XIX
JUST such a revolt as she had felt as a girl, such a disgusted recoilfrom the standards and ideals of everybody about her as had flung herinto her mad marriage with Nick, now flamed in Susy Lansing's bosom.
How could she ever go back into that world again? How echo itsappraisals of life and bow down to its judgments? Alas, it was onlyby marrying according to its standards that she could escape suchsubjection. Perhaps the same thought had actuated Nick: perhaps he hadunderstood sooner than she that to attain moral freedom they must bothbe above material cares. Perhaps...
Her talk with Ellie Vanderlyn had left Susy so oppressed and humiliatedthat she almost shrank from her meeting with Altringham the next day.She knew that he was coming to Paris for his final answer; he would waitas long as was necessary if only she would consent to take immediatesteps for a divorce. She was staying at a modest hotel in the FaubourgSt. Germain, and had once more refused his suggestion that they shouldlunch at the Nouveau Luxe, or at some fashionable restaurant of theBoulevards. As before, she insisted on going to an out-of-the-way placenear the Luxembourg, where the prices were moderate enough for her ownpurse.
"I can't understand," Strefford objected, as they turned from her hoteldoor toward this obscure retreat, "why you insist on giving me bad food,and depriving me of the satisfaction of being seen with you. Why must webe so dreadfully clandestine? Don't people know by this time that we'reto be married?"
Susy winced a little: she wondered if the word would always sound sounnatural on his lips.
"No," she said, with a laugh, "they simply think, for the present, thatyou're giving me pearls and chinchilla cloaks."
He wrinkled his brows good-humouredly. "Well, so I would, with joy--atthis particular minute. Don't you think perhaps you'd better takeadvantage of it? I don't wish to insist--but I foresee that I'm much toorich not to become stingy."
She gave a slight shrug. "At present there's nothing I loathe more thanpearls and chinchilla, or anything else in the world that's expensiveand enviable...."
Suddenly she broke off, colouring with the consciousness that she hadsaid exactly the kind of thing that all the women who were trying forhim (except the very cleverest) would be sure to say; and that hewould certainly suspect her of attempting the conventional comedy ofdisinterestedness, than which nothing was less likely to deceive or toflatter him.
His twinkling eyes played curiously over her face, and she went on,meeting them with a smile: "But don't imagine, all the same, that if Ishould... decide... it would be altogether for your beaux yeux...."
He laughed, she thought, rather drily. "No," he said, "I don't supposethat's ever likely to happen to me again."
"Oh, Streff--" she faltered with compunction. It was odd-once upon atime she had known exactly what to say to the man of the moment, whoeverhe was, and whatever kind of talk he required; she had even, in thedifficult days before her marriage, reeled off glibly enough the sortof lime-light sentimentality that plunged poor Fred Gillow into suchspeechless beatitude. But since then she had spoken the language of reallove, looked with its eyes, embraced with its hands; and now the othertrumpery art had failed her, and she was conscious of bungling andgroping like a beginner under Strefford's ironic scrutiny.
They had reached their obscure destination and he opened the door andglanced in.
"It's jammed--not a table. And stifling! Where shall we go? Perhaps theycould give us a room to ourselves--" he suggested.
She assented, and they were led up a cork-screw staircase to asquat-ceilinged closet lit by the arched top of a high window, the lowerpanes of which served for the floor below. Strefford opened the window,and Susy, throwing her cloak on the divan, leaned on the balcony whilehe ordered luncheon.
On the whole she was glad they were to be alone. Just because shefelt so sure of Strefford it seemed ungenerous to keep him longer insuspense. The moment had come when they must have a decisive talk, andin the crowded rooms below it would have been impossible.
Strefford, when the waiter had brought the first course and left themto themselves, made no effort to revert to personal matters. He turnedinstead to the topic always most congenial to him: the humours andironies of the human comedy, as presented by his own particular group.His malicious commentary on life had always amused Susy because of theshrewd flashes of philosophy he shed on the social antics they hadso often watched together. He was in fact the one person she knew(excepting Nick) who was in the show and yet outside of it; and she wassurprised, as the talk proceeded, to find herself so little interestedin his scraps of gossip, and so little amused by his comments on them.
With an inward shrug of discouragement she said to herself that probablynothing would ever really amuse her again; then, as she listened, shebegan to understand that her disappointment arose from the fact thatStrefford, in reality, could not live without these people whom hesaw through and satirized, and that the rather commonplace scandals henarrated interested him as much as his own racy considerations on them;and she was filled with terror at the thought that the inmost core ofthe richly-decorated life of the Countess of Altringham would be justas poor and low-ceilinged a place as the little room in which he and shenow sat, elbow to elbow yet so unapproachably apart.
