had spoken
in him. Susy listened to him wistfully, silenced by her imaginative
perception of the distance that these things had put between them.

"It was horrible... seeing them both there together, laid out in that
hideous Pugin chapel at Altringham... the poor boy especially. I
suppose that's really what's cutting me up now," he murmured, almost
apologetically.

"Oh, it's more than that--more than you know," she insisted; but he
jerked back: "Now, my dear, don't be edifying, please," and fumbled for
a cigarette in the pocket which was already beginning to bulge with his
miscellaneous properties.

"And now about you--for that's what I came for," he continued, turning
to her with one of his sudden movements. "I couldn't make head or tail
of your letter."

She paused a moment to steady her voice. "Couldn't you? I suppose you'd
forgotten my bargain with Nick. He hadn't-and he's asked me to fulfil
it."

Strefford stared. "What--that nonsense about your setting each other
free if either of you had the chance to make a good match?"

She signed "Yes."

"And he's actually asked you--?"

"Well: practically. He's gone off with the Hickses. Before going he
wrote me that we'd better both consider ourselves free. And Coral sent
me a postcard to say that she would take the best of care of him."

Strefford mused, his eyes upon his cigarette. "But what the deuce led up
to all this? It can't have happened like that, out of a clear sky."

Susy flushed, hesitated, looked away. She had meant to tell Strefford
the whole story; it had been one of her chief reasons for wishing to see
him again, and half-unconsciously, perhaps, she had hoped, in his laxer
atmosphere, to recover something of her shattered self-esteem. But now
she suddenly felt the impossibility of confessing to anyone the depths
to which Nick's wife had stooped. She fancied that her companion guessed
the nature of her hesitation.

"Don't tell me anything you don't want to, you know, my dear."

"No; I do want to; only it's difficult. You see--we had so very little
money...."

"Yes?"

"And Nick--who was thinking of his book, and of all sorts of big things,
fine things--didn't realise... left it all to me... to manage...."

She stumbled over the word, remembering how Nick had always winced
at it. But Strefford did not seem to notice her, and she hurried on,
unfolding in short awkward sentences the avowal of their pecuniary
difficulties, and of Nick's inabilit