The apartment to which Mr. Lansing admitted her was a good deal cleaner, but hardly less dingy, than his staircase. Susy, knowing him to be addicted to Oriental archaeology, had pictured him in a bare room adorned by a single Chinese bronze of flawless shape, or by some precious fragment of Asiatic pottery.
But such redeeming features were conspicuously absent, and no attempt had been made to disguise the decent indigence of the bed-sitting-room.
Lansing welcomed his visitor with every sign of pleasure, and with apparent indifference as to what she thought of his furniture. He seemed to be conscious only of his luck in seeing her on a day when they had not expected to meet. This made Susy all the sorrier to execute her promise, and the gladder that she had put on her prettiest hat; and for a moment or two she looked at him in silence from under its conniving brim.
Warm as their mutual liking was, Lansing had never said a word of love to her; but this was no deterrent to his visitor, whose habit it was to speak her meaning clearly when there were no reasons, worldly or pecuniary, for its concealment. After a moment, therefore, she told him why she had come; it was a nuisance, of course, but he would understand. Ursula Gillow was jealous, and they would have to give up seeing each other.
The young man's burst of laughter was music to her; for, after all, she had been rather afraid that being devoted to Ursula might be as much in his day's work as doing the encyclopaedia.
"But I give you my word it's a raving-mad mistake! And I don't believe she ever meant me, to begin with--" he protested; but Susy, her common-sense returning with her reassurance, promptly cut short his denial.
"You can trust Ursula to make herself clear on such occasions.
And it doesn't make any difference what you think. All that matters is what she believes."
"Oh, come! I've got a word to say about that too, haven't I?"
Susy looked slowly and consideringly about the room. There was nothing in it, absolutely nothing, to show that he had ever possessed a spare dollar--or accepted a present.
"Not as far as I'm concerned," she finally pronounced.
"How do you mean? If I'm as free as air--?"
"I'm not."
He grew thoughtful. "Oh, then, of course--. It only seems a little odd," he added drily, "that in that case, the protest should have come from Mrs. Gillow."
"Instead of coming from my millionaire bridegroom, Oh, I haven't any; in that respect I'm as free as you."
"Well, then--? Haven't we only got to stay free?"
Susy drew her brows together anxiously. It was going to be rather more difficult than she had supposed.
"I said I was as free in that respect. I'm not going to marry--and I don't suppose you are?"
"God, no!" he ejaculated fervently.
"But that doesn't always imply complete freedom ...."
He stood just above her, leaning his elbow against the hideous black marble arch that framed his fireless grate. As she glanced up she saw his face harden, and the colour flew to hers.
"Was that what you came to tell me?" he asked.
"Oh, you don't understand--and I don't see why you don't, since we've knocked about so long among exactly the same kind of people." She stood up impulsively and laid her hand on his arm.
"I do wish you'd help me--!"
He remained motionless, letting the hand lie untouched.
"Help you to tell me that poor Ursula was a pretext, but that there IS someone who--for one reason or another--really has a right to object to your seeing me too often?"
Susy laughed impatiently. "You talk like the hero of a novel-- the kind my governess used to read. In the first place I should never recognize that kind of right, as you call it--never!"
"Then what kind do you?" he asked with a clearing brow.
"Why--the kind I suppose you recognize on the part of your publisher." This evoked a hollow laugh from him. "A business claim, call it," she pursued. "Ursula does a lot for me: I live on her for half the year. This dress I've got on now is one she gave me. Her motor is going to take me to a dinner to-night. I'm going to spend next summer with her at Newport .... If I don't, I've got to go to California with the Bockheimers-so good-bye."
Suddenly in tears, she was out of the door and down his steep three flights before he could stop her--though, in thinking it over, she didn't even remember if he had tried to. She only recalled having stood a long time on the corner of Fifth Avenue, in the harsh winter radiance, waiting till a break in the torrent of motors laden with fashionable women should let her cross, and saying to herself: "After all, I might have promised Ursula ... and kept on seeing him ...."
Instead of which, when Lansing wrote the next day entreating a word with her, she had sent back a friendly but firm refusal; and had managed soon afterward to get taken to Canada for a fortnight's ski-ing, and then to Florida for six weeks in a house-boat ....
As she reached this point in her retrospect the remembrance of Florida called up a vision of moonlit waters, magnolia fragrance and balmy airs; merging with the circumambient sweetness, it laid a drowsy spell upon her lids. Yes, there had been a bad moment: but it was over; and she was here, safe and blissful, and with Nick; and this was his knee her head rested on, and they had a year ahead of them ... a whole year .... "Not counting the pearls," she murmured, shutting her eyes ....
