ge;
though she could guess the power of persuasion, family pressure, all the
converging traditional influences he had so often ridiculed, yet, as
she knew, had never completely thrown off.... Yes, those quiet invisible
women at Altringham-his uncle's widow, his mother, the spinster
sisters--it was not impossible that, with tact and patience--and the
stupidest women could be tactful and patient on such occasions--they
might eventually persuade him that it was his duty, they might put just
the right young loveliness in his way.... But meanwhile, now, at
once, there were the married women. Ah, they wouldn't wait, they were
doubtless laying their traps already! Susy shivered at the thought. She
knew too much about the way the trick was done, had followed, too often,
all the sinuosities of such approaches. Not that they were very sinuous
nowadays: more often there was just a swoop and a pounce when the time
came; but she knew all the arts and the wiles that led up to it. She
knew them, oh, how she knew them--though with Streff, thank heaven, she
had never been called upon to exercise them! His love was there for the
asking: would she not be a fool to refuse it?

Perhaps; though on that point her mind still wavered. But at any
rate she saw that, decidedly, it would be better to yield to Ursula's
pressure; better to meet him at Ruan, in a congenial setting, where she
would have time to get her bearings, observe what dangers threatened
him, and make up her mind whether, after all, it was to be her mission
to save him from the other women.

"Well, if you like, then, Ursula...."

"Oh, you angel, you! I'm so glad! We'll go to the nearest post office,
and send off the wire ourselves."

As they got into the motor Mrs. Gillow seized Susy's arm with a pleading
pressure. "And you will let Fred make love to you a little, won't you,
darling?"

XVIII

"BUT I can't think," said Ellie Vanderlyn earnestly, "why you don't
announce your engagement before waiting for your divorce. People are
beginning to do it, I assure you--it's so much safer!"

Mrs. Vanderlyn, on the way back from St. Moritz to England, had paused
in Paris to renew the depleted wardrobe which, only two months earlier,
had filled so many trunks to bursting. Other ladies, flocking there
from all points of the globe for the same purpose, disputed with her
the Louis XVI suites of the Nouveau Luxe, the pink-candled tables in
the restaurant, the hours for trying-on at