? Well, perhaps. At any rate, she was
not going back to slave for Ursula.

She shook her head with a faint smile. "I'm so sorry, Ursula: of course
I want awfully to oblige you--"

Mrs. Gillow's gaze grew reproachful. "I should have supposed you would,"
she murmured. Susy, meeting her eyes, looked into them down a long vista
of favours bestowed, and perceived that Ursula was not the woman to
forget on which side the obligation lay between them.

Susy hesitated: she remembered the weeks of ecstasy she had owed to the
Gillows' wedding cheque, and it hurt her to appear ungrateful.

"If I could, Ursula... but really... I'm not free at the moment." She
paused, and then took an abrupt decision. "The fact is, I'm waiting here
to see Strefford."

"Strefford' Lord Altringham?" Ursula stared. "Ah, yes-I remember. You
and he used to be great friends, didn't you?" Her roving attention
deepened.... But if Susy were waiting to see Lord Altringham--one of the
richest men in England! Suddenly Ursula opened her gold-meshed bag and
snatched a miniature diary from it.

"But wait a moment--yes, it is next week! I knew it was next week he's
coming to Ruan! But, you darling, that makes everything all right.
You'll send him a wire at once, and come with me tomorrow, and meet him
there instead of in this nasty sloppy desert.... Oh, Susy, if you knew
how hard life is for me in Scotland between the Prince and Fred you
couldn't possibly say no!"

Susy still wavered; but, after all, if Strefford were really bound
for Ruan, why not see him there, agreeably and at leisure, instead of
spending a dreary day with him in roaming the wet London streets, or
screaming at him through the rattle of a restaurant orchestra? She knew
he would not be likely to postpone his visit to Ruan in order to linger
in London with her: such concessions had never been his way, and were
less than ever likely to be, now that he could do so thoroughly and
completely as he pleased.

For the first time she fully understood how different his destiny had
become. Now of course all his days and hours were mapped out in advance:
invitations assailed him, opportunities pressed on him, he had only to
choose.... And the women! She had never before thought of the women. All
the girls in England would be wanting to marry him, not to mention her
own enterprising compatriots. And there were the married women, who were
even more to be feared. Streff might, for the time, escape marria