as she fled on toward the lights of the streets a breath offreedom seemed to blow into her face.

like a weary load the accumulated hypocrisies of the last monthshad dropped from her: she was herself again, nick's susy, andno one else's. she sped on, staring with bright bewildered eyesat the stately facades of the la muette quarter, theperspectives of bare trees, the awakening glitter of shop-windows holding out to her all the things she would never againbe able to buy ....

in an avenue of shops she paused before a milliner's window, andsaid to herself: "why shouldn't i earn my living by trimminghats?" she met work-girls streaming out under a doorway, andscattering to catch trams and omnibuses; and she looked withnewly-wakened interest at their tired independent faces. "whyshouldn't i earn my living as well as they do?" she thought. alittle farther on she passed a sister of charity with softlytrotting feet, a calm anonymous glance, and hands hidden in hercapacious sleeves. susy looked at her and thought: "whyshouldn't i be a sister, and have no money to worry about, andtrot about under a white coif helping poor people?"all these strangers on whom she smiled in passing, and glancedback at enviously, were free from the necessities that enslavedher, and would not have known what she meant if she had toldthem that she must have so much money for her dresses, so muchfor her cigarettes, so much for bridge and cabs and tips, andall kinds of extras, and that at that moment she ought to behurrying back to a dinner at the british embassy, where herpermanent right to such luxuries was to be solemnly recognizedand ratified.

the artificiality and unreality of her life overcame her as withstifling fumes. she stopped at a street-corner, drawing longpanting breaths as if she had been running a race. then, slowlyand aimlessly, she began to saunter along a street of smallprivate houses in damp gardens that led to the avenue du bois.

she sat down on a bench. not far off, the arc de triompheraised its august bulk, and beyond it a river of lights streameddown toward paris, and the stir of the city's heart-beatstroubled the quiet in her bosom. but not for long. she seemedto be looking at it all from the other side of the grave; and asshe got up and wandered down the champs elysees, half empty inthe evening lull between dusk and dinner, she felt as if theglittering avenue were really changed into the field of shadowsfrom which it takes its name, and as if she were a ghost amongghosts.

halfway home, a weakness of loneliness overcame her, and sheseated herself under the trees near the rond point. lines ofmotors and carriages were beginning to animate the convergingthoroughfares, streaming abreast, crossing, winding in and outof each other in a tangle of hurried pleasure-seeking. shecaught the light on jewels and shirt-fronts and hard bored eyesemerging from dim billows of fur and velvet. she seemed to hearwhat the couples were saying to each other, she pictured thedrawing-rooms, restaurants, dance-halls they were hastening to,the breathless routine that was hurrying them along, as time,the old vacuum-cleaner, swept them away with the dust of theircarriage-wheels. and again the loneliness vanished in a senseof release ....

at the corner of the place de la concorde she stopped,recognizing a man in evening dress who was hailing a taxi.

their eyes met, and nelson vanderlyn came forward. he was thelast person she cared to run across, and she shrank backinvoluntarily. what did he know, what had he guessed, of hercomplicity in his wife's affairs? no doubt ellie had blabbed itall out by this time; she was just as likely to confide herlove-affairs to nelson as to anyone else, now that thebockheimer prize was landed.

"well--well--well--so i've caught you at it! glad to see you,susy, my dear." she found her hand cordially clasped invanderlyn's, and his round pink face bent on her with all itsold urbanity. did nothing matter, then, in this world she wasfleeing from, did no one love or hate or remember?

"no idea you were in paris--just got here myself," vanderlyncontinued, visibly delighted at the meeting. "look here, don'tsuppose you're out of a job this evening by any chance, andwould come and cheer up a lone bachelor, eh? no? you are?

well, that's luck for once! i say, where shall we go? one ofthe places where they dance, i suppose? yes, i twirl the lightfantastic once in a while myself. got to keep up with thetimes! hold on, taxi! here--i'll drive you home first, andwait while you jump into your toggery. lots of time." as hesteered her toward the carriage she noticed that he had a goutylimp, and pulled himself in after her with difficulty.

