SUSAN LENOX: HER RISE AND FALL

"I can't think of anything but the cold," said Etta. "My God,
how cold I am! There isn't anything I wouldn't do to get warm.
There isn't anything anybody wouldn't do to get warm, if they
were as cold as this. It's all very well for warm people to
talk----"
"Oh, I'm sick of all the lying and faking, anyhow. Do you
believe in hell, Lorna?"
"Not in a hot one," said Susan.
Soon they struck into Vine Street, bright as day almost, and
lined with beer halls, concert gardens, restaurants. Through the
glass fronts crowds of men and women were visible--contented
faces, well-fed bodies, food on the tables or inviting-looking
drink. Along the sidewalk poured an eager throng, all the
conspicuous faces in it notable for the expectancy of pleasure
in the eyes.
"Isn't this different!" exclaimed Etta. "My God, how cold I
am--and how warm everybody else is but us!"
The sights, the sounds of laughter, of gay music, acted upon her
like an intoxicant. She tossed her head in a reckless gesture.
"I don't care what becomes of me," said she. "I'm ready for
anything except dirt and starvation."
Nevertheless, they hurried down Vine Street, avoiding the
glances of the men and behaving as if they were two working
girls in a rush to get home. As they walked, Susan, to delude
herself into believing that she was not hesitating, with
fainting courage talked incessantly to Etta--told her the things
Mabel Connemora had explained to her--about how a woman could,
and must, take care of her health, if she were not to be swept
under like the great mass of the ignorant, careless women of the
pariah class. Susan was astonished that she remembered all the
actress had told her--remembered it easily, as if she had often
thought of it, had used the knowledge habitually.
They arrived at Fountain Square, tired from the long walk. They
were both relieved and depressed that nothing had happened. "We
might go round the fountain and then back," suggested Susan.
They made the tour less rapidly but still keeping their heads
and their glances timidly down. They were numb with the cold
now. To the sharp agony had succeeded an ache like the steady
grinding pain of rheumatism. Etta broke the silence with, "Maybe
we ought to go into a house."
"A house! Oh--you mean a--a sporting house." At that time
professional prostitution had not become widespread among the
working class; stationary or falling wages, advancing cost of
food and developing demand for comfort and luxury had as yet
only begun to produce their inevitable results. Thus,
prostitution as an industry was in the main segregated in
certain streets and certain houses and the prostitutes were a
distinct class.
"You haven't been?" inquired Etta.
"No," said Susan.
"Dan Cassatt and Kate told me about those places," Etta went on.
"Kate says they're fine and the girls make fifty and sometimes
a hundred dollars a week, and have everything--servants to wait
on them, good food, bathrooms, lovely clothes, and can drive
out. But I--I think I'd stay in the house."
"I want to be my own boss," said Susan.
"There's another side than what Kate says," continued Etta as
consecutively as her chattering teeth would permit. "She heard
from a madam that wants her to come. But Dan heard from
Minnie--she used to be in one--and she says the girls are
slaves, that they're treated like dogs and have to take
anything. She says it's something dreadful the way men act--even
the gentlemen. She says the madam fixes things so that every
girl always owes her money and don't own a stitch to her back,
and so couldn't leave if she wanted to."
"That sounds more like the truth," said Susan.
"But we may _have_ to go," pleaded Etta. "It's awful cold--and if
we went, at least we'd have a warm place. If we wanted to leave,
why, we couldn't be any worse off for clothes than we are."
Susan had no answer for this argument. They went several squares
up Vine Street in silence. Then Etta burst out again:
"I'm frozen through and through, Lorna, and I'm dead tired--and
hungry. The wind's cutting the flesh off my bones. What in the
hell does it matter what becomes of us? Let's get warm, for
God's sake. Let's go to a house. They're in Longworth
Street--the best ones."
And she came to a halt, forcing Susan to halt also. It happened
to be the corner of Eighth Street. Susan saw the iron fence, the
leafless trees of Garfield Place. "Let's go down this way," said
she. "I had luck here once."
"Luck!" said Etta, her curiosity triumphant over all.
Susan's answer was a strange laugh. Ahead of them, a woman
warmly and showily dressed was sauntering along. "That's one of
them," said Etta. "Let's see how _she_ does it. We've got to
learn quick. I can't stand this cold much longer."
The two girls, their rags fluttering about their miserable
bodies, kept a few feet behind the woman, watched her with
hollow eyes of envy and fear. Tears of anguish from the cold
were streaming down their cheeks. Soon a man alone--a youngish
man with a lurching step--came along. They heard the woman say,
"Hello, dear. Don't be in a hurry."
He tried to lurch past her, but she seized him by the lapel of
his overcoat. "Lemme go," said he. "You're old enough to be a
grandmother, you old hag."
Susan and Etta halted and, watching so interestedly that they
forgot themselves, heard her laugh at his insult, heard her say
wheedlingly, "Come along, dearie, I'll treat you right. You're
the kind of a lively, joky fellow I like."
"Go to hell, gran'ma," said the man, roughly shaking her off and
lurching on toward the two girls. He stopped before them, eyed
them by the light of the big electric lamp, grinned
good-naturedly. "What've we got here?" said he. "This looks better."
The woman rushed toward the girls, pouring out a stream of
vileness. "You git out of here!" she shrilled. "You chippies git
off my beat. I'll have you pinched--I will!"
"Shut up!" cried the drunken man, lifting his fist. "I'll have
_you_ pinched. Let these ladies alone, they're friends of mine.
Do you want me to call the cop?"
The woman glanced toward the corner where a policeman was
standing, twirling his club. She turned away, cursing horribly.
The man laughed. "Dirty old hag--isn't she?" said he. "Don't
look so scared, birdies." He caught them each by an arm, stared
woozily at Etta. "You're a good little looker, you are. Come
along with me. There's three in it."
