OF some new ferment at work in him Nick Lansing himself wasequally aware. He was a better judge of the book he was tryingto write than either Susy or Strefford; he knew its weaknesses,its treacheries, its tendency to slip through his fingers justas he thought his grasp tightest; but he knew also that at thevery moment when it seemed to have failed him it would suddenlybe back, beating its loud wings in his face.
He had no delusions as to its commercial value, and had wincedmore than he triumphed when Susy produced her allusion toMarius. His book was to be called The Pageant of Alexander.
His imagination had been enchanted by the idea of picturing theyoung conqueror's advance through the fabulous landscapes ofAsia: he liked writing descriptions, and vaguely felt thatunder the guise of fiction he could develop his theory ofOriental influences in Western art at the expense of lesslearning than if he had tried to put his ideas into an essay.
He knew enough of his subject to know that he did not knowenough to write about it; but he consoled himself by rememberingthat Wilhelm Meister has survived many weighty volumes onaesthetics; and between his moments of self-disgust he tookhimself at Susy's valuation, and found an unmixed joy in histask.
Never--no, never!--had he been so boundlessly, so confidentlyhappy. His hack-work had given him the habit of application,and now habit wore the glow of inspiration. His previousliterary ventures had been timid and tentative: if this one wasgrowing and strengthening on his hands, it must be because theconditions were so different. He was at ease, he was secure, hewas satisfied; and he had also, for the first time since hisearly youth, before his mother's death, the sense of having someone to look after, some one who was his own particular care, andto whom he was answerable for himself and his actions, as he hadnever felt himself answerable to the hurried and indifferentpeople among whom he had chosen to live.
Susy had the same standards as these people: she spoke theirlanguage, though she understood others, she required theirpleasures if she did not revere their gods. But from the momentthat she had become his property he had built up in himself aconception of her answering to some deep-seated need ofveneration. She was his, he had chosen her, she had taken herplace in the long line of Lansing women who had been loved,honoured, and probably deceived, by bygone Lansing men. Hedidn't pretend to understand the logic of it; but the fact thatshe was his wife gave purpose and continuity to his scatteredimpulses, and a mysterious glow of consecration to his task.
Once or twice, in the first days of his marriage, he had askedhimself with a slight shiver what would happen if Susy shouldbegin to bore him. The thing had happened to him with otherwomen as to whom his first emotions had not differed inintensity from those she inspired. The part he had played inhis previous love-affairs might indeed have been summed up inthe memorable line: "I am the hunter and the prey," for he hadinvariably ceased to be the first only to regard himself as thesecond. This experience had never ceased to cause him theliveliest pain, since his sympathy for his pursuer was only lesskeen than his commiseration for himself; but as he was always alittle sorrier for himself, he had always ended by distancingthe pursuer.
All these pre-natal experiences now seemed utterly inapplicableto the new man he had become. He could not imagine being boredby Susy--or trying to escape from her if he were. He could notthink of her as an enemy, or even as an accomplice, sinceaccomplices are potential enemies: she was some one with whom,by some unheard-of miracle, joys above the joys of friendshipwere to be tasted, but who, even through these fleetingecstasies, remained simply and securely his friend.
These new feelings did not affect his general attitude towardlife: they merely confirmed his faith in its ultimate"jolliness." Never had he more thoroughly enjoyed the things hehad always enjoyed. A good dinner had never been as good tohim, a beautiful sunset as beautiful; he still rejoiced in thefact that he appreciated both with an equal acuity. He was asproud as ever of Susy's cleverness and freedom from prejudice:
she couldn't be too "modern" for him now that she was his. Heshared to the full her passionate enjoyment of the present, andall her feverish eagerness to make it last. He knew when shewas thinking of ways of extending their golden opportunity, andhe secretly thought with her, wondering what new means theycould devise. He was thankful that Ellie Vanderlyn was stillabsent, and began to hope they might have the palace tothemselves for the remainder of the summer. If they did, hewould have time to finish his book, and Susy to lay up a littleinterest on their wedding cheques; and thus their enchanted yearmight conceivably be prolonged to two.
Late as the season was, their presence and Strefford's in Venicehad already drawn thither several wandering members of theirset. It was characteristic of these indifferent butagglutinative people that they could never remain long partedfrom each other without a dim sense of uneasiness. Lansing wasfamiliar with the feeling. He had known slight twinges of ithimself, and had often ministered to its qualms in others. Itwas hardly stronger than the faint gnawing which recalls thetea-hour to one who has lunched well and is sure of dining asabundantly; but it gave a purpose to the purposeless, and helpedmany hesitating spirits over the annual difficulty of decidingbetween Deauville and St. Moritz, Biarritz and Capri.
Nick was not surprised to learn that it was becoming thefashion, that summer, to pop down to Venice and take a look atthe Lansings. Streffy had set the example, and Streffy'sexample was always followed. And then Susy's marriage was stilla subject of sympathetic speculation. People knew the story ofthe wedding cheques, and were interested in seeing how long theycould be made to last. It was going to be the thing, that year,to help prolong the honey-moon by pressing houses on theadventurous couple. Before June was over a band of friends werebasking with the Lansings on the Lido.