If Strefford could not live without these people, neither could she andNick; but for reasons how different! And if his opportunities hadbeen theirs, what a world they would have created for themselves! Suchimaginings were vain, and she shrank back from them into the present.After all, as Lady Altringham she would have the power to create thatworld which she and Nick had dreamed... only she must create it alone.Well, that was probably the law of things. All human happiness was thusconditioned and circumscribed, and hers, no doubt, must always be of thelonely kind, since material things did not suffice for it, even thoughit depended on them as Grace Fulmer's, for instance, never had. Yet evenGrace Fulmer had succumbed to Ursula's offer, and had arrived at Ruanthe day before Susy left, instead of going to Spain with her husbandand Violet Melrose. But then Grace was making the sacrifice for herchildren, and somehow one had the feeling that in giving up her libertyshe was not surrendering a tittle of herself. All the difference wasthere....
"How I do bore you!" Susy heard Strefford exclaim. She became awarethat she had not been listening: stray echoes of names of places andpeople--Violet Melrose, Ursula, Prince Altineri, others of their groupand persuasion--had vainly knocked at her barricaded brain; what had hebeen telling her about them? She turned to him and their eyes met; hiswere full of a melancholy irony.
"Susy, old girl, what's wrong?"
She pulled herself together. "I was thinking, Streff, just now--when Isaid I hated the very sound of pearls and chinchilla--how impossibleit was that you should believe me; in fact, what a blunder I'd made insaying it."
He smiled. "Because it was what so many other women might be likely tosay so awfully unoriginal, in fact?"
She laughed for sheer joy at his insight. "It's going to be easier thanI imagined," she thought. Aloud she rejoined: "Oh, Streff--how you'realways going to find me out! Where on earth shall I ever hide from you?"
"Where?" He echoed her laugh, laying his hand lightly on hers. "In myheart, I'm afraid."
In spite of the laugh his accent shook her: something about it tookall the mockery from his retort, checked on her lips the: "What? Avalentine!" and made her suddenly feel that, if he were afraid, so wasshe. Yet she was touched also, and wondered half exultingly if anyother woman had ever caught that particular deep inflexion of his shrillvoice. She had never liked him as much as at that moment; and she saidto herself, with an odd sense of detachment, as if she had been ratherbreathlessly observing the vacillations of someone whom she longed topersuade but dared not: "Now--NOW, if he speaks, I shall say yes!"
He did not speak; but abruptly, and as startlingly to her as if shehad just dropped from a sphere whose inhabitants had other methods ofexpressing their sympathy, he slipped his arm around her and bent hiskeen ugly melting fac
e to hers....
It was the lightest touch--in an instant she was free again. Butsomething within her gasped and resisted long after his arm and his lipswere gone, and he was proceeding, with a too-studied ease, to light acigarette and sweeten his coffee.
He had kissed her.... Well, naturally: why not? It was not the firsttime she had been kissed. It was true that one didn't habituallyassociate Streff with such demonstrations; but she had not that excusefor surprise, for even in Venice she had begun to notice that he lookedat her differently, and avoided her hand when he used to seek it.
No--she ought not to have been surprised; nor ought a kiss to have beenso disturbing. Such incidents had punctuated the career of Susy Branch:there had been, in particular, in far-off discarded times, Fred Gillow'slarge but artless embraces. Well--nothing of that kind had seemed ofany more account than the click of a leaf in a woodland walk. It hadall been merely epidermal, ephemeral, part of the trivial accepted"business" of the social comedy. But this kiss of Strefford's was whatNick's had been, under the New Hampshire pines, on the day that haddecided their fate. It was a kiss with a future in it: like aring slipped upon her soul. And now, in the dreadful pause thatfollowed--while Strefford fidgeted with his cigarette-case and rattledthe spoon in his cup, Susy remembered what she had seen through thecircle of Nick's kiss: that blue illimitable distance which was at oncethe 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 wassaying 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 sheherself had felt was the gasping recoil from Strefford's touch, and anintenser vision of the sordid room in which he and she sat, and of theirtwo selves, more distant from each other than if their embrace had beena 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 thanI imagined"? Suddenly she felt Strefford's queer smile upon her, and sawin his eyes a look, not of reproach or disappointment, but of deep andanxious comprehension. Instead of being angry or hurt, he had seen, hehad understood, he was sorry for her!
Impulsively she slipped her hand into his, and they sat silent foranother 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 Reynoldsexhibition at the Petit Palais. There are some portraits fromAltringham. It might amuse you."
In the taxi she had time, through their light rattle of talk, toreadjust herself and drop back into her usual feeling of friendly easewith him. He had been extraordinarily considerate, for anyone who alwaysso undisguisedly sought his own satisfaction above all things; andif his considerateness were just an indirect way of seeking thatsatisfaction now, well, that proved how much he cared for her, hownecessary to his happiness she had become. The sense of power wasundeniably pleasant; pleasanter still was the feeling that someonereally needed her, that the happiness of the man at her side dependedon her yes or no. She abandoned herself to the feeling, forgetting theabysmal interval of his caress, or at least saying to herself that intime she would forget it, that really there was nothing to make a fussabout 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.Fashionable and artistic Paris had recently discovered Englisheighteenth century art. The principal collections of England had yieldedup their best examples of the great portrait painter's work, and theprivate view at the Petit Palais was to be the social event of theafternoon. Everybody--Strefford's everybody and Susy's--was sure tobe there; and these, as she knew, were the occasions that revivedStrefford's intermittent interest in art. He really liked picture showsas much as the races, if one could be sure of seeing as many peoplethere. With Nick how different it would have been! Nick hated openingsand varnishing days, and worldly aesthetics in general; he would havewaited till the tide of fashion had ebbed, and slipped off with Susy tosee the pictures some morning when they were sure to have the place tothemselves.
