of a novel--the kind
my governess used to read. In the first place I should never recognize
that kind of right, as you call it--never!"

"Then what kind do you?" he asked with a clearing brow.

"Why--the kind I suppose you recognize on the part of your publisher."
This evoked a hollow laugh from him. "A business claim, call it," she
pursued. "Ursula does a lot for me: I live on her for half the year.
This dress I've got on now is one she gave me. Her motor is going to
take me to a dinner to-night. I'm going to spend next summer with her
at Newport.... If I don't, I've got to go to California with the
Bockheimers-so good-bye."

Suddenly in tears, she was out of the door and down his steep three
flights before he could stop her--though, in thinking it over, she
didn't even remember if he had tried to. She only recalled having stood
a long time on the corner of Fifth Avenue, in the harsh winter radiance,
waiting till a break in the torrent of motors laden with fashionable
women should let her cross, and saying to herself: "After all, I might
have promised Ursula... and kept on seeing him...."

Instead of which, when Lansing wrote the next day entreating a word with
her, she had sent back a friendly but firm refusal; and had managed soon
afterward to get taken to Canada for a fortnight's ski-ing, and then to
Florida for six weeks in a house-boat....

As she reached this point in her retrospect the remembrance of Florida
called up a vision of moonlit waters, magnolia fragrance and balmy airs;
merging with the circumambient sweetness, it laid a drowsy spell upon
her lids. Yes, there had been a bad moment: but it was over; and she was
here, safe and blissful, and with Nick; and this was his knee her head
rested on, and they had a year ahead of them... a whole year.... "Not
counting the pearls," she murmured, shutting her eyes....

II.

LANSING threw the end of Strefford's expensive cigar into the lake, and
bent over his wife. Poor child! She had fallen asleep.... He leaned
back and stared up again at the silver-flooded sky. How queer--how
inexpressibly queer--it was to think that that light was shed by his
honey-moon! A year ago, if anyone had predicted his risking such an
adventure, he would have replied by asking to be locked up at the first
symptoms....

There was still no doubt in his mind that the adventure was a mad one.
It was all very well for Susy to remind him twenty times a day that they
had pulled it