Chapter 13 - Page 2

threshold of an empty house, in a deserted place,
under lowering skies. She had shaken off Fred Gillow, sulkily
departing for his moor (where she had half-promised to join him
in September); the Prince, young Breckenridge, and the few
remaining survivors of the Venetian group, had dispersed in the
direction of the Engadine or Biarritz; and now she could at
least collect her wits, take stock of herself, and prepare the
countenance with which she was to face the next stage in her
career. Thank God it was raining at Versailles!

The door opened, she heard voices in the drawing-room, and a
slender languishing figure appeared on the threshold.

"Darling!" Violet Melrose cried in an embrace, drawing her into
the dusky perfumed room.

"But I thought you were in China!" Susy stammered.

"In China ... in China," Mrs. Melrose stared with dreamy eyes,
and Susy remembered her drifting disorganised life, a life more
planless, more inexplicable than that of any of the other
ephemeral beings blown about upon the same winds of pleasure.

"Well, Madam, I thought so myself till I got a wire from Mrs.
Melrose last evening," remarked the perfect house-keeper,
following with Susy's handbag.

Mrs. Melrose clutched her cavernous temples in her attenuated
hands. "Of course, of course! I had meant to go to China--no,
India .... But I've discovered a genius ... and Genius, you
know ...." Unable to complete her thought, she sank down upon a
pillowy divan, stretched out an arm, cried: "Fulmer! Fulmer!"
and, while Susy Lansing stood in the middle of the room with
widening eyes, a man emerged from the more deeply cushioned and
scented twilight of some inner apartment, and she saw with
surprise Nat Fulmer, the good Nat Fulmer of the New Hampshire
bungalow and the ubiquitous progeny, standing before her in
lordly ease, his hands in his pockets, a cigarette between his
lips, his feet solidly planted in the insidious depths of one of
Violet Melrose's white leopard skins.

"Susy!" he shouted with open arms; and Mrs. Melrose murmured:
"You didn't know, then? You hadn't heard of his masterpieces?"

In spite of herself, Susy burst into a laugh. "Is Nat your
genius?"

Mrs. Melrose looked at her reproachfully.

Fulmer laughed. "No; I'm Grace's. But Mrs. Melrose has been
our Providence, and ...."

"Providence?" his hostess interrupted. "Don't talk as if you
were at a prayer-meeting! He had an exhibition in New York ...
it was the most fabulous success. He's come abroad to make
studies for the decoration of my music-room in New York. Ursula
Gillow has given him her garden-house at Roslyn to do. And Mrs.
Bockheimer's ball-room--oh, Fulmer, where are the cartoons?"
She