to make than she had expected, the kiss less difficult to
receive.

She had gone to the dinner a-quiver with the mortification of
learning that her husband was still with the Hickses. Morally
sure of it though she had been, the discovery was a shock, and
she measured for the first time the abyss between fearing and
knowing. No wonder he had not written--the modern husband did
not have to: he had only to leave it to time and the newspapers
to make known his intentions. Susy could imagine Nick's saying
to himself, as he sometimes used to say when she reminded him of
an unanswered letter: "But there are lots of ways of answering
a letter--and writing doesn't happen to be mine."

Well--he had done it in his way, and she was answered. For a
minute, as she laid aside the paper, darkness submerged her, and
she felt herself dropping down into the bottomless anguish of
her dreadful vigil in the Palazzo Vanderlyn. But she was weary
of anguish: her healthy body and nerves instinctively rejected
it. The wave was spent, and she felt herself irresistibly
struggling back to light and life and youth. He didn't want
her! Well, she would try not to want him! There lay all the
old expedients at her hand--the rouge for her white lips, the
atropine for her blurred eyes, the new dress on her bed, the
thought of Strefford and his guests awaiting her, and of the
conclusions that the diners of the Nouveau Luxe would draw from
seeing them together. Thank heaven no one would say: "Poor old
Susy--did you know Nick had chucked her?" They would all say:
"Poor old Nick! Yes, I daresay she was sorry to chuck him; but
Altringham's mad to marry her, and what could she do? "