"I--I can't leave my lady friend," Etta succeeded in chattering.
"Please really I can't."
"Your lady friend?" He turned his drunken head in Susan's
direction, squinted at her. He was rather good-looking. "Oh--she
means _you_. Fact is, I'm so soused I thought I was seein'
double. Why, _you're_ a peach. I'll take you." And he released his
hold on Etta to seize her. "Come right along, my lovey-dovey dear."
Susan drew away; she was looking at him with terror and
repulsion. The icy blast swept down the street, sawed into her
flesh savagely.
"I'll give _you_ five," said the drunken man. "Come along." He
grabbed her arm, waved his other hand at Etta. "So long,
blondie. 'Nother time. Good luck."
Susan heard Etta's gasp of horror. She wrenched herself free
again. "I guess I'd better go with him," said she to Etta.
Etta began to sob. "Oh, Lorna!" she moaned. "It's awful."
"You go into the restaurant on the corner and get something to
eat, and wait for me. We can afford to spend the money. And
you'll be warm there."
"Here! Here!" cried the tipsy man. "What're you two whispering
about? Come along, skinny. No offense. I like 'em slim." And he
made coarse and pointed remarks about the sluggishness of fat
women, laughing loudly at his own wit.
The two girls did not hear. The wind straight from the Arctic
was plying its hideous lash upon their defenseless bodies.
"Come on, lovey!" cried the man. "Let's go in out of the cold."
"Oh, Lorna! You can't go with a drunken man! I'll--I'll take
him. I can stand it better'n you. You can go when there's a
gentleman "
"You don't know," said Susan. "Didn't I tell you I'd been
through the worst?"
"Are you coming?" broke in the man, shaking his head to scatter
the clouds over his sight.
The cold was lashing Susan's body; and she was seeing the
tenement she had left--the vermin crawling, the filth
everywhere, the meal bugs in the rotting corn meal--and Jeb
Ferguson. "Wait in the restaurant," said she to Etta. "Didn't I
tell you I'm a nobody. This is what's expected of me." The wind
clawed and tore at her quivering flesh. "It's cold, Etta. Go get
warm. Good-by."
She yielded to the tipsy man's tugging at her arm. Etta stood as
if paralyzed, watching the two move slowly westward. But cold
soon triumphed over horror. She retraced her steps toward Vine
Street. At the corner stood an elderly man with an iron-gray
beard. She merely glanced at him in passing, and so was startled
when he said in a low voice:
"Go back the way you came. I'll join you." She glanced at him
again, saw a gleam in his eyes that assured her she had not
imagined the request. Trembling and all at once hot, she kept on
across the street. But instead of going into the restaurant she
walked past it and east through dark Eighth Street. A few yards,
and she heard a quiet step behind her. A few yards more, and the
lights of Vine Street threw a man's shadow upon the sidewalk
beside her. From sheer fright she halted. The man faced her--a
man old enough to be her father, a most respectable, clean
looking man with a certain churchly though hardly clerical air
about him. "Good evening, miss," said he.
"Good evening," she faltered.
"I'm a stranger--in town to buy goods and have a little fun,"
stammered he with a grotesque attempt to be easy and familiar.
"I thought maybe you could help me."
A little fun! Etta's lips opened, but no words came. The cold
was digging its needle-knives into flesh, into bone, into nerve.
Through the man's thick beard and mustache came the gleam of
large teeth, the twisting of thick raw lips. A little fun!
"Would it," continued the man, nervously, "would it be very dear?"
"I--I don't know," faltered Etta.
"I could afford--say--" he looked at her dress--"say--two dollars."
"I--I" And again Etta could get no further.
"The room'd be a dollar," pleaded the man. "That'd make it three."
"I--I--can't," burst out Etta, hysterical. "Oh, please let me
alone. I--I'm a good girl, but I do need money. But I--I can't.
Oh, for God's sake--I'm so cold--so cold!"
The man was much embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said
feelingly. "That's right--keep your virtue. Go home to your
parents." He was at ease now; his voice was greasy and his words
sleek with the unction of an elder. "I thought you were a soiled
dove. I'm glad you spoke out--glad for my sake as well as your
own. I've got a daughter about your age. Go home, my dear, and
stay a good girl. I know it's hard sometimes; but never give up
your purity--never!" And he lifted his square-topped hard hat
and turned away.
Suddenly Etta felt again the fury of the winter night and icy
wind. As that wind flapped her thin skirt and tortured her
flesh, she cried, "Wait--please. I was just--just fooling."
The man had halted, but he was looking at her uncertainly. Etta
put her hand on his arm and smiled pertly up at him--smiled as
she had seen other street girls smile in the days when she
despised them. "I'll go--if you'll give me three."
"I--I don't think I care to go now. You sort of put me out of
the humor."
"Well--two, then." She gave a reckless laugh. "God, how cold it
is! Anybody'd go to hell to get warm a night like this."
"You are a very pretty girl," said the man. He was warmly
dressed; his was not the thin blood of poverty. He could not
have appreciated what she was feeling. "You're sure you want to
go? You're sure it's your--your business?"
"Yes. I'm strange in this part of town. Do you know a place?"
An hour later Etta went into the appointed restaurant. Her eyes
searched anxiously for Susan, but did not find her. She inquired
at the counter. No one had asked there for a young lady. This
both relieved her and increased her nervousness; Susan had not
come and gone--but would she come? Etta was so hungry that she
could hold out no longer. She sat at a table near the door and
took up the large sheet on which was printed the bill of fare.
She was almost alone in the place, as it was between dinner and
supper. She read the bill thoroughly, then ordered black bean
soup, a sirloin steak and German fried potatoes. This, she had
calculated, would cost altogether a dollar; undoubtedly an
extravagance, but everything at that restaurant seemed dear in
comparison with the prices to which she had been used, and she
felt horribly empty. She ordered the soup, to stay her while the
steak was broiling.
