But Susy, still blind to everything but the dance of dizzy
sparks before her eyes, pressed on as if she had not heard him.
"It was their motor, then, that took us to Milan! It was Algie
Bockheimer's motor!" She did not know why, but this seemed to
her the most humiliating incident in the whole hateful business.
She remembered Nick's reluctance to use the motor-she
remembered his look when she had boasted of her "managing." The
nausea mounted to her throat.

Strefford burst out laughing. "I say--you borrowed their motor?
And you didn't know whose it was?"

"How could I know? I persuaded the chauffeur ... for a little
tip .... It was to save our railway fares to Milan ... extra
luggage costs so frightfully in Italy ...."

"Good old Susy! Well done! I can see you doing it--"

"Oh, how horrible--how horrible!" she groaned.

"Horrible? What's horrible?"

"Why, your not seeing ... not feeling ..." she began
impetuously; and then stopped. How could she explain to him
that what revolted her was not so much the fact of his having
given the little house, as soon as she and Nick had left it, to
those two people of all others--though the vision of them in the
sweet secret house, and under the plane-trees of the terrace,
drew such a trail of slime across her golden hours? No, it was