Chapter 3 - Page 2

own
guidance a rough-and-ready code, a short set of "mays" and
"mustn'ts" which immensely simplified his course. There were
things a fellow put up with for the sake of certain definite and
otherwise unattainable advantages; there were other things he
wouldn't traffic with at any price. But for a woman, he began
to see, it might be different. The temptations might be
greater, the cost considerably higher, the dividing line between
the "mays" and "mustn'ts" more fluctuating and less sharply
drawn. Susy, thrown on the world at seventeen, with only a weak
wastrel of a father to define that treacherous line for her, and
with every circumstance soliciting her to overstep it, seemed to
have been preserved chiefly by an innate scorn of most of the
objects of human folly. "Such trash as he went to pieces for,"
was her curt comment on her parent's premature demise: as
though she accepted in advance the necessity of ruining one's
self for something, but was resolved to discriminate firmly
between what was worth it and what wasn't.

This philosophy had at first enchanted Lansing; but now it began
to rouse vague fears. The fine armour of her fastidiousness had
preserved her from the kind of risks she had hitherto been
exposed to; but what if others, more subtle, found a joint in
it? Was there, among her delicate discriminations, any
equivalent to his own rules? Might not her taste for the best
and rarest be the very instrument of her undoing; and if
something that wasn't "trash" came her way, would she hesitate a
second to go to pieces for it?

He was determined to stick to the compact that they should do
nothing to interfere with what each referred to as the other's
"chance"; but what if, when hers came, he couldn't agree with
her in recognizing it? He wanted for her, oh, so passionately,
the best; but his conception of that best had so insensibly, so
subtly been transformed in the light of their first month
together!

His lazy strokes were carrying him slowly shoreward; but the
hour was so exquisite that a few yards from the landing he laid
hold of the mooring rope of Streffy's boat and floated there,
following his dream .... It was a bore to be leaving; no doubt
that was what made him turn things inside-out so uselessly.
Venice would be delicious, of course; but nothing would ever
again be as sweet as this. And then they had only a year of
security before them; and of that year a month was gone.

Reluctantly he swam ashore, walked up to the house, and pushed
open a window of the cool painted drawing-room. Signs of
departure were already visible. There were trunks in the hall,
tennis rackets on the stairs; on the landing, the cook Giulietta
had both arms around a