pe they might have the palace
to themselves for the remainder of the summer. If they did, he would
have time to finish his book, and Susy to lay up a little interest on
their wedding cheques; and thus their enchanted year might conceivably
be prolonged to two.

Late as the season was, their presence and Strefford's in Venice had
already drawn thither several wandering members of their set. It was
characteristic of these indifferent but agglutinative people that they
could never remain long parted from each other without a dim sense of
uneasiness. Lansing was familiar with the feeling. He had known slight
twinges of it himself, and had often ministered to its qualms in others.
It was hardly stronger than the faint gnawing which recalls the tea-hour
to one who has lunched well and is sure of dining as abundantly; but it
gave a purpose to the purposeless, and helped many hesitating spirits
over the annual difficulty of deciding between Deauville and St. Moritz,
Biarritz and Capri.

Nick was not surprised to learn that it was becoming the fashion, that
summer, to pop down to Venice and take a look at the Lansings. Streffy
had set the example, and Streffy's example was always followed. And then
Susy's marriage was still a subject of sympathetic speculation. People
knew the story of the wedding cheques, and were interested in seeing
how long they could be made to last. It was going to be the thing,
that year, to help prolong the honey-moon by pressing houses on the
adventurous couple. Before June was over a band of friends were basking
with the Lansings on the Lido.

Nick found himself unexpectedly disturbed by their arrival. To avoid
comment and banter he put his book aside and forbade Susy to speak
of it, explaining to her that he needed an interval of rest. His wife
instantly and exaggeratedly adopted this view, guarding him from the
temptation to work as jealously as she had discouraged him from idling;
and he was careful not to let her find out that the change in his habits
coincided with his having reached a difficult point in his book. But
though he was not sorry to stop writing he found himself unexpectedly
oppressed by the weight of his leisure. For the first time communal
dawdling had lost its charm for him; not because his fellow dawdlers
were less congenial than of old, but because in the interval he had
known something so immeasurably better. He had always felt himself to be
the superior of his habitual associ