The Glimpses of the Moon

It rose for them—their honey-moon—over the waters of a lake so famed as the scene of romantic raptures that they were rather proud of not having been afraid to choose it as the setting of their own.

“It required a total lack of humour, or as great a gift for it as ours, to risk the experiment,” Susy Lansing opined, as they hung over the inevitable marble balustrade and watched their tutelary orb roll its magic carpet across the waters to their feet.

“Yes—or the loan of Strefford’s villa,” her husband emended, glancing upward through the branches at a long low patch of paleness to which the moonlight was beginning to give the form of a white house-front.

“Oh, come when we’d five to choose from. At least if you count the Chicago flat.”

“So we had—you wonder!” He laid his hand on hers, and his touch renewed the sense of marvelling exultation which the deliberate survey of their adventure always roused in her.... It was characteristic that she merely added, in her steady laughing tone: “Or, not counting the flat—for I hate to brag—just consider the others: Violet Melrose’s place at Versailles, your aunt’s villa at Monte Carlo—and a moor!”

She sounded the lowest depths of subservience in returning Ursula’s tearful kiss....

Susy Branch had a masculine respect for her word; and the next day she put on her most becoming hat and sought out young Mr. Lansing in his lodgings. She was determined to keep her promise to Ursula; but she meant to look her best when she did it.

She knew at what time the young man was likely to be found, for he was doing a dreary job on a popular encyclopaedia (V to X), and had told her what hours were dedicated to the hateful task. “Oh, if only it were a novel!” she thought as she mounted his dingy stairs; but immediately reflected that, if it were the kind that she could bear to read, it probably wouldn’t bring him in much more than his encyclopaedia. Miss Branch had her standards in literature....

The apartment to which Mr. Lansing admitted her was a good deal cleaner, but hardly less dingy, than his staircase. Susy, knowing him to be addicted to Oriental archaeology, had pictured him in a bare room adorned by a single Chinese bronze of flawless shape, or by some precious fragment of Asiatic pottery. But such redeeming features were conspicuously absent, and no attempt had been made to disguise the decent indigence of the bed-sitting-room.

Lansing welcomed his visitor with every sign of pleasure, and with apparent indifference as to what she thought of his furniture. He seemed to be conscious only of his luck in seeing her on a day when they had not expected to meet.

She stood up with a sigh, shook out her loosened hair, and glanced around the great frescoed room. The maid-servant had said something about the Signora’s having left a letter for her; and there it lay on the writing-table, with her mail and Nick’s; a thick envelope addressed in Ellie’s childish scrawl, with a glaring “Private” dashed across the corner.

“What on earth can she have to say, when she hates writing so,” Susy mused.

She broke open the envelope, and four or five stamped and sealed letters fell from it. All were addressed, in Ellie’s hand, to Nelson Vanderlyn Esqre; and in the corner of each was faintly pencilled a number and a date: one, two, three, four—with a week’s interval between the dates.

“Goodness—” gasped Susy, understanding.

She had dropped into an armchair near the table, and for a long time she sat staring at the numbered letters. A sheet of paper covered with Ellie’s writing had fluttered out among them, but she let it lie; she knew so well what it would say! She knew all about her friend, of course; except poor old Nelson, who didn’t, But she had never imagined that Ellie would dare to use her in this way. It was unbelievable... she had never pictured anything so vile.... The blood rushed to her face, and she sprang up angrily, half minded to tear the letters in bits and throw them all into the fire.

She heard her husband’s knock on the door between their rooms, and swept the dangerous packet under the blotting-book.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said in a small sweet voice. “I like you so very much. I know I’m not to be often with you; but at least you’ll have an eye on me, won’t you?”

“An eye on you! I shall never want to have it off you, if you say such nice things to me!” Susy laughed, leaning from her pillows to draw the little girl up to her side.

Clarissa smiled and settled herself down comfortably on the silken bedspread. “Oh, I know I’m not to be always about, because you’re just married; but could you see to it that I have my meals regularly?”

“Why, you poor darling! Don’t you always?”

“Not when mother’s away on these cures. The servants don’t always obey me: you see I’m so little for my age. In a few years, of course, they’ll have to—even if I don’t grow much,” she added judiciously. She put out her hand and touched the string of pearls about Susy’s throat. “They’re small, but they’re very good. I suppose you don’t take the others when you travel?”

“The others? Bless you! I haven’t any others—and never shall have, probably.”

“No other pearls?”

“No other jewels at all.”

Clarissa stared. “Is that really true?” she asked, as if in the presence of the unprecedented.

“Awfully true,” Susy confessed. “But I think I can make the servants obey me all the same.”

This point seemed to have lost its interest for Clarissa, who was still gravely scrutinizing her companion. After a while she brought forth another question.

Coral Hicks was never lovely: but she certainly looked unusually handsome. Perhaps it was the long dress of black velvet which, outlined against a shaded lamp, made her strong build seem slenderer, or perhaps the slight flush on her dusky cheek: a bloom of womanhood hung upon her which she made no effort to dissemble. Indeed, it was one of her originalities that she always gravely and courageously revealed the utmost of whatever mood possessed her.

“How splendid you look!” he said, smiling at her.

She threw her head back and gazed him straight in the eyes. “That’s going to be my future job.”

“To look splendid?”

“Yes.”

“And wear a crown?”

“And wear a crown....”

They continued to consider each other without speaking. Nick’s heart contracted with pity and perplexity.

“Oh, Coral—it’s not decided?”

She scrutinized him for a last penetrating moment; then she looked away. “I’m never long deciding.”

He hesitated, choking with contradictory impulses, and afraid to formulate any, lest they should either mislead or pain her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he questioned lamely; and instantly perceived his blunder.

She sat down, and looked up at him under brooding lashes—had he ever noticed the thickness of her lashes before?

“Would it have made any difference if I had told you?”

“Any difference—?”

“Sit down by me,” she commanded. “I want to talk to you. You can say now whatever you might have said sooner. I’m not married yet: I’m still free.”