"mayn't i come as i am, nelson, i don't feel like dancing.

let's go and dine in one of those nice smoky little restaurantsby the place de la bourse."he seemed surprised but relieved at the suggestion, and theyrolled off together. in a corner at bauge's they found a quiettable, screened from the other diners, and while vanderlynadjusted his eyeglasses to study the carte susy stole a longlook at him. he was dressed with even more than his usualformal trimness, and she detected, in an ultra-flat wrist-watchand discreetly expensive waistcoat buttons, an attempt atsmartness altogether new. his face had undergone the samechange: its familiar look of worn optimism had been, as itwere, done up to match his clothes, as though a sort of moralcosmetic had made him pinker, shinier and sprightlier withoutreally rejuvenating him. a thin veil of high spirits had merelybeen drawn over his face, as the shining strands of hair wereskilfully brushed over his baldness.

"here! carte des vins, waiter! what champagne, susy?" hechose, fastidiously, the best the cellar could produce,grumbling a little at the bourgeois character of the dishes.

"capital food of its kind, no doubt, but coarsish, don't youthink? well, i don't mind ... it's rather a jolly change fromthe luxe cooking. a new sensation--i'm all for new sensations,ain't you, my dear?" he re-filled their champagne glasses,flung an arm sideways over his chair, and smiled at her with afoggy benevolence.

as the champagne flowed his confidences flowed with it.

"suppose you know what i'm here for--this divorce business? wewanted to settle it quietly without a fuss, and of course parisis the best place for that sort of job. live and let live; noquestions asked. none of your dirty newspapers. great country,this. no hypocrisy ... they understand life over here!"susy gazed and listened. she remembered that people had thoughtnelson would make a row when he found out. he had always beenaddicted to truculent anecdotes about unfaithful wives, and thevery formula of his perpetual ejaculation-- "caught you at it,eh?"--seemed to hint at a constant preoccupation with suchideas. but now it was evident that, as the saying was, he had"swallowed his dose" like all the others. no strong blast ofindignation had momentarily lifted him above his normal stature:

he remained a little man among little men, and his eagerness torebuild his life with all the old smiling optimism reminded susyof the patient industry of an ant remaking its ruined ant-heap.

"tell you what, great thing, this liberty! everything's changednowadays; why shouldn't marriage be too? a man can get out of abusiness partnership when he wants to; but the parsons want tokeep us noosed up to each other for life because we've blunderedinto a church one day and said 'yes' before one of 'em. no,no--that's too easy. we've got beyond that. science, and allthese new discoveries .... i say the ten commandments were madefor man, and not man for the commandments; and there ain't aword against divorce in 'em, anyhow! that's what i tell my poorold mother, who builds everything on her bible. find me theplace where it says: 'thou shalt not sue for divorce.' itmakes her wild, poor old lady, because she can't; and shedoesn't know how they happen to have left it out.... i ratherthink moses left it out because he knew more about human naturethan these snivelling modern parsons do. not that they'llalways bear investigating either; but i don't care about that.

live and let live, eh, susy? haven't we all got a right to ouraffinities? i hear you're following our example yourself.

first-rate idea: i don't mind telling you i saw it coming onlast summer at venice. caught you at it, so to speak! oldnelson ain't as blind as people think. here, let's open anotherbottle to the health of streff and mrs. streff!"she caught the hand with which he was signalling to thesommelier. this flushed and garrulous nelson moved her morepoignantly than a more heroic figure. "no more champagne,please, nelson. besides," she suddenly added, "it's not true."he stared. "not true that you're going to marry altringham?""no.""by george then what on earth did you chuck nick for? ain't yougot an affinity, my dear?"she laughed and shook her head.

"do you mean to tell me it's all nick's doing, then?""i don't know. let's talk of you instead, nelson. i'm gladyou're in such good spirits. i rather thought--"he interrupted her quickly. "thought i'd cut up a rumpus-dosome shooting? i know--people did." he twisted his moustache,evidently proud of his reputation. "well, maybe i did see redfor a day or two--but i'm a philosopher, first and last. beforei went into banking i'd made and lost two fortunes out west.

well, how did i build 'em up again? not by shooting anybodyeven myself. by just buckling to, and beginning all over again.

that's how ... and that's what i am doing now. beginning allover again. " his voice dropped from boastfulness to a noteof wistful melancholy, the look of strained jauntiness fell fromhis face like a mask, and for an instant she saw the real man,old, ruined, lonely. yes, that was it: he was lonely,desperately lonely, foundering in such deep seas of solitudethat any presence out of the past was like a spar to which heclung. whatever he knew or guessed of the part she had playedin his disaster, it was not callousness that had made him greether with such forgiving warmth, but the same sense of smallness,insignificance and isolation which perpetually hung like a coldfog on her own horizon. suddenly she too felt old--old andunspeakably tired.

