exquisite touch. And now, because of some jealous whim of a
dissatisfied fool of a woman, as to whom he felt himself no more
to blame than any young man who has paid for good dinners by
good manners, he was to be deprived of the one complete
companionship he had ever known ....

His thoughts travelled on. He recalled the long dull spring in
New York after his break with Susy, the weary grind on his last
articles, his listless speculations as to the cheapest and least
boring way of disposing of the summer; and then the amazing luck
of going, reluctantly and at the last minute, to spend a Sunday
with the poor Nat Fulmers, in the wilds of New Hampshire, and of
finding Susy there--Susy, whom he had never even suspected of
knowing anybody in the Fulmers' set!

She had behaved perfectly--and so had he--but they were
obviously much too glad to see each other. And then it was
unsettling to be with her in such a house as the Fulmers', away
from the large setting of luxury they were both used to, in the
cramped cottage where their host had his studio in the verandah,
their hostess practiced her violin in the dining-room, and five
ubiquitous children sprawled and shouted and blew trumpets and
put tadpoles in the water-jugs, and the mid-day dinner was two
hours late-and proportionately bad--because the Italian cook
was posing for Fulmer.

Lansing's first thought had been that meeting Susy in such
circumstances would be the quickest way to cure them both of
their regrets. The case of the Fulmers was an awful object-
lesson in what happened to young people who lost their heads;