Having relegated them to this convenient distance, Lansing shut himself up with his book. He had returned to it with fresh energy after his few weeks of holiday-making, and was determined to finish it quickly. He did not expect that it would bring in much money; but if it were moderately successful it might give him an opening in the reviews and magazines, and in that case he meant to abandon archaeology for novels, since it was only as a purveyor of fiction that he could count on earning a living for himself and Susy.
Late in the afternoon he laid down his pen and wandered out of doors. He loved the increasing heat of the Venetian summer, the bruised peach-tints of worn house-fronts, the enamelling of sunlight on dark green canals, the smell of half-decayed fruits and flowers thickening the languid air. What visions he could build, if he dared, of being tucked away with Susy in the attic of some tumble-down palace, above a jade-green waterway, with a terrace overhanging a scrap of neglected garden–and cheques from the publishers dropping in at convenient intervals! Why should they not settle in Venice if he pulled it off!
He found himself before the church of the Scalzi, and pushing open the leathern door wandered up the nave under the whirl of rose-and-lemon angels in Tiepolo’s great vault. It was not a church in which one was likely to run across sight-seers; but he presently remarked a young lady standing alone near the choir, and assiduously applying her field-glass to the celestial vortex, from which she occasionally glanced down at an open manual.
As Lansing’s step sounded on the pavement, the young lady, turning, revealed herself as Miss Hicks.
“Ah–you like this too? It’s several centuries out of your line, though, isn’t it!” Nick asked as they shook hands.
She gazed at him gravely. “Why shouldn’t one like things that are out of one’s line?” she answered; and he agreed, with a laugh, that it was often an incentive.
She continued to fix her grave eyes on him, and after one or two remarks about the Tiepolos he perceived that she was feeling her way toward a subject of more personal interest.
“I’m glad to see you alone,” she said at length, with an abruptness that might have seemed awkward had it not been so completely unconscious. She turned toward a cluster of straw chairs, and signed to Nick to seat himself beside her.
“I seldom do,” she added, with the serious smile that made her heavy face almost handsome; and she went on, giving him no time to protest: “I wanted to speak to you–to explain about father’s invitation to go with us to Persia and Turkestan.”
“To explain?”
“Yes. You found the letter when you arrived here just after your marriage, didn’t you? You must have thought it odd, our asking you just then; but we hadn’t heard that you were married.”
“Oh, I guessed as much: it happened very quietly, and I was remiss about announcing it, even to old friends.”
Lansing frowned. His thoughts had wandered away to the evening when he had found Mrs. Hicks’s letter in the mail awaiting him at Venice. The day was associated in his mind with the ridiculous and mortifying episode of the cigars–the expensive cigars that Susy had wanted to carry away from Strefford’s villa. Their brief exchange of views on the subject had left the first blur on the perfect surface of his happiness, and he still felt an uncomfortable heat at the remembrance. For a few hours the prospect of life with Susy had seemed unendurable; and it was just at that moment that he had found the letter from Mrs. Hicks, with its almost irresistible invitation. If only her daughter had known how nearly he had accepted it!
“It was a dreadful temptation,” he said, smiling.
“To go with us? Then why–?”
“Oh, everything’s different now: I’ve got to stick to my writing.”
Miss Hicks still bent on him the same unblinking scrutiny. “Does that mean that you’re going to give up your real work?”
“My real work–archaeology?” He smiled again to hide a twitch of regret. “Why, I’m afraid it hardly produces a living wage; and I’ve got to think of that.” He coloured suddenly, as if suspecting that Miss Hicks might consider the avowal an opening for he hardly knew what ponderous offer of aid. The Hicks munificence was too uncalculating not to be occasionally oppressive. But looking at her again he saw that her eyes were full of tears.