As soon as the waiter set down bread and butter she began upon
it greedily. As the soup came, in walked Susan--calm and
self-possessed, Etta saw at first glance. "I've been so
frightened. You'll have a plate of soup?" asked Etta, trying to
look and speak in unconcerned fashion.
"No, thank you," replied Susan, seating herself opposite.
"There's a steak coming--a good-sized one, the waiter said it'd be."
"Very well."
Susan spoke indifferently.
"Aren't you hungry?"
"I don't know. I'll see." Susan was gazing straight ahead. Her
eyes were distinctly gray--gray and as hard as Susan Lenox's
eyes could be.
"What're you thinking about?"
"I don't know," she laughed queerly.
"Was--it--dreadful?"
A pause, then: "Nothing is going to be dreadful to me any more.
It's all in the game, as Mr. Burlingham used to say."
"Burlingham--who's he?" It was Etta's first faint clew toward
that mysterious past of Susan's into which she longed to peer.
"Oh--a man I knew. He's dead."
A long pause, Etta watching Susan's unreadable face. At last she said:
"You don't seem a bit excited."
Susan came back to the present. "Don't I? Your soup's getting cold."
Etta ate several spoonfuls, then said with an embarrassed
attempt at a laugh, "I--I went, too."
Susan slowly turned upon Etta her gaze--the gaze of eyes
softening, becoming violet. Etta's eyes dropped and the color
flooded into her fair skin. "He was an old man--forty or maybe
fifty," she explained nervously. "He gave me two dollars. I
nearly didn't get him. I lost my nerve and told him I was good
and was only starting because I needed money."
"Never whine," said Susan. "It's no use. Take what comes, and
wait for a winning hand."
Etta looked at her in a puzzled way. "How queer you talk! Not a
bit like yourself. You sound so much older. . . . And your
eyes--they don't look natural at all."
Indeed they looked supernatural. The last trace of gray was
gone. They were of the purest, deepest violet, luminous,
mysterious, with that awe-inspiring expression of utter
aloneness. But as Etta spoke the expression changed. The gray
came back and with it a glance of irony. Said she:
"Oh--nonsense! I'm all right."
"I didn't mind nearly as much as I thought I would. Yes, I'll
get used to it."
"You mustn't," said Susan.
"But I've got to."
"We've got to do it, but we haven't got to get used to it,"
replied Susan.
Etta was still puzzling at this when the dinner now came--a
fine, thick broiled steak, the best steak Susan had ever seen,
and the best food Etta had ever seen.
They had happened upon one of those famous Cincinnati chop
houses where in plain surroundings the highest quality of plain
food is served. "You _are_ hungry, aren't you, Lorna?" said Etta.
"Yes--I'm hungry," declared Susan. "Cut it--quick."
"Draught beer or bottled?" asked the waiter.
"Bring us draught beer," said Etta. "I haven't tasted beer since
our restaurant burned."
"I never tasted it," said Susan. "But I'll try it tonight."
Etta cut two thick slices from the steak, put them on Susan's
plate with some of the beautifully browned fried potatoes.
"Gracious, they have good things to eat here!" she exclaimed.
Then she cut two thick slices for herself, and filled her mouth.
Her eyes glistened, the color came into her pale cheeks. "Isn't
it _grand_!" she cried, when there was room for words to pass out.
"Grand," agreed Susan, a marvelous change of expression in her
face also.
The beer came. Etta drank a quarter of the tall glass at once.
Susan tasted, rather liked the fresh bitter-sweet odor and
flavor. "Is it--very intoxicating?" she inquired.
"If you drink enough," said Etta. "But not one glass."
Susan took quite a drink. "I feel a lot less tired already,"
declared she.
"Me too," said Etta. "My, what a meal! I never had anything like
this in my life. When I think what we've been through! Lorna,
will it _last_?"
"We mustn't think about that," said Susan.
"Tell me what happened to you."
"Nothing. He gave me the money, that was all."
"Then we've got seven dollars--seven dollars and twenty cents,
with what we brought away from home with us."
"Seven dollars--and twenty cents," repeated Susan thoughtfully.
Then a queer smile played around the corners of her mouth.
"Seven dollars--that's a week's wages for both of us at Matson's."
"But I'd go back to honest work tomorrow--if I could find a good
job," Etta said eagerly--too eagerly. "Wouldn't you, Lorna?"
"I don't know," replied Susan. She had the inability to make
pretenses, either to others or to herself, which characterizes
stupid people and also the large, simple natures.
"Oh, you can't mean that!" protested Etta. Instead of replying
Susan began to talk of what to do next. "We must find a place to
sleep, and we must buy a few things to make a better appearance."
"I don't dare spend anything yet," said Etta. "I've got only my
two dollars. Not that when this meal's paid for."
"We're going to share even," said Susan. "As long as either has
anything, it belongs to both."
The tears welled from Etta's eyes. "You are too good, Lorna!
You mustn't be. It isn't the way to get on. Anyhow, I can't
accept anything from you. You wouldn't take anything from me."
"We've got to help each other up," insisted Susan. "We share
even--and let's not talk any more about it. Now, what shall we
get? How much ought we to lay out?"
The waiter here interrupted. "Beg pardon, young ladies," said
he. "Over yonder, at the table four down, there's a couple of
gents that'd like to join you. I seen one of 'em flash quite a
roll, and they acts too like easy spenders."
As Susan was facing that way, she examined them. They were young
men, rather blond, with smooth faces, good-natured eyes and
mouths; they were well dressed--one, the handsomer, notably so.
Susan merely glanced; both men at once smiled at her with an
unimpertinent audacity that probably came out of the champagne
bottle in a silver bucket of ice on their table.
"Shall I tell 'em to come over?" said the waiter.
