The days passed. Mentone, Miss Leslie wrote me, was doing everything
for Susan that we had desired. "But she is determined," she added, "to
be back in Paris by the last week of February--when the baby was
expected. She begins to be bothered that you write so scrappily and
vaguely, and that she hears nothing directly from Lieutenant Kane or
Jeanne-Marie. I shall have to tell her soon now, in any case. It seems
more difficult as I come nearer to it, but I still feel sure we have
done the right thing. I'm certain now that Susan will be able to face
and bear it. Already she's full of plans for the future--wonderful!
Possibly, if an opportunity offers, I shall tell her to-night."
The next afternoon my telephone rang. When I answered it, Susan spoke to
me. "Ambo," she said, "I'm at the France-et-Choiseul. Please come over
at once, no matter how busy you are. You owe that much to me, I think."
She had hung up the receiver before I could stammer a reply.
But nothing more was necessary. I went to her as a criminal goes to
confession, knowing at last how hideously in her eyes I had sinned.
"You _meant_ well, Ambo," she said with a gentleness that yielded
nothing--"you and Mona. Meaning well's what I feel now I can never quite
forgive you. _You_, Ambo. Poor Mona doesn't count in this. But you--I
thought I was safe with you. No matter."
Later she said: "I've seen Madame Guyot--a horrible woman; and the baby.
He's a nice baby. You did just right about him, Ambo. Thank you for
that." She mused a moment. "I suppose it's absurd to think he looks like
Jimmy? But to me he does. I'm going to adopt him, Ambo. You see"--her
smile was wistful--"I _am_ going to have a baby of my own, after all."
"I'd thought of adopting him, myself," I babbled; "but of course----"
"Of course," said Susan.
In so many subtle ways she had made it clear to me. I had disappointed
her; revealed a blindness, a weakness, she would never be able to
forget. In my hotel room that night I faced it out and accepted my
punishment as just. Just--but terrible.... There is nothing in life so
terrible as to know oneself utterly and finally alone.