the floor, slid down at his feet, pressed her slender length against him, and whispered with lifted face and lips close to his: "We needn't ever go anywhere you don't want to." For once her submission was sweet, and folding her close he whispered back through his kiss: "Not there, then."
In her response to his embrace he felt the acquiescence of her whole happy self in whatever future he decided on, if only it gave them enough of such moments as this; and as they held each other fast in silence his doubts and distrust began to seem like a silly injustice.
"Let us stay here as long as ever Ellie will let us," he said, as if the shadowy walls and shining floors were a magic boundary drawn about his happiness.
She murmured her assent and stood up, stretching her sleepy arm above her shoulders. "How dreadfully late it is. . . . Will you unhook me? . . . Oh, there's a telegram."
She picked it up from the table, and tearing it open stared a moment at the message. "It's from Ellie. She's coming to-morrow."
She turned to the window and strayed out onto the balcony. Nick followed her with enlacing arm. The canal below them lay in moonless shadow, barred with a few lingering lights. A last snatch of gondola-music came from far off, carried upward on a sultry gust.
"Dear old Ellie. All the same . . . I wish all this belonged to you and me." Susy sighed.