"Yes," replied Susan.
She was calm, but Etta twitched with nervousness, saying, "I
wish I'd had your experience. I wish we didn't look so
dreadful--me especially. __I__'m not pretty enough to stand out
against these awful clothes."
The two men were pushing eagerly toward them, the taller and
less handsome slightly in advance. He said, his eyes upon Susan,
"We were lonesome, and you looked a little that way too. We're much
obliged." He glanced at the waiter. "Another bottle of the same."
"I don't want anything to drink," said Susan.
"Nor I," chimed in Etta. "No, thank you."
The young man waved the waiter away with, "Get it for my friend
and me, then." He smiled agreeably at Susan. "You won't mind my
friend and me drinking?"
"Oh, no. "
"And maybe you'll change your mind," said the shorter man to
Etta. "You see, if we all drink, we'll get acquainted faster.
Don't you like champagne?"
"I never tasted it," Etta confessed.
"Neither did I," admitted Susan.
"You're sure to like it," said the taller man to Susan--his
friend presently addressed him as John. "Noththing{sic} equal to
it for making friends. I like it for itself, and I like it for
the friends it has made me."
Champagne was not one of the commonplaces of that modest chop
house. So the waiter opened the bottle with much ceremony. Susan
and Etta startled when the cork popped ceilingward in the way
that in such places is still regarded as fashionable. They
watched with interested eyes the pouring of the beautiful pale
amber liquid, were fascinated when they saw how the bubbles
surged upward incessantly, imprisoned joys thronging to escape.
And after the first glass, the four began to have the kindliest
feelings for each other. Sorrow and shame, poverty and
foreboding, took wings unto themselves and flew away. The girls
felt deliciously warm and contented, and thought the young men
charming--a splendid change from the coarse, badly dressed
youths of the tenement, with their ignorant speech and rough,
misshapen hands. They were ashamed of their own hands, were
painfully self-conscious whenever lifting the glass to the lips
brought them into view. Etta's hands in fact were not so badly
spoiled as might have been expected, considering her long years
of rough work; the nails were in fairly good condition and the
skin was rougher to the touch than to the sight. Susan's hands
had not really been spoiled as yet. She had been proud of them
and had taken care of them; still, they were not the hands of a
lady, but of a working girl. The young men had gentlemen's
hands--strong, evidently exercised only at sports, not at
degrading and deforming toil.
The shorter and handsomer youth, who answered to the name of
Fatty, for obvious but not too obvious reasons, addressed
himself to Etta. John--who, it came out, was a Chicagoan,
visiting Fatty--fell to Susan. The champagne made him voluble;
he was soon telling all about himself--a senior at Ann Arbor, as
was Fatty also; he intended to be a lawyer; he was fond of a
good, time was fond of the girls--liked girls who were gay
rather than respectable ones--"because with the prim girls you
have to quit just as the fun ought really to begin."
After two glasses Susan, warned by a slight dizziness, stopped
drinking; Etta followed her example. But the boys kept on,
ordered a second bottle. "This is the fourth we've had tonight,"
said Fatty proudly when it came.
"Don't it make you dizzy?" asked Etta.
"Not a bit," Fatty assured her. But she noticed that his tongue
now swung trippingly loose.
"You haven't been at--at this--long, have you?" inquired John
of Susan.
"Not long," replied she.
Etta, somewhat giddied, overheard and put in, "We began tonight.
We got tired of starving and freezing."
John looked deepest sympathy into Susan's calm violet-gray eyes.
"I don't blame you," said he. "A woman does have a--a hades of
a time!"
"We were going out to buy some clothes when you came," proceeded
Etta. "We're in an awful state."
"I wondered how two girls with faces like yours," said John,
"came to be dressed so--so differently. That was what first
attracted us." Then, as Etta and Fatty were absorbed in each
other, he went on to Susan: "And your eyes--I mustn't forget
them. You certainly have got a beautiful face. And your mouth--so
sweet and sad--but, what a lovely, _lovely_ smile!"
At this Susan smiled still more broadly with pleasure. "I'm glad
you're pleased," said she.
"Why, if you were dressed up----
"You're not a working girl by birth, are you?"
"I wish I had been," said Susan.
"Oh, I think a girl's got as good a right as a man to have a
good time," lied John.
"Don't say things you don't believe," said Susan. "It isn't necessary."
"I can hand that back to you. You weren't frank, yourself, when
you said you wished you'd been born in the class of your
friend--and of my friend Fatty, too."
Susan's laugh was confession. The champagne was dancing in her
blood. She said with a reckless toss of the head:
"I was born nothing. So I'm free to become anything I please
anything except respectable."
Here Fatty broke in. "I'll tell you what let's do. Let's all go
shopping. We can help you girls select your things."
Susan laughed. "We're going to buy about three dollars' worth.
There won't be any selecting. We'll simply take the cheapest."
"Then--let's go shopping," said John, "and you two girls can
help Fatty and me select clothes for you."
"That's the talk!" cried Fatty. And he summoned the waiter. "The
bill," said he in the manner of a man who likes to enjoy the
servility of servants.
"We hadn't paid for our supper," said Susan. "How much was it, Etta?"
"A dollar twenty-five."
"We're going to pay for that," said Fatty. "What d'ye take us for?"
"Oh, no. We must pay it," said Susan.
"Don't be foolish. Of course I'll pay."
"No," said Susan quietly, ignoring Etta's wink. And from her
bosom she took a crumpled five-dollar bill.
"I should say you _were_ new," laughed John. "You don't even know
where to carry your money yet." And they all laughed, Susan and
Etta because they felt gay and assumed the joke whatever it was
must be a good one. Then John laid his hand over hers and said,
"Put your money away."
Susan looked straight at him. "I can't allow it," she said. "I'm
not that poor--yet."
