Chapter 14 - Page 2

his habitual bantering tone Susy discerned
a change. The disaster had shocked him profoundly; already, in
his brief sojourn among his people and among the great
possessions so tragically acquired, old instincts had awakened,
forgotten associations had spoken in him. Susy listened to him
wistfully, silenced by her imaginative perception of the
distance that these things had put between them.

"It was horrible ... seeing them both there together, laid out
in that hideous Pugin chapel at Altringham ... the poor boy
especially. I suppose that's really what's cutting me up now,"
he murmured, almost apologetically.

"Oh, it's more than that--more than you know," she insisted; but
he jerked back: "Now, my dear, don't be edifying, please," and
fumbled for a cigarette in the pocket which was already
beginning to bulge with his miscellaneous properties.

"And now about you--for that's what I came for," he continued,
turning to her with one of his sudden movements. "I couldn't
make head or tail of your letter."

She paused a moment to steady her voice. "Couldn't you? I
suppose you'd forgotten my bargain with Nick. He hadn't-and
he's asked me to fulfil it."

Strefford stared. "What--that nonsense about your setting each
other free if either of you had the chance to make a good
match?"

She signed "Yes."

"And he's actually asked you--?"

"Well: practically. He's gone off with the Hickses. Before
going he wrote me that we'd better both consider ourselves free.
And Coral sent me a postcard to say that she would take the best
of care of him."

Strefford mused, his eyes upon his cigarette. "But what the
deuce led up to all this? It can't have happened like that, out
of a clear sky."

Susy flushed, hesitated, looked away. She had meant to tell
Strefford the whole story; it had been one of her chief reasons
for wishing to see him again, and half-unconsciously, perhaps,
she had hoped, in his laxer atmosphere, to recover something of
her shattered self-esteem. But now she suddenly felt the
impossibility of confessing to anyone the depths to which Nick's
wife had stooped. She fancied that her companion guessed the
nature of her hesitation.

"Don't tell me anything you don't want to, you know, my dear."

"No; I do want to; only it's difficult. You see--we had so very
little money ...."

"Yes?"

"And Nick--who was thinking of his book, and of all sorts of big
things, fine things--didn't realise ... left it all to me ... to
manage ...."

She stumbled over the word, remembering how Nick had always
winced at it. But Strefford did not seem to notice her, and she
hurried on, unfolding in short awkward sentences the