er women away from him--and it's too exhausting...."

"Algie?"

Mrs. Vanderlyn's lovely eyebrows rose. "Algie: Algie Bockheimer. Didn't
you know, I think he said you've dined with his parents. Nobody else in
the world is as rich as the Bockheimers; and Algie's their only
child. Yes, it was with him... with him I was so dreadfully happy last
spring... and now I'm in mortal terror of losing him. And I do assure
you there's no other way of keeping them, when they're as hideously rich
as that!"

Susy rose to her feet. A little shudder ran over her. She remembered,
now, having seen Algie Bockheimer at one of his parents' first
entertainments, in their newly-inaugurated marble halls in Fifth Avenue.
She recalled his too faultless clothes and his small glossy furtive
countenance. She looked at Ellie Vanderlyn with sudden scorn.

"I think you're abominable," she exclaimed.

The other's perfect little face collapsed. "A-bo-minable? A-bo-mi-nable?
Susy!"

"Yes... with Nelson... and Clarissa... and your past together... and all
the money you can possibly want... and that man! Abominable."

Ellie stood up trembling: she was not used to scenes, and they
disarranged her thoughts as much as her complexion.

"You're very cruel, Susy--so cruel and dreadful that I hardly know how
to answer you," she stammered. "But you simply don't know what you're
talking about. As if anybody ever had all the money they wanted!" She
wiped her dark-rimmed eyes with a cautious handkerchief, glanced at
herself in the mirror, and added magnanimously: "But I shall try to
forget what you've said."

XIX

JUST such a revolt as she had felt as a girl, such a disgusted recoil
from the standards and ideals of everybody about her as had flung her
into her mad marriage with Nick, now flamed in Susy Lansing's bosom.

How could she ever go back into that world again? How echo its
appraisals of life and bow down to its judgments? Alas, it was only
by marrying according to its standards that she could escape such
subjection. Perhaps the same thought had actuated Nick: perhaps he had
understood sooner than she that to attain moral freedom they must both
be above material cares. Perhaps...

Her talk with Ellie Vanderlyn had left Susy so oppressed and humiliated
that she almost shrank from her meeting with Altringham the next day.
She knew that he was coming to Paris for his final answer; he would wait
as long as was necessary if only she would consent t