John colored. "I beg your pardon," he said. And when the bill
came he compelled Fatty to let her pay a dollar and a quarter of
it out of her crumpled five. The two girls were fascinated by
the large roll of bills--fives, tens, twenties--which Fatty took
from his trousers pocket. They stared open-eyed when he laid a
twenty on the waiter's plate along with Susan's five. And it
frightened them when he, after handing Susan her change, had
left only a two-dollar bill, four silver quarters and a dime. He
gave the silver to the waiter.
"Was that for a tip?" asked Susan.
"Yes," said Fatty. "I always give about ten per cent of the bill
unless it runs over ten dollars. In that case--a quarter a
person as a rule. Of course, if the bill was very large, I'd
give more." He was showing his amusement at her inquisitiveness.
"I wanted to know," explained she. "I'm very ignorant, and I've
got to learn."
"That's right," said John, admiringly--with a touch of
condescension. "Don't be afraid to confess ignorance."
"I'm not," replied Susan. "I used to be afraid of not being
respectable and that was all. Now, I haven't any fear at all."
"You are a queer one!" exclaimed John. "You oughtn't to be in
this life."
"Where then?" asked she.
"I don't know," he confessed.
"Neither do I." Her expression suddenly was absent, with a
quaint, slight smile hovering about her lips. She looked at him
merrily. "You see, it's got to be something that isn't respectable."
"What _do_ you mean?" demanded he.
Her answer was a laugh.
Fatty declared it too cold to chase about afoot--"Anyhow, it's
late--nearly eleven, and unless we're quick all the stores'll be
closed." The waiter called them a carriage; its driver promised
to take them to a shop that didn't close till midnight on
Saturdays. Said Fatty, as they drove away:
"Well, I suppose, Etta, you'll say you've never been in a
carriage before."
"Oh, yes, I have," cried Etta. "Twice--at funerals."
This made everyone laugh--this and the champagne and the air
which no longer seemed cruel to the girls but stimulating, a
grateful change from the close warmth of the room. As the boys
were smoking cigarettes, they had the windows down. The faces of
both girls were flushed and lively, and their cheeks seemed
already to have filled out. The four made so much noise that the
crowds on the sidewalk were looking at them--looking smilingly,
delighted by the sight of such gayety. Susan was even gayer than
Etta. She sang, she took a puff at John's cigarette; then
laughed loudly when he seized and kissed her, laughed again as
she kissed him; and she and John fell into each other's arms and
laughed uproariously as they saw Fatty and Etta embracing.
The driver kept his promise; eleven o'clock found them bursting
into Sternberg's, over the Rhine--a famous department store for
Germans of all classes. They had an hour, and they made good use
of it. Etta was for yielding to Fatty's generous urgings and
buying right and left. But Susan would not have it. She told the
men what she and Etta would take--a simple complete outfit, and
no more. Etta wanted furs and finery. Susan kept her to plain,
serviceable things. Only once did she yield. When Etta and Fatty
begged to be allowed a big showy hat, Susan yielded--but gave
John leave to buy her only the simplest of simple hats. "You
needn't tell _me_ any yarns about your birth and breeding," said
he in a low tone so that Etta should not hear.
But that subject did not interest Susan. "Let's forget it,"
said she, almost curtly. "I've cut out the past--and the future.
Today's enough for me."
"And for me, too," protested he. "I hope you're having as good
fun as I am."
"This is the first time I've really laughed in nearly a year,"
said she. "You don't know what it means to be poor and hungry
and cold--worst of all, cold."
"You unhappy child," said John tenderly.
But Susan was laughing again, and making jokes about a wonderful
German party dress all covered with beads and lace and ruffles
and embroidery. When they reached the shoe department, Susan
asked John to take Fatty away. He understood that she was
ashamed of their patched and holed stockings, and hastened to
obey. They were making these their last purchases when the big
bell rang for the closing. "I'm glad these poor tired shopgirls
and clerks are set free," said John.
It was one of those well-meaning but worthless commonplaces of
word-kindness that get for their utterance perhaps exaggerated
credit for "good heart." Susan, conscience-stricken, halted.
"And I never once thought of them!" she exclaimed. "It just shows."
"Shows what?"
"Oh, nothing. Come on. I must forget that, for I can't be happy
again till I do. I understand now why the comfortable people can
be happy. They keep from knowing or they make themselves forget."
"Why not?" said John. "What's the use in being miserable about
things that can't be helped?"
"No use at all," replied the girl. She laughed. "I've forgotten."
The carriage was so filled with their bundles that they had some
difficulty in making room for themselves--finally accomplished
it by each girl sitting on her young man's lap. They drove to a
quietly placed, scrupulously clean little hotel overlooking
Lincoln Park. "We're going to take rooms here and dress,"
explained Fatty. "Then we'll wander out and have some supper."
By this time Susan and Etta had lost all sense of strangeness.
The spirit of adventure was rampant in them as in a dreaming
child. And the life they had been living--what they had seen and
heard and grown accustomed to--made it easy for them to strike
out at once and briskly in the new road, so different from the
dreary and cruel path along which they had been plodding. They
stood laughing and joking in the parlor while the boys
registered; then the four went up to two small but comfortable
and fascinatingly clean rooms with a large bathroom between.
"Fatty and I will go down to the bar while you two dress," said John.
"Not on your life!" exclaimed Fatty. "We'll have the bar brought
up to us."
But John, fortified by Susan's look of gratitude for his
tactfulness, whispered to his friend--what Susan could easily
guess. And Fatty said, "Oh, I never thought of it. Yes, we'll
give 'em a chance. Don't be long, girls."
"Thank you," said Susan to John.
"That's all right. Take your time."
Susan locked the hall door behind the two men. She rushed to the
bathroom, turned on the hot water. "Oh, Etta!" she cried, tears
in her eyes, a hysterical sob in her throat. "A bathtub again!"
