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52.<br />
NARRATOR<br />
She wondered what would happen if<br />
she were to go up to him and fling<br />
her arms about him. But even if her<br />
touch could have broken the spell,<br />
she was not sure she would have<br />
chosen that way of breaking it.<br />
Beneath her speechless anguish<br />
there burned the half-conscious<br />
sense of having been unfairly<br />
treated. When they had entered into<br />
their odd compact, Nick had known<br />
as well as she on what compromises<br />
and concessions the life they were<br />
to live together must be based.<br />
That he should have forgotten it<br />
seemed so unbelievable that she<br />
wondered, with a new leap of fear,<br />
if he were using the wretched<br />
Ellie’s indiscretion as a means of<br />
escape from a tie already wearied<br />
of.<br />
Suddenly she raised her head with a laugh.<br />
SUSY<br />
After all-you were right when you<br />
wanted me to be your mistress.<br />
He turned on her with an astonished stare.<br />
NICK<br />
You-my mistress?<br />
Through all her pain she thrilled with pride at the<br />
discovery that such a possibility had long since become<br />
unthinkable to him.<br />
But she insisted.<br />
SUSY<br />
That day at the Fulmers’-have you<br />
forgotten? When you said it would<br />
be sheer madness for us to marry.<br />
Lansing stood leaning in the embrasure of the window, his<br />
eyes fixed on the mosaic volutes of the floor.<br />
NICK<br />
(rejoined at length)<br />
I was right enough when I said it<br />
would be sheer madness for us to<br />
marry,
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