Time did not hang at all heavily on her hands; there was always an errand or two to be done for auntie, and always a pack of cards and a library book with which to fill the evening. Susan really enjoyed the lazy evenings, after the lazy days. She and Mary Lou spent the first week in April in a flurry of linens and ginghams, making shirtwaists for the season; for three days they did not leave the house, nor dress fully, and they ate their luncheons from the wing of the sewing-machine.
Spring came and poured over the whole city a bath of warmth and perfume. The days lengthened, the air was soft and languid. Susan loved to walk to market now, loved to loiter over calls in the late after-noon, and walk home in the lingering sunset light. If a poignant regret smote her now and then, its effect was not lasting, she dismissed it with a bitter sigh.
But constant humiliation was good for neither mind nor body; Susan felt as pinched in soul as she felt actually pinched by the old cheerless, penniless condition, hard and bitter elements began to show themselves in her nature. She told herself that one great consolation in her memories of Stephen Bocqueraz was that she was too entirely obscure a woman to be brought to the consideration of the public, whatever her offense might or might not be. Cold and sullen, Susan saw herself as ill-used, she could not even achieve human contempt--she was not worthy of consideration. Just one of the many women who were weak----
And sometimes, to escape the desperate circling of her thoughts, she would jump up and rush out for a lonely walk, through the wind-blown, warm disorder of the summer streets, or sometimes, dropping her face suddenly upon a crooked arm, she would burst into bitter weeping.
Books and pictures, random conversations overheard, or contact with human beings all served, in these days, to remind her of herself. Susan's pride and self-confidence and her gay ambition had sustained her through all the self-denial of her childhood. Now, failing these, she became but an irritable, depressed and discouraged caricature of her old self. Her mind was a distressed tribunal where she defended herself day and night; convincing this accuser--convincing that one--pleading her case to the world at large. Her aunt and cousin, entirely ignorant of its cause, still were aware that there was a great change in her, and watched her with silent and puzzled sympathy.
But they gave her no cause to feel herself a failure. They thought Susan unusually clever and gifted, and, if her list of actual achievements were small, there seemed to be no limit to the things that she COULD do. Mary Lou loved to read the witty little notes she could dash off at a moment's notice, Lydia Lord wiped her eyes with emotion that Susan's sweet, untrained voice aroused when she sang "Once in a Purple Twilight," or "Absent." Susan's famous eggless ginger-bread was one of the treats of Mrs. Lancaster's table.
"How do you do it, you clever monkey!" said Auntie, watching over Susan's shoulder the girl's quick fingers, as Susan colored Easter cards or drew clever sketches of Georgie's babies, or scribbled a jingle for a letter to amuse Virginia. And when Susan imitated Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Paula, or Mrs. Fiske as Becky Sharp, even William had to admit that she was quite clever enough to be a professional entertainer.
"But I wish I had one definite big gift, Billy," said Susan, on a July afternoon, when she and Mr. Oliver were on the ferry boat, going to Sausalito. It was a Sunday, and Susan thought that Billy looked particularly well to-day, felt indeed, with some discomfort, that he was better groomed and better dressed than she was, and that there was in him some new and baffling quality, some reserve that she could not command. His quick friendly smile did not hide the fact that his attention was not all hers; he seemed pleasantly absorbed in his own thoughts. Susan gave his clean-shaven, clear-skinned face many a half-questioning look as she sat beside him on the boat. He was more polite, more gentle, more kind that she remembered him--what was missing, what was wrong to-day?
It came to her suddenly, half-astonished and half-angry, that he was no longer interested in her. Billy had outgrown her, he had left her behind. He did not give her his confidence to-day, nor ask her advice. He scowled now and then, as if some under-current of her chatter vaguely disturbed him, but offered no comment. Susan felt, with a little, sick pressure at her heart, that somehow she had lost an old friend!
He was stretched out comfortably, his long legs crossed before him, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, and his half-shut, handsome eyes fixed on the rushing strip of green water that was visible between the painted ropes of the deck-rail.