The writer's study, beyond the big library, had a fascination for her. At least once a day she looked in upon him there, sometimes with Emily, sometimes with Ella, never, after that first day, alone.
"You can see that he's perfectly devoted to that dolly-faced wife of his!" Ella said, half-contemptuously. "I think we all bore him," Emily said. "Stephen is a good and noble man," said his wife's old cousin. Susan never permitted herself to speak of him. "Don't you like him?" asked Isabel. "He seems crazy about you! I think you're terribly fine to be so indifferent about it, Susan!"
On a certain December evening Emily decided that she was very unwell, and must have a trained nurse. Susan, who had stopped, without Emily, at the Wallaces' for tea, understood perfectly that the youngest Miss Saunders was delicately intimating that she expected a little more attention from her companion. A few months ago she would have risen to the occasion with the sort of cheerful flattery that never failed in its effect on Emily, but to-night a sort of stubborn irritation kept her lips sealed, and in the end she telephoned for the nurse Emily fancied, a Miss Watts, who had been taking care of one of Emily's friends.
Miss Watts, effusive and solicitous, arrived, and Susan could see that Emily was repenting of her bargain long before she, Susan, had dressed for dinner. But she ran downstairs with a singing heart, nevertheless. Ella was to bring two friends in for cards, immediately after dinner; Kenneth had not been home for three days; Miss Baker was in close attendance upon Mrs. Saunders, who had retired to her room before dinner; so Susan and Stephen were free to dine alone. Susan had hesitated, in the midst of her dressing, over the consideration of a gown, and had finally compromised with her conscience by deciding upon quite the oldest, plainest, shabbiest black silk in the little collection.
"Most becoming thing you ever put on!" said Emily, trying to reestablish quite cordial relations.
"I know," Susan agreed guiltily.
When she and Stephen Bocqueraz came back into one of the smaller drawing-rooms after dinner Susan walked to the fire and stood, for a few moments, staring down at the coals. The conversation during the softly lighted, intimate little dinner had brought them both to a dangerous mood. Susan was excited beyond the power of reasonable thought. It was all nonsense, they were simply playing; he was a married man, and she a woman who never could by any possibility be anything but "good," she would have agreed impatiently and gaily with her own conscience if she had heard it at all--but just now she felt like enjoying this particular bit of foolery to the utmost, and, since there was really no harm in it, she was going to enjoy it! She had not touched wine at dinner, but some subtler intoxication had seized her, she felt conscious of her own beauty, her white throat, her shining hair, her slender figure in its clinging black, she felt conscious of Stephen's eyes, conscious of the effective background for them both that the room afforded; the dull hangings, subdued lights and softly shining surfaces.