tions to write about it would have been
different; he could not have borne for twenty-four hours the idea that
she was in uncertainty as to money. But that had all been settled
long ago. From the first she had had the administering of their modest
fortune. On their marriage Nick's own meagre income, paid in, none too
regularly, by the agent who had managed for years the dwindling family
properties, had been transferred to her: it was the only wedding present
he could make. And the wedding cheques had of course all been
deposited in her name. There were therefore no "business" reasons for
communicating with her; and when it came to reasons of another order the
mere thought of them benumbed him.

For the first few days he reproached himself for his inertia; then he
began to seek reasons for justifying it. After all, for both their sakes
a waiting policy might be the wisest he could pursue. He had left Susy
because he could not tolerate the conditions on which he had discovered
their life together to be based; and he had told her so. What more was
there to say?

Nothing was changed in their respective situations; if they came
together it could be only to resume the same life; and that, as the days
went by, seemed to him more and more impossible. He had not yet reached
the point of facing a definite separation; but whenever his thoughts
travelled back over their past life he recoiled from any attempt to
return to it. As long as this state of mind continued there seemed
nothing to add to the letter he had already written, except indeed the
statement that he was cruising with the Hickses. And he saw no pressing
reason for communicating that.

To the Hickses he had given no hint of his situation. When Coral Hicks,
a fortnight earlier, had picked him up in the broiling streets of Genoa,
and carried him off to the Ibis, he had thought only of a cool dinner
and perhaps a moonlight sail. Then, in reply to their friendly urging,
he had confessed that he had not been well--had indeed gone off
hurriedly for a few days' change of air--and that left him without
defence against the immediate proposal that he should take his change
of air on the Ibis. They were just off to Corsica and Sardinia, and from
there to Sicily: he could rejoin the railway at Naples, and be back at
Venice in ten days.

Ten days of respite--the temptation was irresistible. And he really
liked the kind uncomplicated Hickses. A wholesome honesty and simplicity