"it's been nice seeing you, nelson. but now i must be gettinghome."he offered no objection, but asked for the bill, resumed hisjaunty air while he scattered largesse among the waiters, andsauntered out behind her after calling for a taxi.

they drove off in silence. susy was thinking: "and clarissa?"but dared not ask. vanderlyn lit a cigarette, hummed a dance-tune, and stared out of the window. suddenly she felt his handon hers.

"susy--do you ever see her?""see--ellie?"he nodded, without turning toward her.

"not often ... sometimes ....""if you do, for god's sake tell her i'm happy ... happy as aking ... tell her you could see for yourself that i was ...."his voice broke in a little gasp. "i ... i'll be damned if ...

if she shall ever be unhappy about me ... if i can help it ...."the cigarette dropped from his fingers, and with a sob hecovered his face.

"oh, poor nelson--poor nelson, " susy breathed. while their cabrattled across the place du carrousel, and over the bridge, hecontinued to sit beside her with hidden face. at last he pulledout a scented handkerchief, rubbed his eyes with it, and gropedfor another cigarette.

"i'm all right! tell her that, will you, susy? there are someof our old times i don't suppose i shall ever forget; but theymake me feel kindly to her, and not angry. i didn't know itwould be so, beforehand--but it is .... and now the thing'ssettled i'm as right as a trivet, and you can tell her so ....

look here, susy ..." he caught her by the arm as the taxi drewup at her hotel .... "tell her i understand, will you? i'drather like her to know that .... ""i'll tell her, nelson," she promised; and climbed the stairsalone to her dreary room.

susy's one fear was that strefford, when he returned the nextday, should treat their talk of the previous evening as a fit of"nerves" to be jested away. he might, indeed, resent herbehaviour too deeply to seek to see her at once; but hiseasygoing modern attitude toward conduct and convictions madethat improbable. she had an idea that what he had most mindedwas her dropping so unceremoniously out of the embassy dinner.

but, after all, why should she see him again? she had hadenough of explanations during the last months to have learnedhow seldom they explain anything. if the other person did notunderstand at the first word, at the first glance even,subsequent elucidations served only to deepen the obscurity.

and she wanted above all--and especially since her hour withnelson vanderlyn--to keep herself free, aloof, to retain herhold on her precariously recovered self. she sat down and wroteto strefford--and the letter was only a little less painful towrite than the one she had despatched to nick. it was not thather own feelings were in any like measure engaged; but because,as the decision to give up strefford affirmed itself, sheremembered only his kindness, his forbearance, his good humour,and all the other qualities she had always liked in him; andbecause she felt ashamed of the hesitations which must cause himso much pain and humiliation. yes: humiliation chiefly. sheknew that what she had to say would hurt his pride, in whateverway she framed her renunciation; and her pen wavered, hating itstask. then she remembered vanderlyn's words about his wife:

"there are some of our old times i don't suppose i shall everforget--" and a phrase of grace fulmer's that she had but halfgrasped at the time: "you haven't been married long enough tounderstand how trifling such things seem in the balance of one'smemories."here were two people who had penetrated farther than she intothe labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some ofits thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the otherhalf-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was alreadydawning on her: that the influence of a marriage begun inmutual understanding is too deep not to reassert itself even inthe moment of flight and denial.

"the real reason is that you're not nick" was what she wouldhave said to strefford if she had dared to set down the baretruth; and she knew that, whatever she wrote, he was too acutenot to read that into it.

"he'll think it's because i'm still in love with nick ... andperhaps i am. but even if i were, the difference doesn't seemto lie there, after all, but deeper, in things we've shared thatseem to be meant to outlast love, or to change it into somethingdifferent." if she could have hoped to make streffordunderstand that, the letter would have been easy enough towrite--but she knew just at what point his imagination wouldfail, in what obvious and superficial inferences it would rest"poor streff--poor me!" she thought as she sealed the letter.

after she had despatched it a sense of blankness descended onher. she had succeeded in driving from her mind all vainhesitations, doubts, returns upon herself: her healthy systemnaturally rejected them. but they left a queer emptiness inwhich her thoughts rattled about as thoughts might, shesupposed, in the first moments after death--before one got usedto it. to get used to being dead: that seemed to be herimmediate business. and she felt such a novice at it--felt sohorribly alive! how had those others learned to do withoutliving? nelson--well, he was still in the throes; and probablynever would understand, or be able to communicate, the lessonwhen he had mastered it. but grace fulmer--she suddenlyremembered that grace was in paris, and set forth to find her.