第21章 VII(4)

Fred Gillow showed no consciousness of disturbing any one's peace of mind. Day after day he sprawled for hours on the Lido sands, his arms folded under his head, listening to Streffy's nonsense and watching Susy between sleepy lids; but he betrayed no desire to see her alone, or to draw her into talk apart from the others. More than ever he seemed content to be the gratified spectator of a costly show got up for his private entertainment. It was not until he heard her, one morning, grumble a little at the increasing heat and the menace of mosquitoes, that he said, quite as if they had talked the matter over long before, and finally settled it: "The moor will be ready any time after the first of August."

Nick fancied that Susy coloured a little, and drew herself up more defiantly than usual as she sent a pebble skimming across the dying ripples at their feet.

"You'll be a lot cooler in Scotland," Fred added, with what, for him, was an unusual effort at explicitness.

"Oh, shall we?" she retorted gaily; and added with an air of mystery and importance, pivoting about on her high heels:

"Nick's got work to do here. It will probably keep us all summer."

"Work? Rot! You'll die of the smells." Gillow stared perplexedly skyward from under his tilted hat-brim; and then brought out, as from the depth of a rankling grievance: "I thought it was all understood."

"Why," Nick asked his wife that night, as they re-entered Ellie's cool drawing-room after a late dinner at the Lido, "did Gillow think it was understood that we were going to his moor in August?" He was conscious of the oddness of speaking of their friend by his surname, and reddened at his blunder.

Susy had let her lace cloak slide to her feet, and stood before him in the faintly-lit room, slim and shimmering-white through black transparencies.

She raised her eyebrows carelessly. "I told you long ago he'd asked us there for August."

"You didn't tell me you'd accepted."

She smiled as if he had said something as simple as Fred. "I accepted everything--from everybody!"

What could he answer? It was the very principle on which their bargain had been struck. And if he were to say: "Ah, but this is different, because I'm jealous of Gillow," what light would such an answer shed on his past? The time for being jealous-if so antiquated an attitude were on any ground defensible-would have been before his marriage, and before the acceptance of the bounties which had helped to make it possible. He wondered a little now that in those days such scruples had not troubled him. His inconsistency irritated him, and increased his irritation against Gillow. "I suppose he thinks he owns us!" he grumbled inwardly.

He had thrown himself into an armchair, and Susy, advancing across the shining arabesques of the floor, slid down at his feet, pressed her slender length against him, and whispered with lifted face and lips close to his: "We needn't ever go anywhere you don't want to." For once her submission was sweet, and folding her close he whispered back through his kiss: "Not there, then."

In her response to his embrace he felt the acquiescence of her whole happy self in whatever future he decided on, if only it gave them enough of such moments as this; and as they held each other fast in silence his doubts and distrust began to seem like a silly injustice.

"Let us stay here as long as ever Ellie will let us," he said, as if the shadowy walls and shining floors were a magic boundary drawn about his happiness.

She murmured her assent and stood up, stretching her sleepy arm above her shoulders. "How dreadfully late it is .... Will you unhook me? ... Oh, there's a telegram."

She picked it up from the table, and tearing it open stared a moment at the message. "It's from Ellie. She's coming to- morrow."

She turned to the window and strayed out onto the balcony. Nick followed her with enlacing arm. The canal below them lay in moonless shadow, barred with a few lingering lights. A last snatch of gondola-music came from far off, carried upward on a sultry gust.

"Dear old Ellie. All the same ... I wish all this belonged to you and me." Susy sighed.