Susy leaned back, letting the ash lengthen on her cigarette. How familiar, how hatefully familiar, was that old appeal! Ursula felt the pressing need of someone to flirt with Fred for a few weeks... and here was the very person she needed. Susy shivered at the thought. She had never really meant to go to Ruan. She had simply used the moor as a pretext when Violet Melrose had gently put her out of doors. Rather than do what Ursula asked she would borrow a few hundred pounds of Strefford, as he had suggested, and then look about for some temporary occupation until-Until she became Lady Altringham? Well, perhaps. At any rate, she was not going back to slave for Ursula.
She shook her head with a faint smile. "I'm so sorry, Ursula: of course I want awfully to oblige you--"
Mrs. Gillow's gaze grew reproachful. "I should have supposed you would," she murmured. Susy, meeting her eyes, looked into them down a long vista of favours bestowed, and perceived that Ursula was not the woman to forget on which side the obligation lay between them.
Susy hesitated: she remembered the weeks of ecstasy she had owed to the Gillows' wedding cheque, and it hurt her to appear ungrateful.
"If I could, Ursula... but really... I'm not free at the moment." She paused, and then took an abrupt decision. "The fact is, I'm waiting here to see Strefford."
"Strefford' Lord Altringham?" Ursula stared. "Ah, yes-I remember. You and he used to be great friends, didn't you?" Her roving attention deepened.... But if Susy were waiting to see Lord Altringham--one of the richest men in England! Suddenly Ursula opened her gold-meshed bag and snatched a miniature diary from it.
"But wait a moment--yes, it is next week! I knew it was next week he's coming to Ruan! But, you darling, that makes everything all right. You'll send him a wire at once, and come with me tomorrow, and meet him there instead of in this nasty sloppy desert.... Oh, Susy, if you knew how hard life is for me in Scotland between the Prince and Fred you couldn't possibly say no!"
Susy still wavered; but, after all, if Strefford were really bound for Ruan, why not see him there, agreeably and at leisure, instead of spending a dreary day with him in roaming the wet London streets, or screaming at him through the rattle of a restaurant orchestra? She knew he would not be likely to postpone his visit to Ruan in order to linger in London with her: such concessions had never been his way, and were less than ever likely to be, now that he could do so thoroughly and completely as he pleased.