u be sure that, when Nick wants a
change, you'll consider it for his advantage to have one?"

It was the point that had always secretly tormented Susy; she often
wondered if it equally tormented Nick.

"I hope I shall have enough common sense--" she began.

"Oh, of course: common sense is what you're both bound to base your
argument on, whichever way you argue."

This flash of insight disconcerted her, and she said, a little
irritably: "What should you do then, if you married?--Hush, Streffy! I
forbid you to shout like that--all the gondolas are stopping to look!"

"How can I help it?" He rocked backward and forward in his chair. "'If
you marry,' she says: 'Streffy, what have you decided to do if you
suddenly become a raving maniac?'"

"I said no such thing. If your uncle and your cousin died, you'd marry
to-morrow; you know you would."

"Oh, now you're talking business." He folded his long arms and leaned
over the balcony, looking down at the dusky ripples streaked with fire.
"In that case I should say: 'Susan, my dear--Susan--now that by
the merciful intervention of Providence you have become Countess of
Altringham in the peerage of Great Britain, and Baroness Dunsterville
and d'Amblay in the peerages of Ireland and Scotland, I'll thank you to
remember that you are a member of one of the most ancient houses in the
United Kingdom--and not to get found out.'"

Susy laughed. "We know what those warnings mean! I pity my namesake."

He swung about and gave her a quick look out of his small ugly twinkling
eyes. "Is there any other woman in the world named Susan?"

"I hope so, if the name's an essential. Even if Nick chucks me, don't
count on me to carry out that programme. I've seen it in practice too
often."

"Oh, well: as far as I know, everybody's in perfect health at
Altringham." He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a fountain pen,
a handkerchief over which it had leaked, and a packet of dishevelled
cigarettes. Lighting one, and restoring the other objects to his pocket,
he continued calmly: "Tell me how did you manage to smooth things over
with the Gillows? Ursula was running amuck when I was in Newport last
Summer; it was just when people were beginning to say that you were
going to marry Nick. I was afraid she'd put a spoke in your wheel; and I
hear she put a big cheque in your hand instead."

Susy was silent. From the first moment of Strefford's appearance she had
known that in the course of time he w