But Susy divined that there was another reason for Strefford'ssuggestion. She had never yet shown herself with him publicly, amongtheir own group of people: now he had determined that she should doso, and she knew why. She had humbled his pride; he had understood, andforgiven her. But she still continued to treat him as she had alwaystreated the Strefford of old, Charlie Strefford, dear old negligibleimpecunious Streff; and he wanted to show her, ever so casually andadroitly, that the man who had asked her to marry him was no longerStrefford, but Lord Altringham.
At the very threshold, his Ambassador's greeting marked the difference:it was followed, wherever they turned, by ejaculations of welcome fromthe rulers of the world they moved in. Everybody rich enough or titledenough, or clever enough or stupid enough, to have forced a way into thesocial citadel, was there, waving and flag-flying from the battlements;and to all of them Lord Altringham had become a marked figure. Duringtheir slow progress through the dense mass of important people who madethe approach to the pictures so well worth fighting for, he never leftSusy's side, or failed to make her feel herself a part of his triumphaladvance. She heard her name mentioned: "Lansing--a Mrs. Lansing--anAmerican... Susy Lansing? Yes, of course.... You remember her? AtNewport, At St. Moritz? Exactly.... Divorced already? They say so...Susy darling! I'd no idea you were here... and Lord Altringham! You'veforgotten me, I know, Lord Altringham.... Yes, last year, in Cairo... orat Newport... or in Scotland ... Susy, dearest, when will you bring LordAltringham to dine? Any night that you and he are free I'll arrange tobe...."
"You and he": they were "you and he" already!
"Ah, there's one of them--of my great-grandmothers," Streffordexplained, 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 otherpictures.
Susy read on the scroll beneath it: "The Hon'ble Diana Lefanu, fifteenthCountess of Altringham"--and heard Strefford say: "Do you remember? Ithangs where you noticed the empty space above the mantel-piece, in theVandyke room. They say Reynolds stipulated that it should be put withthe Vandykes."
She had never before heard him speak of his possessions, whetherancestral or merely material, in just that full and satisfied tone ofvoice: the rich man's voice. She saw that he was already feeling theinfluence of his surroundings, that he was glad the portrait of aCountess of Altringham should occupy the central place in the principalroom of the exhibition, that the crowd about it should be denser therethan before any of the other pictures, and that he should be standingthere with Susy, letting her feel, and letting all the people aboutthem guess, that the day she chose she could wear the same name as hispictured ancestress.
On the way back to her hotel, Strefford made no farther allusion totheir future; they chatted like old comrades in their respective cornersof the taxi. But as the carriage stopped at her door he said: "I must goback to England the day after to-morrow, worse luck! Why not dine withme to-night at the Nouveau Luxe? I've got to have the Ambassador andLady Ascot, with their youngest girl and my old Dunes aunt, the DowagerDuchess, who's over here hiding from her creditors; but I'll try to gettwo or three amusing men to leaven the lump. We might go on to a boiteafterward, if you're bored. Unless the dancing amuses you more...."
She understood that he had decided to hasten his departure rather thanlinger on in uncertainty; she also remembered having heard the Ascots'youngest daughter, Lady Joan Senechal, spoken of as one of the prettiestgirls of the season; and she recalled the almost exaggerated warmth ofthe Ambassador's greeting at the private view.
"Of course I'll come, Streff dear!" she cried, with an effort at gaietythat sounded successful to her own strained ears, and reflected itselfin the sudden lighting up of his face.
She waved a good-bye from the step, saying
to herself, as she lookedafter him: "He'll drive me home to-night, and I shall say 'yes'; andthen he'll kiss me again. But the next time it won't be nearly asdisagreeable."
She turned into the hotel, glanced automatically at the emptypigeon-hole for letters under her key-hook, and mounted the stairsfollowing 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 withoutimagining that the letter she had not found below had already beenbrought up.
Opening the door, she turned on the light and sprang to the table onwhich 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 ofsociety, she read:
"After an extended cruise in the AEgean and the Black Sea on theirsteam-yacht Ibis, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Hicks and their daughter areestablished at the Nouveau Luxe in Rome. They have lately had the honourof entertaining at dinner the Reigning Prince of Teutoburger-Waldhainand his mother the Princess Dowager, with their suite. Among thoseinvited to meet their Serene Highnesses were the French and SpanishAmbassadors, the Duchesse de Vichy, Prince and Princess Bagnidilucca,Lady Penelope Pantiles--" Susy's eye flew impatiently on over the longlist of titles--"and Mr. Nicholas Lansing of New York, who has beencruising with Mr. and Mrs. Hicks on the Ibis for the last few months."
The Glimpses of the Moon Page 19