name as his pictured ancestress.

On the way back to her hotel, Strefford made no farther allusion to their future; they chatted like old comrades in their respective corners of the taxi. But as the carriage stopped at her door he said: ”I must go back to England the day after to-morrow, worse luck! Why not dine with me to-night at the Nouveau Luxe? I've got to have the Amba.s.sador and Lady Ascot, with their youngest girl and my old Dunes aunt, the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess, who's over here hiding from her creditors; but I'll try to get two or three amusing men to leaven the lump. We might go on to a boite afterward, if you're bored. Unless the dancing amuses you more....”

She understood that he had decided to hasten his departure rather than linger on in uncertainty; she also remembered having heard the Ascots'

youngest daughter, Lady Joan Senechal, spoken of as one of the prettiest girls of the season; and she recalled the almost exaggerated warmth of the Amba.s.sador's greeting at the private view.

”Of course I'll come, Streff dear!” she cried, with an effort at gaiety that sounded successful to her own strained ears, and reflected itself in the sudden lighting up of his face.

She waved a good-bye from the step, saying to herself, as she looked after him: ”He'll drive me home to-night, and I shall say 'yes'; and then he'll kiss me again. But the next time it won't be nearly as disagreeable.”

She turned into the hotel, glanced automatically at the empty pigeon-hole for letters under her key-hook, and mounted the stairs following the same train of images. ”Yes, I shall say 'yes' to-night,”

she repeated firmly, her hand on the door of her room. ”That is, unless, they've brought up a letter....” She never re-entered the hotel without imagining that the letter she had not found below had already been brought up.

Opening the door, she turned on the light and sprang to the table on which her correspondence sometimes awaited her.

There was no letter; but the morning papers, still unread, lay at hand, and glancing listlessly down the column which chronicles the doings of society, she read:

”After an extended cruise in the AEgean and the Black Sea on their steam-yacht Ibis, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Hicks and their daughter are established at the Nouveau Luxe in Rome. They have lately had the honour of entertaining at dinner the Reigning Prince of Teutoburger-Waldhain and his mother the Princess Dowager, with their suite. Among those invited to meet their Serene Highnesses were the French and Spanish Amba.s.sadors, the d.u.c.h.esse de Vichy, Prince and Princess Bagnidilucca, Lady Penelope Pantiles--” Susy's eye flew impatiently on over the long list of t.i.tles--”and Mr. Nicholas Lansing of New York, who has been cruising with Mr. and Mrs. Hicks on the Ibis for the last few months.”

XX

THE Mortimer Hickses were in Rome; not, as they would in former times have been, in one of the antiquated hostelries of the Piazza di Spagna or the Porta del Popolo, where of old they had so gaily defied fever and nourished themselves on local colour; but spread out, with all the ostentation of philistine millionaires, under the piano n.o.bile ceilings of one of the high-perched ”Palaces,” where, as Mrs. Hicks shamelessly declared, they could ”rely on the plumbing,” and ”have the privilege of over-looking the Queen Mother's Gardens.”