Chapter 13

PART II, XIII

WHEN Violet Melrose had said to Susy Branch, the winter before
in New York: "But why on earth don't you and Nick go to my
little place at Versailles for the honeymoon? I'm off to China,
and you could have it to yourselves all summer," the offer had
been tempting enough to make the lovers waver.

It was such an artless ingenuous little house, so full of the
demoralizing simplicity of great wealth, that it seemed to Susy
just the kind of place in which to take the first steps in
renunciation. But Nick had objected that Paris, at that time of
year, would be swarming with acquaintances who would hunt them
down at all hours; and Susy's own experience had led her to
remark that there was nothing the very rich enjoyed more than
taking pot-luck with the very poor. They therefore gave
Strefford's villa the preference, with an inward proviso (on
Susy's part) that Violet's house might very conveniently serve
their purpose at another season.

These thoughts were in her mind as she drove up to Mrs.
Melrose's door on a rainy afternoon late in August, her boxes
piled high on the roof of the cab she had taken at the station.
She had travelled straight through from Venice, stopping in
Milan just long enough to pick up a reply to the telegram she
had despatched to the perfect housekeeper whose permanent
presence enabled Mrs. Melrose to say: "Oh, when I'm sick of
everything I just rush off without warning to my little shanty
at Versailles, and live there all alone on scrambled eggs."

The perfect house-keeper had replied to Susy's enquiry: "Am
sure Mrs. Melrose most happy"; and Susy, without further
thought, had jumped into a Versailles train, and now stood in
the thin rain before the sphinx-guarded threshold of the
pavilion.

The revolving year had brought around the season at which Mrs.
Melrose's house might be convenient: no visitors were to be
feared at Versailles at the end of August, and though Susy's
reasons for seeking solitude were so remote from those she had
once prefigured, they were none the less cogent. To be alone--
alone! After those first exposed days when, in the persistent
presence of Fred Gillow and his satellites, and in the mocking
radiance of late summer on the lagoons, she had fumed and turned
about in her agony like a trapped animal in a cramping cage, to
be alone had seemed the only respite, the one craving: to be
alone somewhere in a setting as unlike as possible to the
sensual splendours of Venice, under skies as unlike its azure
roof. If she could have chosen she would have crawled away into
a dingy inn in a rainy northern town, where she had never been
and no one knew her. Failing that unobtainable luxury, here she
was on the