Nick found himself unexpectedly disturbed by their arrival. Toavoid comment and banter he put his book aside and forbade Susyto speak of it, explaining to her that he needed an interval ofrest. His wife instantly and exaggeratedly adopted this view,guarding him from the temptation to work as jealously as she haddiscouraged him from idling; and he was careful not to let herfind out that the change in his habits coincided with his havingreached a difficult point in his book. But though he was notsorry to stop writing he found himself unexpectedly oppressed bythe weight of his leisure. For the first time communal dawdlinghad lost its charm for him; not because his fellow dawdlers wereless congenial than of old, but because in the interval he hadknown something so immeasurably better. He had always felthimself to be the superior of his habitual associates, but nowthe advantage was too great: really, in a sense, it was hardlyfair to them.
He had flattered himself that Susy would share this feeling; buthe perceived with annoyance that the arrival of their friendsheightened her animation. It was as if the inward glow whichhad given her a new beauty were now refracted upon her by thepresence of the very people they had come to Venice to avoid.
Lansing was vaguely irritated; and when he asked her how sheliked being with their old crowd again his irritation wasincreased by her answering with a laugh that she only hoped thepoor dears didn't see too plainly how they bored her. Thepatent insincerity of the reply was a shock to Lansing. He knewthat Susy was not really bored, and he understood that she hadsimply guessed his feelings and instinctively adopted them:
that henceforth she was always going to think as he thought. Toconfirm this fear he said carelessly: "Oh, all the same, it'srather jolly knocking about with them again for a bit;" and sheanswered at once, and with equal conviction: "Yes, isn't it?
The old darlings--all the same!"A fear of the future again laid its cold touch on Lansing.
Susy's independence and self-sufficiency had been among herchief attractions; if she were to turn into an echo theirdelicious duet ran the risk of becoming the dullest ofmonologues. He forgot that five minutes earlier he had resentedher being glad to see their friends, and for a moment he foundhimself leaning dizzily over that insoluble riddle of thesentimental life: that to be differed with is exasperating, andto be agreed with monotonous.
Once more he began to wonder if he were not fundamentallyunfitted for the married state; and was saved from despair onlyby remembering that Susy's subjection to his moods was notlikely to last. But even then it never occurred to him toreflect that his apprehensions were superfluous, since their tiewas avowedly a temporary one. Of the special understanding onwhich their marriage had been based not a trace remained in histhoughts of her; the idea that he or she might ever renounceeach other for their mutual good had long since dwindled to theghost of an old joke.
It was borne in on him, after a week or two of unbrokensociability, that of all his old friends it was the MortimerHickses who bored him the least. The Hickses had left the Ibisfor an apartment in a vast dilapidated palace near theCanareggio. They had hired the apartment from a painter (one oftheir newest discoveries), and they put up philosophically withthe absence of modern conveniences in order to secure theinestimable advantage of "atmosphere." In this privileged airthey gathered about them their usual mixed company of quietstudious people and noisy exponents of new theories, themselvestotally unconscious of the disparity between their differentguests, and beamingly convinced that at last they were seated atthe source of wisdom.
In old days Lansing would have got half an hour's amusement,followed by a long evening of boredom, from the sight of Mrs.
Hicks, vast and jewelled, seated between a quiet-lookingprofessor of archaeology and a large-browed composer, or thehigh priest of a new dance-step, while Mr. Hicks, beaming abovehis vast white waistcoat, saw to it that the champagne flowedmore abundantly than the talk, and the bright young secretariesindustriously "kept up" with the dizzy cross-current of prophecyand erudition. But a change had come over Lansing. Hitherto itwas in contrast to his own friends that the Hickses had seemedmost insufferable; now it was as an escape from these samefriends that they had become not only sympathetic but eveninteresting. It was something, after all, to be with people whodid not regard Venice simply as affording exceptionalopportunities for bathing and adultery, but who were reverentlyif confusedly aware that they were in the presence of somethingunique and ineffable, and determined to make the utmost of theirprivilege.
"After all," he said to himself one evening, as his eyeswandered, with somewhat of a convalescent's simple joy, from oneto another of their large confiding faces, "after all, they'vegot a religion ...." The phrase struck him, in the moment ofusing it, as indicating a new element in his own state of mind,and as being, in fact, the key to his new feeling about theHickses. Their muddled ardour for great things was related tohis own new view of the universe: the people who felt, howeverdimly, the wonder and weight of life must ever after be nearerto him than those to whom it was estimated solely by one'sbalance at the bank. He supposed, on reflexion, that that waswhat he meant when he thought of the Hickses as having "areligion" ....
