第89章 XXIX(2)

At length all was in order. Junie had been enlightened, and Angele stunned, by the minuteness of Susy's instructions; and the latter, waterproofed and stoutly shod, descended the doorstep, and paused to wave at the pyramid of heads yearning to her from an upper window.

It was hardly light, and still raining, when she turned into the dismal street. As usual, it was empty; but at the corner she perceived a hesitating taxi, with luggage piled beside the driver. Perhaps it was some early traveller, just arriving, who would release the carriage in time for her to catch it, and thus avoid the walk to the metro, and the subsequent strap-hanging; for it was the work-people's hour. Susy raced toward the vehicle, which, overcoming its hesitation, was beginning to move in her direction. Observing this, she stopped to see where it would discharge its load. Thereupon the taxi stopped also, and the load discharged itself in front of her in the shape of Nick Lansing.

The two stood staring at each other through the rain till Nick broke out: "Where are you going? I came to get you."

"To get me? To get me?" she repeated. Beside the driver she had suddenly remarked the old suit-case from which her husband had obliged her to extract Strefford's cigars as they were leaving Como; and everything that had happened since seemed to fall away and vanish in the pang and rapture of that memory.

"To get you; yes. Of course." He spoke the words peremptorily, almost as if they were an order. "Where were you going?" he repeated.

Without answering, she turned toward the house. He followed her, and the laden taxi closed the procession.

"Why are you out in such weather without an umbrella?" he continued, in the same severe tone, drawing her under the shelter of his.

"Oh, because Junie's umbrella is in tatters, and I had to leave her mine, as I was going away for the whole day." She spoke the words like a person in a trance.

"For the whole day? At this hour? Where?"

They were on the doorstep, and she fumbled automatically for her key, let herself in, and led the way to the sitting-room. It had not been tidied up since the night before. The children's school books lay scattered on the table and sofa, and the empty fireplace was grey with ashes. She turned to Nick in the pallid light.

"I was going to see you," she stammered, "I was going to follow you to Fontainebleau, if necessary, to tell you ... to prevent you...."

He repeated in the same aggressive tone: "Tell me what?

Prevent what?"

"Tell you that there must be some other way ... some decent way ... of our separating ... without that horror. that horror of your going off with a woman ...."

He stared, and then burst into a laugh. The blood rushed to her face. She had caught a familiar ring in his laugh, and it wounded her. What business had he, at such a time, to laugh in the old way?

"I'm sorry; but there is no other way, I'm afraid. No other way but one," he corrected himself.

She raised her head sharply. "Well?"

"That you should be the woman. --Oh, my dear!" He had dropped his mocking smile, and was at her side, her hands in his. "Oh, my dear, don't you see that we've both been feeling the same thing, and at the same hour? You lay awake thinking of it all night, didn't you? So did I. Whenever the clock struck, I said to myself: 'She's hearing it too.' And I was up before daylight, and packed my traps--for I never want to set foot again in that awful hotel where I've lived in hell for the last three days. And I swore to myself that I'd go off with a woman by the first train I could catch--and so I mean to, my dear."

She stood before him numb. Yes, numb: that was the worst of it! The violence of the reaction had been too great, and she could hardly understand what he was saying. Instead, she noticed that the tassel of the window-blind was torn off again (oh, those children!), and vaguely wondered if his luggage were safe on the waiting taxi. One heard such stories ....

His voice came back to her. "Susy! Listen!" he was entreating.

"You must see yourself that it can't be. We're married--isn't that all that matters? Oh, I know--I've behaved like a brute: a cursed arrogant ass! You couldn't wish that ass a worse kicking than I've given him! But that's not the point, you see.

The point is that we're married .... Married .... Doesn't it mean something to you, something--inexorable? It does to me. I didn't dream it would--in just that way. But all I can say is that I suppose the people who don't feel it aren't really married-and they'd better separate; much better. As for us--"

Through her tears she gasped out: "That's what I felt ... that's what I said to Streff ...."

He was upon her with a great embrace. "My darling! My darling!

You have told him?"

"Yes," she panted. "That's why I'm living here." She paused.

"And you've told Coral?"

She felt his embrace relax. He drew away a little, still holding her, but with lowered head.

"No ... I ... haven't."

"Oh, Nick! But then--?"

He caught her to him again, resentfully. "Well--then what?

What do you mean? What earthly difference does it make?"

"But if you've told her you were going to marry her--" (Try as she would, her voice was full of silver chimes.)

"Marry her? Marry her?" he echoed. "But how could I? What does marriage mean anyhow? If it means anything at all it means--you! And I can't ask Coral Hicks just to come and live with me, can I?"

Between crying and laughing she lay on his breast, and his hand passed over her hair.

They were silent for a while; then he began again: "You said it yourself yesterday, you know."

She strayed back from sunlit distances. "Yesterday?"

"Yes: that Grace Fulmer says you can't separate two people who've been through a lot of things--"

"Ah, been through them together--it's not the things, you see, it's the togetherness," she interrupted.

"The togetherness--that's it!" He seized on the word as if it had just been coined to express their case, and his mind could rest in it without farther labour.