attitude toward something or somebody, gave him a firmer
outline and a steadier footing than the other marionettes in the dance.
Superficially so like them all, and so eager to outdo them in detachment
and adaptability, ridiculing the prejudices he had shaken off, and the
people to whom he belonged, he still kept, under his easy pliancy, the
skeleton of old faiths and old fashions. "He talks every language as
well as the rest of us," Susy had once said of him, "but at least he
talks one language better than the others"; and Strefford, told of the
remark, had laughed, called her an idiot, and been pleased.

As he shambled up the stairs with her, arm in arm, she was thinking of
this quality with a new appreciation of its value. Even she and Lansing,
in spite of their unmixed Americanism, their substantial background of
old-fashioned cousinships in New York and Philadelphia, were as
mentally detached, as universally at home, as touts at an International
Exhibition. If they were usually recognized as Americans it was only
because they spoke French so well, and because Nick was too fair to be
"foreign," and too sharp-featured to be English. But Charlie Strefford
was English with all the strength of an inveterate habit; and something
in Susy was slowly waking to a sense of the beauty of habit.

Lounging on the balcony, whither he had followed her without pausing
to remove the stains of travel, Strefford showed himself immensely
interested in the last chapter of her history, greatly pleased at its
having been enacted under his roof, and hugely and flippantly amused
at the firmness with which she refused to let him see Nick till the
latter's daily task was over.

"Writing? Rot! What's he writing? He's breaking you in, my dear; that's
what he's doing: establishing an alibi. What'll you bet he's just
sitting there smoking and reading Le Rire? Let's go and see."

But Susy was firm. "He's read me his first chapter: it's wonderful. It's
a philosophic romance--rather like Marius, you know."

"Oh, yes--I do!" said Strefford, with a laugh that she thought idiotic.

She flushed up like a child. "You're stupid, Streffy. You forget that
Nick and I don't need alibis. We've got rid of all that hyprocrisy by
agreeing that each will give the other a hand up when either of us wants
a change. We've not married to spy and lie, and nag each other; we've
formed a partnership for our mutual advantage."

"I see; that's capital. But how can yo