were accomplishing some tiresome duty that had to be got through
with before he could turn his mind to more important things.

"It's the easiest way," he heard himself say.

At the street-corner--her street-corner--he stopped the cab, and stood
motionless while it rattled away. It was a short vague street, much
farther off than he had expected, and fading away at the farther end in
a dusky blur of hoardings overhung by trees. A thin rain was beginning
to fall, and it was already night in this inadequately lit suburban
quarter. Lansing walked down the empty street. The houses stood a few
yards apart, with bare-twigged shrubs between, and gates and railings
dividing them from the pavement. He could not, at first, distinguish
their numbers; but presently, coming abreast of a street-lamp, he
discovered that the small shabby facade it illuminated was precisely
the one he sought. The discovery surprised him. He had imagined that, as
frequently happened in the outlying quarters of Passy and La Muette,
the mean street would lead to a stately private hotel, built upon some
bowery fragment of an old country-place. It was the latest whim of the
wealthy to establish themselves on these outskirts of Paris, where
there was still space for verdure; and he had pictured Susy behind
some pillared house-front, with lights pouring across glossy turf to
sculptured gateposts. Instead, he saw a six-windowed house, huddled
among neighbours of its kind, with the family wash fluttering between
meagre bushes. The arc-light beat ironically on its front, which had
the worn look of a tired work-woman's face; and Lansing, as he leaned
against the opposite railing, vainly tried to fit his vision of Susy
into so humble a setting.

The probable explanation was that his lawyer had given him the wrong
address; not only the wrong number but the wrong street. He pulled out
the slip of paper, and was crossing over to decipher it under the lamp,
when an errand-boy appeared out of the obscurity, and approached the
house. Nick drew back, and the boy, unlatching the gate, ran up the
steps and gave the bell a pull.

Almost immediately the door opened; and there stood Susy, the light full
upon her, and upon a red-checked child against her shoulder. The space
behind them was dark, or so dimly lit that it formed a black background
to her vivid figure. She looked at the errand-boy without surprise, took
his parcel, and after he had turned away, lingered a moment i