Etta too was enthusiastic; but she had not that intense
hysterical joy which Susan felt--a joy that can be appreciated
only by a person who, clean by instinct and by lifelong habit,
has been shut out from thorough cleanliness for long months of
dirt and foul odors and cold. It was no easy matter to become
clean again after all those months. But there was plenty of soap
and brushes and towels, and at last the thing was accomplished.
Then they tore open the bundles and arrayed themselves in the
fresh new underclothes, in the simple attractive costumes of
jacket, blouse and skirt. Susan had returned to her class, and
had brought Etta with her.
"What shall we do with these?" asked Etta, pointing disdainfully
with the toe of her new boot to the scatter of the garments they
had cast off.
Susan looked down at it in horror. She could not believe that
_she_ had been wearing such stuff--that it was the clothing of
all her associates of the past six months--was the kind of
attire in which most of her fellow-beings went about the
beautiful earth, She shuddered. "Isn't life dreadful?" she
cried. And she kicked together the tattered, patched, stained
trash, kicked it on to a large piece of heavy wrapping paper she
had spread out upon the floor. Thus, without touching her
discarded self, she got it wrapped up and bound with a strong
string. She rang for the maid, gave her a quarter and pointed to
the bundle. "Please take that and throw it away," she said.
When the maid was gone Etta said: "I'm mighty glad to have it
out of the room."
"Out of the room?" cried Susan. "Out of my heart. Out of my life."
They put on their hats, admired themselves in the mirror, and
descended--Susan remembering halfway that they had left the
lights on and going back to turn them off. The door boy summoned
the two young men to the parlor. They entered and exclaimed in
real amazement. For they were facing two extremely pretty young
women, one dark, the other fair. The two faces were wreathed in
pleased and grateful smiles.
"Don't we look nice?" demanded Etta.
"Nice!" cried Fatty. "We sure did draw a pair of first
prizes--didn't we, Johnny?"
John did not reply. He was gazing at Susan. Etta had young
beauty but it was of the commonplace kind. In Susan's face and
carriage there was far more than beauty. "Where _did_ you come
from?" said John to her in an undertone. "And _where_ are you going?"
"Out to supper, I hope," laughed she.
"Your eyes change--don't they? I thought they were violet. Now
I see they're gray--gray as can be."
CHAPTER XXII
AT lunch, well toward the middle of the following afternoon,
Fatty--his proper name was August Gulick--said: "John and I
don't start for Ann Arbor until a week from today. That means
seven clear days. A lot can be done in that time, with a little
intelligent hustling. What do you say, girls? Do you stick to us?"
"As long as you'll let us," said Etta, who was delighting Gulick
with her frank and wondering and grateful appreciation of his
munificence. Never before had his own private opinion of himself
received such a flatteringly sweeping indorsement--from anyone
who happened to impress him as worth while. In the last phrase
lies the explanation of her success through a policy that is
always dangerous and usually a failure.
So it was settled that with the quiet little hotel as
headquarters the four would spend a week in exploring Cincinnati
as a pleasure ground. Gulick knew the town thoroughly. His
father was a brewer whose name was on many a huge beer wagon
drawn about those streets by showy Clydesdales. Also he had
plenty of money; and, while Redmond--for his friend was the son
of Redmond, well known as a lawyer-politician in Chicago--had
nothing like so much as Gulick, still he had enough to make a
passable pretense at keeping up his end. For Etta and Susan the
city had meant shabby to filthy tenements, toil and weariness
and sorrow. There was opened to their ravished young eyes "the
city"--what reveals itself to the pleasure-seeker with pocket
well filled--what we usually think of when we pronounce its
name, forgetting what its reality is for all but a favored few
of those within its borders. It was a week of music and of
laughter--music especially--music whenever they ate or drank,
music to dance by, music in the beer gardens where they spent
the early evenings, music at the road houses where they arrived
in sleighs after the dances to have supper--unless you choose to
call it breakfast. You would have said that Susan had slipped
out of the tenement life as she had out of its garments, that she
had retained not a trace of it even in memory. But--in those days
began her habit of never passing a beggar without giving something.
Within three or four days this life brought a truly amazing
transformation in the two girls. You would not have recognized
in them the pale and wan and ragged outcasts of only the
Saturday night before. "Aren't you happy?" said Etta to Susan,
in one of the few moments they were alone. "But I don't need to
ask. I didn't know you could be so gay."
"I had forgotten how to laugh," replied Susan.
"I suppose I ought to be ashamed," pursued Etta.
"Why?" inquired Susan.
"Oh, you know why. You know how people'd talk if they knew."
"What people?" said Susan. "Anyone who's willing to give you anything?"
"No," admitted Etta. "But----" There she halted.
Susan went on: "I don't propose to be bothered by the other
kind. They wouldn't do anything for me if they could except
sneer and condemn."
"Still, you know it isn't right, what we're doing."
"I know it isn't cold--or hunger--or rags and dirt--and bugs,"
replied Susan.
Those few words were enough to conjure even to Etta's duller
fancy the whole picture to its last detail of loathsome squalor.
Into Etta's face came a dazed expression. "Was that really _us_, Lorna?"
"No," said Susan with a certain fierceness. "It was a dream. But
we must take care not to have that dream again."
"I'd forgotten how cold I was," said Etta; "hadn't you?"
"No," said Susan, "I hadn't forgotten anything."
"Yes, I suppose it was all worse for you than for me. _You_ used
to be a lady."
"Don't talk nonsense," said Susan.
"I don't regret what I'm doing," Etta now declared. "It was Gus
that made me think about it." She looked somewhat sheepish as
she went on to explain. "I had a little too much to drink last
night. And when Gus and I were alone, I cried--for no reason
except the drink. He asked me why and I had to say something,
and it popped into my head to say I was ashamed of the life I
was leading. As things turned out, I'm glad I said it. He was
awfully impressed."
