Chapter 3

III.

THEIR month of Como was within a few hours of ending. Till the
last moment they had hoped for a reprieve; but the accommodating
Streffy had been unable to put the villa at their disposal for a
longer time, since he had had the luck to let it for a thumping
price to some beastly bouncers who insisted on taking possession
at the date agreed on.

Lansing, leaving Susy's side at dawn, had gone down to the lake
for a last plunge; and swimming homeward through the crystal
light he looked up at the garden brimming with flowers, the long
low house with the cypress wood above it, and the window behind
which his wife still slept. The month had been exquisite, and
their happiness as rare, as fantastically complete, as the scene
before him. He sank his chin into the sunlit ripples and sighed
for sheer content ....

It was a bore to be leaving the scene of such complete
well-being, but the next stage in their progress promised to be
hardly less delightful. Susy was a magician: everything she
predicted came true. Houses were being showered on them; on all
sides he seemed to see beneficent spirits winging toward them,
laden with everything from a piano nobile in Venice to a camp in
the Adirondacks. For the present, they had decided on the
former. Other considerations apart, they dared not risk the
expense of a journey across the Atlantic; so they were heading
instead for the Nelson Vanderlyns' palace on the Giudecca. They
were agreed that, for reasons of expediency, it might be wise to
return to New York for the coming winter. It would keep them in
view, and probably lead to fresh opportunities; indeed, Susy
already had in mind the convenient flat that she was sure a
migratory cousin (if tactfully handled, and assured that they
would not overwork her cook) could certainly be induced to lend
them. Meanwhile the need of making plans was still remote; and
if there was one art in which young Lansing's twenty-eight years
of existence had perfected him it was that of living completely
and unconcernedly in the present ....

If of late he had tried to look into the future more insistently
than was his habit, it was only because of Susy. He had meant,
when they married, to be as philosophic for her as for himself;
and he knew she would have resented above everything his
regarding their partnership as a reason for anxious thought.
But since they had been together she had given him glimpses of
her past that made him angrily long to shelter and defend her
future. It was intolerable that a spirit as fine as hers should
be ever so little dulled or diminished by the kind of
compromises out of which their wretched lives were made. For
himself, he didn't care a hang: he had composed for his