moment in her past when everything-somebody
else's everything-had depended on her keeping a cool head and a clear
glance. It would have been a wonder if now, when she felt her own
everything at stake, she had not been able to put up as good a defence.

"What is it?" she repeated impatiently, as Lansing continued to remain
silent.

"That's what I'm here to ask," he returned, keeping his eyes as steady
as she kept hers. "There's no reason on earth, as you say, why Ellie
shouldn't give us presents--as expensive presents as she likes; and the
pearl is a beauty. All I ask is: for what specific services were they
given? For, allowing for all the absence of scruple that marks the
intercourse of truly civilized people, you'll probably agree that there
are limits; at least up to now there have been limits...."

"I really don't know what you mean. I suppose Ellie wanted to show that
she was grateful to us for looking after Clarissa."

"But she gave us all this in exchange for that, didn't she?" he
suggested, with a sweep of the hand around the beautiful shadowy room.
"A whole summer of it if we choose."

Susy smiled. "Apparently she didn't think that enough."

"What a doting mother! It shows the store she sets upon her child."

"Well, don't you set store upon Clarissa?"

"Clarissa is exquisite; but her mother didn't mention her in offering me
this recompense."

Susy lifted her head again. "Whom did she mention?"

"Vanderlyn," said Lansing.

"Vanderlyn? Nelson?"

"Yes--and some letters... something about letters.... What is it, my
dear, that you and I have been hired to hide from Vanderlyn? Because I
should like to know," Nick broke out savagely, "if we've been adequately
paid."

Susy was silent: she needed time to reckon up her forces, and study her
next move; and her brain was in such a whirl of fear that she could at
last only retort: "What is it that Ellie said to you?"

Lansing laughed again. "That's just what you'd like to find out--isn't
it?--in order to know the line to take in making your explanation."

The sneer had an effect that he could not have foreseen, and that Susy
herself had not expected.

"Oh, don't--don't let us speak to each other like that!" she cried; and
sinking down by the dressing-table she hid her face in her hands.

It seemed to her, now, that nothing mattered except that their love
for each other, their faith in each other, should be saved from some
unhealable hurt. She was willin