"Of course," said Susan.
"You never saw anything like it," continued Etta with an
expression suggesting a feeling that she ought to be ashamed but
could not help being amused. "He acted differently right away.
Why don't you try it on John?"
"What for?"
"Oh, it'll make him--make him have more--more respect for you."
"Perhaps," said Susan indifferently.
"Don't you want John to--to respect you?"
"I've been too busy having a good time to think much about
him--or about anything. I'm tired of thinking. I want to rest.
Last night was the first time in my life I danced as much as I
wanted to."
"Don't you like John?"
"Certainly."
"He does know a lot, doesn't he? He's like you. He reads and and
thinks--and---- He's away ahead of Fatty except---- You don't
mind my having the man with the most money?"
"Not in the least," laughed Susan. "Money's another thing I'm
glad to rest from thinking about."
"But this'll last only a few days longer. And--If you managed
John Redmond right, Lorna----"
"Now--you must not try to make me think."
"Lorna--are you _really_ happy?"
"Can't you see I am?"
"Yes--when we're all together. But when--when you're alone with
him----"
Susan's expression stopped her. It was a laughing expression;
and yet--Said Susan: "I am happy, dear--very happy. I eat and
drink and sleep--and I am, oh, so glad to be alive."
"_Isn't_ it good to be alive!--if you've got plenty," exclaimed
Etta. "I never knew before. _This_ is the dream, Lorna--and I
think I'll kill myself if I have to wake."
On Saturday afternoon the four were in one of the rooms
discussing where the farewell dinner should be held and what
they would eat and drink. Etta called Susan into the other room
and shut the door between.
"Fatty wants me to go along with him and live in Detroit," said
she, blurting it out as if confessing a crime.
"Isn't that splendid!" cried Susan, kissing her. "I thought he
would. He fell in love with you at first sight."
"That's what he says. But, Lorna--I--I don't know _what_ to do!"
"_Do_? Why, go. What else is there? Go, of course."
"Oh, no, Lorna," protested Etta. "I couldn't leave you. I
couldn't get along without you."
"But you must go. Don't you love him?"
Etta began to weep. "That's the worst of it. I do love him so!
And I think he loves me--and might marry me and make me a good
woman again. . . . You mustn't ever tell John or anybody about
that--that dreadful man I went with--will you, dear?"
"What do you take me for?" said Susan.
"I've told Fatty I was a good girl until I met him. You haven't
told John about yourself?" Susan shook her head.
"I suppose not. You're so secretive. You really think I ought to go?"
"I know it."
Etta was offended by Susan's positive, practical tone. "I don't
believe you care."
"Yes, I care," said Susan. "But you're right to follow the man
you love. Besides, there's nothing so good in sight here."
"What'll _you_ do? Oh, I can't go, Lorna!"
"Now, Etta," said Susan calmly, "don't talk nonsense. I'll get
along all right."
"You come to Detroit. You could find a job there, and we could
live together."
"Would Fatty like that?"
Etta flushed and glanced away. Young Gulick had soon decided
that Susan was the stronger--therefore, the less "womanly"--of
the two girls, and must be the evil influence over her whom he
had appeared just in time to save. When he said this to Etta,
she protested--not very vigorously, because she wished him to
think her really almost innocent. She wasn't _quite_ easy in her
mind as to whether she had been loyal to Lorna. But, being
normally human, she soon _almost_ convinced herself that but for
Lorna she never would have made the awful venture. Anyhow, since
it would help her with Gulick and wouldn't do Lorna the least
mite of harm, why not let him think he was right?
Said Susan: "Hasn't he been talking to you about getting away
from--from all this?"
"But I don't care," cried Etta, moved to an outburst of
frankness by her sense of security in Susan's loyalty and
generosity. "He doesn't understand. Men are fools about women.
He thinks he likes in me what I haven't got at all. As a matter
of fact if I had been what he made me tell him I was, why we'd
never have met--or got acquainted in the way that makes us so
fond of each other. And I owe it all to you, Lorna. I don't care
what he says, Lorna--or does. I want you."
"Can't go," said Susan, not conscious--yet not unaware,
either--of the curious mixture of heart and art in Etta's
outburst of apparent eagerness to risk everything for love of
her. "Can't possibly go. I've made other plans. The thing for
you is to be straight--get some kind of a job in Detroit--make
Fatty marry you--quick!"
"He would, but his father'd throw him out."
"Not if you were an honest working girl."
"But----" Etta was silent and reflective for a moment. "Men are
so queer," she finally said. "If I'd been an honest working girl
he'd never have noticed me. It's because I am what I am that
I've been able to get acquainted with him and fascinate him. And
he feels it's a sporty thing to do--to marry a fast girl. If I
was to settle down to work, be a regular working girl--why, I'm
afraid he--he'd stop loving me. Then, too, he likes to believe
he's rescuing me from a life of shame. I've watched him close.
I understand him."
"No doubt," said Susan drily.
"Oh, I know you think I'm deceitful. But a woman's got to be,
with a man. And I care a lot about him--aside from the fact that
he can make me comfortable and--and protect me from--from the
streets. If you cared for a man--No, I guess you wouldn't. You
oughtn't to be so--so _honest_, Lorna. It'll always do you up."
Susan laughed, shrugged her shoulders. "I am what I am," said
she. "I can't be any different. If I tried, I'd only fail worse."
"You don't love John--do you?"
"I like him."
"Then you wouldn't have to do _much_ pretending," urged Etta.
"And what does a little pretending amount to?"
"That's what I say to myself," replied Susan thoughtfully.
"It isn't nearly as bad as--as what we started out to do."
Susan laughed at Etta's little hypocrisy for her
respectability's comfort. "As what we did--and are doing,"
corrected she. Burlingham had taught her that it only makes
things worse and more difficult to lie to oneself about them.
