Mrs. Gillow scrutinized her more searchingly. "Oh, you're alone here, then; quite alone?"
"Yes: Nick's cruising with some friends in the Mediterranean."
Ursula's shallow gaze deepened singularly. "But, Susy darling, then if you're alone--and out of a job, just for the moment?"
Susy smiled. "Well, I'm not sure."
"Oh, but if you are, darling, and you would come to Ruan! I know Fred asked you didn't he? And he told me that both you and Nick had refused. He was awfully huffed at your not coming; but I suppose that was because Nick had other plans. We couldn't have him now, because there's no room for another gun; but since he's not here, and you're free, why you know, dearest, don't you, how we'd love to have you? Fred would be too glad--too outrageously glad--but you don't much mind Fred's love-making, do you? And you'd be such a help to me--if that's any argument!
With that big house full of men, and people flocking over every night to dine, and Fred caring only for sport, and Nerone simply loathing it and ridiculing it, and not a minute to myself to try to keep him in a good humour .... Oh, Susy darling, don't say no, but let me telephone at once for a place in the train to morrow night!"
Susy leaned back, letting the ash lengthen on her cigarette.
How familiar, how hatefully familiar, was that old appeal!
Ursula felt the pressing need of someone to flirt with Fred for a few weeks ... and here was the very person she needed. Susy shivered at the thought. She had never really meant to go to Ruan. She had simply used the moor as a pretext when Violet Melrose had gently put her out of doors. Rather than do what Ursula asked she would borrow a few hundred pounds of Strefford, as he had suggested, and then look about for some temporary occupation until--Until she became Lady Altringham? 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 marriage; 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?"