A few days later, his well-being was unexpectedly disturbed bythe arrival of Fred Gillow. Lansing had always felt a tolerantliking for Gillow, a large smiling silent young man with anintense and serious desire to miss nothing attainable by one ofhis fortune and standing. What use he made of his experiences,Lansing, who had always gone into his own modest adventuresrather thoroughly, had never been able to guess; but he hadalways suspected the prodigal Fred of being no more than a well-disguised looker-on. Now for the first time he began to viewhim with another eye. The Gillows were, in fact, the one uneasypoint in Nick's conscience. He and Susy from the first, hadtalked of them less than of any other members of their group:
they had tacitly avoided the name from the day on which Susy hadcome to Lansing's lodgings to say that Ursula Gillow had askedher to renounce him, till that other day, just before theirmarriage, when she had met him with the rapturous cry: "Here'sour first wedding present! Such a thumping big cheque from Fredand Ursula!"Plenty of sympathizing people were ready, Lansing knew, to tellhim just what had happened in the interval between those twodates; but he had taken care not to ask. He had even affectedan initiation so complete that the friends who burned toenlighten him were discouraged by his so obviously knowing morethan they; and gradually he had worked himself around to theirview, and had taken it for granted that he really did.
Now he perceived that he knew nothing at all, and that the"Hullo, old Fred!" with which Susy hailed Gillow's arrival mightbe either the usual tribal welcome--since they were all "old,"and all nicknamed, in their private jargon--or a greeting thatconcealed inscrutable depths of complicity.
Susy was visibly glad to see Gillow; but she was glad ofeverything just then, and so glad to show her gladness! Thefact disarmed her husband and made him ashamed of hisuneasiness. "You ought to have thought this all out sooner, orelse you ought to chuck thinking of it at all," was the soundbut ineffectual advice he gave himself on the day after Gillow'sarrival; and immediately set to work to rethink the wholematter.
Fred Gillow showed no consciousness of disturbing any one'speace of mind. Day after day he sprawled for hours on the Lidosands, his arms folded under his head, listening to Streffy'snonsense and watching Susy between sleepy lids; but he betrayedno desire to see her alone, or to draw her into talk apart fromthe others. More than ever he seemed content to be thegratified spectator of a costly show got up for his privateentertainment. It was not until he heard her, one morning,grumble a little at the increasing heat and the menace ofmosquitoes, that he said, quite as if they had talked the matterover long before, and finally settled it: "The moor will beready any time after the first of August."Nick fancied that Susy coloured a little, and drew herself upmore defiantly than usual as she sent a pebble skimming acrossthe dying ripples at their feet.
"You'll be a lot cooler in Scotland," Fred added, with what, forhim, was an unusual effort at explicitness.
"Oh, shall we?" she retorted gaily; and added with an air ofmystery and importance, pivoting about on her high heels:
"Nick's got work to do here. It will probably keep us allsummer.""Work? Rot! You'll die of the smells." Gillow staredperplexedly skyward from under his tilted hat-brim; and thenbrought out, as from the depth of a rankling grievance: "Ithought it was all understood.""Why," Nick asked his wife that night, as they re-enteredEllie's cool drawing-room after a late dinner at the Lido, "didGillow think it was understood that we were going to his moor inAugust?" He was conscious of the oddness of speaking of theirfriend by his surname, and reddened at his blunder.
Susy had let her lace cloak slide to her feet, and stood beforehim in the faintly-lit room, slim and shimmering-white throughblack transparencies.
She raised her eyebrows carelessly. "I told you long ago he'dasked us there for August.""You didn't tell me you'd accepted."She smiled as if he had said something as simple as Fred. "Iaccepted everything--from everybody!"What could he answer? It was the very principle on which theirbargain had been struck. And if he were to say: "Ah, but thisis different, because I'm jealous of Gillow," what light wouldsuch an answer shed on his past? The time for being jealous-ifso antiquated an attitude were on any ground defensible-wouldhave been before his marriage, and before the acceptance of thebounties which had helped to make it possible. He wondered alittle now that in those days such scruples had not troubledhim. His inconsistency irritated him, and increased hisirritation against Gillow. "I suppose he thinks he owns us!" hegrumbled inwardly.
He had thrown himself into an armchair, and Susy, advancingacross the shining arabesques of the floor, slid down at hisfeet, pressed her slender length against him, and whispered withlifted face and lips close to his: "We needn't ever go anywhereyou don't want to." For once her submission was sweet, andfolding her close he whispered back through his kiss: "Notthere, then."In her response to his embrace he felt the acquiescence of herwhole happy self in whatever future he decided on, if only itgave them enough of such moments as this; and as they held eachother fast in silence his doubts and distrust began to seem likea silly injustice.
"Let us stay here as long as ever Ellie will let us," he said,as if the shadowy walls and shining floors were a magic boundarydrawn about his happiness.
She murmured her assent and stood up, stretching her sleepy armabove her shoulders. "How dreadfully late it is .... Will youunhook me? ... Oh, there's a telegram."She picked it up from the table, and tearing it open stared amoment at the message. "It's from Ellie. She's coming to-morrow."She turned to the window and strayed out onto the balcony. Nickfollowed her with enlacing arm. The canal below them lay inmoonless shadow, barred with a few lingering lights. A lastsnatch of gondola-music came from far off, carried upward on asultry gust.
"Dear old Ellie. All the same ... I wish all this belonged toyou and me." Susy sighed.