She had at once perceived young Lansing’s case to be exactly the opposite: he was as poor as he could be, and as companionable as it was possible to imagine. She therefore decided to see as much of him as her hurried and entangled life permitted; and this, thanks to a series of adroit adjustments, turned out to be a good deal. They met frequently all the rest of that winter; so frequently that Mrs. Fred Gillow one day abruptly and sharply gave Susy to understand that she was “making herself ridiculous.”
“Ah–” said Susy with a long breath, looking her friend and patroness straight in the painted eyes.
“Yes,” cried Ursula Gillow in a sob, “before you interfered Nick liked me awfully … and, of course, I don’t want to reproach you … but when I think ….”
Susy made no answer. How could she, when she thought? The dress she had on had been given her by Ursula; Ursula’s motor had carried her to the feast from which they were both returning. She counted on spending the following August with the Gillows at Newport … and the only alternative was to go to California with the Bockheimers, whom she had hitherto refused even to dine with.
“Of course, what you fancy is perfect nonsense, Ursula; and as to my interfering–” Susy hesitated, and then murmured: “But if it will make you any happier I’ll arrange to see him less often ….” She sounded the lowest depths of subservience in returning Ursula’s tearful kiss ….
Susy Branch had a masculine respect for her word; and the next day she put on her most becoming hat and sought out young Mr. Lansing in his lodgings. She was determined to keep her promise to Ursula; but she meant to look her best when she did it.
She knew at what time the young man was likely to be found, for he was doing a dreary job on a popular encyclopaedia (V to X), and had told her what hours were dedicated to the hateful task. “Oh, if only it were a novel!” she thought as she mounted his dingy stairs; but immediately reflected that, if it were the kind that she could bear to read, it probably wouldn’t bring him in much more than his encyclopaedia. Miss Branch had her standards in literature ….
The apartment to which Mr. Lansing admitted her was a good deal cleaner, but hardly less dingy, than his staircase. Susy, knowing him to be addicted to Oriental archaeology, had pictured him in a bare room adorned by a single Chinese bronze of flawless shape, or by some precious fragment of Asiatic pottery. But such redeeming features were conspicuously absent, and no attempt had been made to disguise the decent indigence of the bed-sitting-room.
Lansing welcomed his visitor with every sign of pleasure, and with apparent indifference as to what she thought of his furniture. He seemed to be conscious only of his luck in seeing her on a day when they had not expected to meet. This made Susy all the sorrier to execute her promise, and the gladder that she had put on her prettiest hat; and for a moment or two she looked at him in silence from under its conniving brim.
Warm as their mutual liking was, Lansing had never said a word of love to her; but this was no deterrent to his visitor, whose habit it was to speak her meaning clearly when there were no reasons, worldly or pecuniary, for its concealment. After a moment, therefore, she told him why she had come; it was a nuisance, of course, but he would understand. Ursula Gillow was jealous, and they would have to give up seeing each other.
The young man’s burst of laughter was music to her; for, after all, she had been rather afraid that being devoted to Ursula might be as much in his day’s work as doing the encyclopaedia.
“But I give you my word it’s a raving-mad mistake! And I don’t believe she ever meant me, to begin with–” he protested; but Susy, her common-sense returning with her reassurance, promptly cut short his denial.
“You can trust Ursula to make herself clear on such occasions. And it doesn’t make any difference what you think. All that matters is what she believes.”