"Oh, heavens, no!" Susan said, laughing, pleased at the disgusted face Peter Coleman showed beyond Emily's head. "Ella wants me to go over to the hotel, anyway, to talk about borrowing chairs for the concert, and I'll go this afternoon," she added, lowering her voice so that it should not penetrate the library, where Ella and Bocqueraz and some luncheon guests were talking together.
But when she walked down the drive half an hour later, with the collies leaping about her, the writer quietly fell into step at her side. Susan stopped short, the color rushing into her face. But her companion paid no heed to her confusion.
"I want to talk to you, Susan," said he unsmilingly, and with a tired sigh. "Where shall we walk? Up behind the convent here?"
"You look headachy," Susan said sympathetically, distracted from larger issues by the sight of his drawn, rather colorless face.
"Bad night," he explained briefly. And with no further objection she took the convent road, and they walked through the pale flood of winter sunshine together. There had been heavy rains; to-day the air was fresh-washed and clear, but they could hear the steady droning of the fog-horn on the distant bay.
The convent, washed with clear sunlight, loomed high above its bare, well-kept gardens. The usual Sunday visitors were mounting and descending the great flight of steps to the doorway; a white-robed portress stood talking to one little group at the top, her folded arms lost in her wide sleeves. A three-year-old, in a caped white coat, made every one laugh by her independent investigations of arches and doorway.
"Dear Lord, to be that size again!" thought Susan, heavy-hearted.
"I've been thinking a good deal since Tuesday night, Susan," began Bocqueraz quietly, when they had reached the shelved road that runs past the carriage gates and lodges of beautiful private estates, and circles across the hills, above the town. "And, of course, I've been blaming myself bitterly; but I'm not going to speak of that now. Until Tuesday I hoped that what pain there was to bear, because of my caring for you, would be borne by me alone. If I blame myself, Sue, it's only because I felt that I would rather bear it, any amount of it, than go away from you a moment before I must. But when I realize that you, too--"
He paused, and Susan did not speak, could not speak, even though she knew that her silence was a definite statement.
"No--" he said presently, "we must face the thing honestly. And perhaps it's better so. I want to speak to you about my marriage. I was twenty-five, and Lillian eighteen. I had come to the city, a seventeen-year-old boy, to make my fortune, and it was after the first small success that we met. She was an heiress--a sweet, pretty, spoiled little girl; she is just a little girl now in many ways. It was a very extraordinary marriage for her to wish to make; her mother disapproved; her guardians disapproved. I promised the mother to go away, and I did, but Lillian had an illness a month or two later and they sent for me, and we were married. Her mother has always regarded me as of secondary importance in her daughter's life; she took charge of our house, and of the baby when Julie came, and went right on with her spoiling and watching and exulting in Lillian. They took trips abroad; they decided whether or not to open the town house; they paid all the bills. Lillian has her suite of rooms, and I mine. Julie is very prettily fond of me; they like to give a big tea, two or three times a winter, and have me in evidence, or Lillian likes to have me plan theatricals, or manage amateur grand-opera for her. When Julie was about ten I had my own ideas as to her upbringing, but there was a painful scene, in which the child herself was consulted, and stood with her mother and grandmother--