Spring came and poured over the whole city a bath of warmth and perfume.  The days lengthened, the air was soft and languid.  Susan loved to walk to market now, loved to loiter over calls in the late after-noon, and walk home in the lingering sunset light.  If a poignant regret smote her now and then, its effect was not lasting, she dismissed it with a bitter sigh.

But constant humiliation was good for neither mind nor body; Susan felt as pinched in soul as she felt actually pinched by the old cheerless, penniless condition, hard and bitter elements began to show themselves in her nature.  She told herself that one great consolation in her memories of Stephen Bocqueraz was that she was too entirely obscure a woman to be brought to the consideration of the public, whatever her offense might or might not be.  Cold and sullen, Susan saw herself as ill-used, she could not even achieve human contempt—­she was not worthy of consideration.  Just one of the many women who were weak—–­

And sometimes, to escape the desperate circling of her thoughts, she would jump up and rush out for a lonely walk, through the wind-blown, warm disorder of the summer streets, or sometimes, dropping her face suddenly upon a crooked arm, she would burst into bitter weeping.

Books and pictures, random conversations overheard, or contact with human beings all served, in these days, to remind her of herself.  Susan’s pride and self-confidence and her gay ambition had sustained her through all the self-denial of her childhood.  Now, failing these, she became but an irritable, depressed and discouraged caricature of her old self.  Her mind was a distressed tribunal where she defended herself day and night; convincing this accuser—­ convincing that one—­pleading her case to the world at large.  Her aunt and cousin, entirely ignorant of its cause, still were aware that there was a great change in her, and watched her with silent and puzzled sympathy.

But they gave her no cause to feel herself a failure.  They thought Susan unusually clever and gifted, and, if her list of actual achievements were small, there seemed to be no limit to the things that she could do.  Mary Lou loved to read the witty little notes she could dash off at a moment’s notice, Lydia Lord wiped her eyes with emotion that Susan’s sweet, untrained voice aroused when she sang “Once in a Purple Twilight,” or “Absent.”  Susan’s famous eggless ginger-bread was one of the treats of Mrs. Lancaster’s table.

“How do you do it, you clever monkey!” said Auntie, watching over Susan’s shoulder the girl’s quick fingers, as Susan colored Easter cards or drew clever sketches of Georgie’s babies, or scribbled a jingle for a letter to amuse Virginia.  And when Susan imitated Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Paula, or Mrs. Fiske as Becky Sharp, even William had to admit that she was quite clever enough to be a professional entertainer.