e sultry summer weeks, gone out after her talk with Nick,
as if nothing had happened, as if his whole world and hers had not
crashed in ruins at their feet. Ah, poor Susy! After all, she had merely
obeyed the instinct of self preservation, the old hard habit of keeping
up, going ahead and hiding her troubles; unless indeed the habit had
already engendered indifference, and it had become as easy for her as
for most of her friends to pass from drama to dancing, from sorrow to
the cinema. What of soul was left, he wondered--?

His train did not start till midnight, and after leaving the restaurant
Nick tramped the sultry by-ways till his tired legs brought him to a
standstill under the vine-covered pergola of a gondolier's wine-shop at
a landing close to the Piazzetta. There he could absorb cooling drinks
until it was time to go to the station.

It was after eleven, and he was beginning to look about for a boat, when
a black prow pushed up to the steps, and with much chaff and laughter a
party of young people in evening dress jumped out. Nick, from under the
darkness of the vine, saw that there was only one lady among them, and
it did not need the lamp above the landing to reveal her identity. Susy,
bareheaded and laughing, a light scarf slipping from her bare shoulders,
a cigarette between her fingers, took Strefford's arm and turned in the
direction of Florian's, with Gillow, the Prince and young Breckenridge
in her wake....

Nick had relived this rapid scene hundreds of times during his hours
in the train and his aimless trampings through the streets of Genoa. In
that squirrel-wheel of a world of his and Susy's you had to keep going
or drop out--and Susy, it was evident, had chosen to keep going. Under
the lamp-flare on the landing he had had a good look at her face, and
had seen that the mask of paint and powder was carefully enough adjusted
to hide any ravages the scene between them might have left. He even
fancied that she had dropped a little atropine into her eyes....

There was no time to spare if he meant to catch the midnight train, and
no gondola in sight but that which his wife had just left. He sprang
into it, and bade the gondolier carry him to the station. The cushions,
as he leaned back, gave out a breath of her scent; and in the glare of
electric light at the station he saw at his feet a rose which had fallen
from her dress. He ground his heel into it as he got out.

There it was, then; that was the l