第36章 XII(3)

As he drank his coffee his thoughts gradually cleared. It became obvious to him that he had behaved like a madman or a petulant child--he preferred to think it was like a madman. If he and Susy were to separate there was no reason why it should not be done decently and quietly, as such transactions were habitually managed among people of their kind. It seemed grotesque to introduce melodrama into their little world of unruffled Sybarites, and he felt inclined, now, to smile at the incongruity of his gesture .... But suddenly his eyes filled with tears. The future without Susy was unbearable, inconceivable. Why, after all, should they separate? At the question, her soft face seemed close to his, and that slight lift of the upper lip that made her smile so exquisite. Well- he would go back. But not with any presence of going to talk things over, come to an agreement, wind up their joint life like a business association. No--if he went back he would go without conditions, for good, forever ....

Only, what about the future? What about the not far-distant day when the wedding cheques would have been spent, and Granny's pearls sold, and nothing left except unconcealed and unconditional dependence on rich friends, the role of the acknowledged hangers-on? Was there no other possible solution, no new way of ordering their lives? No--there was none: he could not picture Susy out of her setting of luxury and leisure, could not picture either of them living such a life as the Nat Fulmers, for instance! He remembered the shabby untidy bungalow in New Hampshire, the slatternly servants, uneatable food and ubiquitous children. How could he ask Susy to share such a life with him? If he did, she would probably have the sense to refuse. Their alliance had been based on a moment's midsummer madness; now the score must be paid ....

He decided to write. If they were to part he could not trust himself to see her. He called a waiter, asked for pen and paper, and pushed aside a pile of unread newspapers on the corner of the table where his coffee had been served. As he did so, his eye lit on a Daily Mail of two days before. As a pretext for postponing his letter, he took up the paper and glanced down the first page. He read:

"Tragic Yachting Accident in the Solent. The Earl of Altringham and his son Viscount d'Amblay drowned in midnight collision.

Both bodies recovered."

He read on. He grasped the fact that the disaster had happened the night before he had left Venice and that, as the result of a fog in the Solent, their old friend Strefford was now Earl of Altringham, and possessor of one of the largest private fortunes in England. It was vertiginous to think of their old impecunious Streff as the hero of such an adventure. And what irony in that double turn of the wheel which, in one day, had plunged him, Nick Lansing, into nethermost misery, while it tossed the other to the stars!

With an intenser precision he saw again Susy's descent from the gondola at the calle steps, the sound of her laughter and of Strefford's chaff, the way she had caught his arm and clung to it, sweeping the other men on in her train. Strefford--Susy and Strefford! ... More than once, Nick had noticed the softer inflections of his friend's voice when he spoke to Susy, the brooding look in his lazy eyes when they rested on her. In the security of his wedded bliss Nick had made light of those signs.

The only real jealousy he had felt had been of Fred Gillow, because of his unlimited power to satisfy a woman's whims. Yet Nick knew that such material advantages would never again suffice for Susy. With Strefford it was different. She had delighted in his society while he was notoriously ineligible; might not she find him irresistible now?

The forgotten terms of their bridal compact came back to Nick: the absurd agreement on which he and Susy had solemnly pledged their faith. But was it so absurd, after all? It had been Susy's suggestion (not his, thank God!); and perhaps in making it she had been more serious than he imagined. Perhaps, even if their rupture had not occurred, Strefford's sudden honours might have caused her to ask for her freedom ....