Some days had elapsed since Susy and Nick had had a sunset to themselves, and in the interval Susy had once again learned the superior quality of the sympathy that held them together. She now viewed all the rest of life as no more than a show: a jolly show which it would have been a thousand pities to miss, but which, if the need arose, they could get up and leave at any moment--provided that they left it together.
In the dusk, while their prow slid over inverted palaces, and through the scent of hidden gardens, she leaned against him and murmured, her mind returning to the recent scene with Ellie: "Nick, should you hate me dreadfully if I had no clothes?"
Her husband was kindling a cigarette, and the match lit up the grin with which he answered: "But, my dear, have I ever shown the slightest symptom--?"
"Oh, rubbish! When a woman says: 'No clothes,' she means: 'Not the right clothes.'"
He took a meditative puff. "Ah, you've been going over Ellie's finery with her."
"Yes: all those trunks and trunks full. And she finds she's got nothing for St. Moritz!"
"Of course," he murmured, drowsy with content, and manifesting but a languid interest in the subject of Mrs. Vanderlyn's wardrobe.
"Only fancy--she very nearly decided to stop over for Nelson's arrival next week, so that he might bring her two or three more trunkfuls from Paris. But mercifully I've managed to persuade her that it would be foolish to wait."
Susy felt a hardly perceptible shifting of her husband's lounging body, and was aware, through all her watchful tentacles, of a widening of his half-closed lids.
"You 'managed'--?" She fancied he paused on the word ironically. "But why?"
"Why--what?"
"Why on earth should you try to prevent Ellie's waiting for Nelson, if for once in her life she wants to?"
Susy, conscious of reddening suddenly, drew back as though the leap of her tell-tale heart might have penetrated the blue flannel shoulder against which she leaned.
"Really, dearest--!" she murmured; but with a sudden doggedness he renewed his "Why?"
"Because she's in such a fever to get to St. Moritz--and in such a funk lest the hotel shouldn't keep her rooms," Susy somewhat breathlessly produced.
"Ah--I see." Nick paused again. "You're a devoted friend, aren't you!"
"What an odd question! There's hardly anyone I've reason to be more devoted to than Ellie," his wife answered; and she felt his contrite clasp on her hand.