in him as soon as Geordie was asleep.

She was a long time coming, but waiting for her was sweet, even in a
deserted hotel reading-room insufficiently heated by a sulky stove; and
after he had glanced through his morning's mail, hurriedly thrust into
his pocket as he left Paris, he sank into a state of drowsy beatitude.
It was all the maddest business in the world, yet it did not give him
the sense of unreality that had made their first adventure a mere golden
dream; and he sat and waited with the security of one in whom dear
habits have struck deep roots. In this mood of acquiescence even the
presence of the five Fulmers seemed a natural and necessary consequence
of all the rest; and when Susy at length appeared, a little pale and
tired, with the brooding inward look that busy mothers bring from the
nursery, that too seemed natural and necessary, and part of the new
order of things.

They had wandered out to a cheap restaurant for dinner; now, in the damp
December night, they were walking back to the hotel under a sky full of
rain-clouds. They seemed to have said everything to each other, and yet
barely to have begun what they had to tell; and at each step they took,
their heavy feet dragged a great load of bliss.

In the hotel almost all the lights were already out; and they groped
their way to the third floor room which was the only one that Susy
had found cheap enough. A ray from a street-lamp struck up through the
unshuttered windows; and after Nick had revived the fire they drew their
chairs close to it, and sat quietly for a while in the dark.

Their silence was so sweet that Nick could not make up his mind to break
it; not to do so gave his tossing spirit such a sense of permanence, of
having at last unlimited time before him in which to taste his joy and
let its sweetness stream through him. But at length he roused himself to
say: "It's queer how things coincide. I've had a little bit of good news
in one of the letters I got this morning."

Susy took the announcement serenely. "Well, you would, you know," she
commented, as if the day had been too obviously designed for bliss to
escape the notice of its dispensers.

"Yes," he continued with a thrill of pardonable pride. "During the
cruise I did a couple of articles on Crete--oh, just travel-impressions,
of course; they couldn't be more. But the editor of the New Review
has accepted them, and asks for others. And here's his cheque, if you
please! So you see