"John's crazy about you. But he hasn't money enough to ask you
to come along. And----" Etta hesitated, eyed Susan doubtfully.
"You're _sure_ you don't love him?"
"No. I couldn't love him any more than--than I could hate him."
Susan's strange look drifted across her features. "It's very
queer, how I feel toward men. But--I don't love him and I shan't
pretend. I want to, but somehow--I can't."
Etta felt that she could give herself the pleasure of
unburdening herself of a secret. "Then I may as well tell you,
he's engaged to a girl he thinks he ought to marry."
"I suspected so."
"And you don't mind?" inquired Etta, unable to read Susan's
queer expression.
"Except for him--and her--a little," replied Susan. "I guess
that's why I haven't liked him better--haven't trusted him at all."
"Aren't men dreadful! And he is so nice in many ways. . . .
Lorna----" Etta was weeping again. "I can't go--I can't. I
mustn't leave you."
"Don't be absurd. You've simply got to do it."
"And I do love him," said Etta, calmed again by Susan's
calmness. "And if he married me--Oh, how grateful I'd be!"
"I should say!" exclaimed Susan. She kissed Etta and petted her.
"And he'll have a mighty good wife."
"Do you think I can marry him?"
"If you love him--and don't worry about catching him."
Etta shook her head in rejection of this piece of idealistic advice.
"But a girl's got to be shrewd. You ought to be more so, Lorna."
"That depends on what a girl wants," said Susan, absently. "Upon
what she wants," she repeated.
"What do _you_ want?" inquired Etta curiously.
"I don't know," Susan answered slowly.
"I wish I knew what was going on in your head!" exclaimed Etta.
"So do I," said Susan, smiling.
"Do you really mind my going? Really--honestly?"
There wasn't a flaw in Susan's look or tone. "If you tried to
stay with me, I'd run away from you."
"And if I do get him, I can help you. Once he's mine----" Etta
rounded out her sentence with an expression of countenance which
it was well her adoring rescuer did not see. Not that it lacked
womanliness; "womanly" is the word that most exactly describes
it--and always will exactly describe such expressions--and the
thoughts behind--so long as men compel women to be just women,
under penalty of refusing them support if they are not so.
Redmond came in, and Etta left him alone with Susan. "Well, has
Etta told you?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the girl. She looked at him--simply a look, but
the violet-gray eyes had an unusual seeming of seeing into minds
and hearts, an expression that was perhaps the more disquieting
because it was sympathetic rather than critical.
His glance shifted. He was a notably handsome young fellow--too
young for any display of character in his face, or for any
development of it beyond the amiable, free and easy lover of a
jolly good time that is the type repeated over and over again
among the youth of the comfortable classes that send their sons
to college.
"Are you going with her?" he asked.
"No," said Susan.
Redmond's face fell. "I hoped you liked me a little better than
that," said he.
"It isn't a question of you."
"But it's a question of _you_ with me," he cried. "I'm in love
with you, Lorna. I'm--I'm tempted to say all sorts of crazy
things that I think but haven't the courage to act on." He
kneeled down beside her, put his arms round her waist. "I'm
crazy about you, Lorna.
. . . Tell me--Were you--Had you been--before we met?"
"Yes," said Susan.
"Why don't you deny it?" he exclaimed. "Why don't you fool me,
as Etta fooled Gus?"
"Etta's story is different from mine," said Susan. "She's had no
experience at all, compared to me."
"I don't believe it," declared he. "I know she's been stuffing
Fatty, has made him think that you led her away. But I can soon
knock those silly ideas out of his silly head----"
"It's the truth," interrupted Susan, calmly.
"No matter. You could be a good woman." Impulsively, "If you'll
settle down and be a good woman, I'll marry you."
Susan smiled gently. "And ruin your prospects?"
"I don't care for prospects beside you. You _are_ a good
woman--inside. The better I know you the less like a fast woman
you are. Won't you go to work, Lorna, and wait for me?"
Her smile had a little mockery in it now--perhaps to hide from
him how deeply she was moved. "No matter what else I did, I'd
not wait for you, Johnny. You'd never come. You're not a
Johnny-on-the-spot."
"You think I'm weak--don't you?" he said. Then, as she did not
answer, "Well, I am. But I love you, all the same."
For the first time he felt that he had touched her heart. The
tears sprang to her eyes, which were not at all gray now but all
violet, as was their wont when she was deeply moved. She laid
her hands on his shoulders. "Oh, it's so good to be loved!" she
murmured.
He put his arms around her, and for the moment she rested there,
content--yes, content, as many a woman who needed love less and
craved it less has been content just with being loved, when to
make herself content she has had to ignore and forget the
personality of the man who was doing the loving--and the kind of
love it was. Said he:
"Don't you love me a little enough to be a good woman and wait
till I set up in the law?"
She let herself play with the idea, to prolong this novel
feeling of content. She asked, "How long will that be?"
"I'll be admitted in two years. I'll soon have a practice. My
father's got influence."
Susan looked at him sadly, slowly shook her head. "Two
years--and then several years more. And I working in a
factory--or behind a counter--from dawn till after dark--poor,
hungry--half-naked--wearing my heart out--wearing my body
away----" She drew away from him, laughed. "I was fooling,
John--about marrying. I liked to hear you say those things. I
couldn't marry you if I would. I'm married already."
"_You_!"
She nodded.
"Tell me about it--won't you?"
She looked at him in astonishment, so amazing seemed the idea
that she could tell anyone that experience. It would be like
voluntarily showing a hideous, repulsive scar or wound, for
sometimes it was scar, and sometimes open wound, and always the
thing that made whatever befell her endurable by comparison.
She did not answer his appeal for her confidence but went on,
"Anyhow, nothing could induce me to go to work again. You don't
realize what work means--the only sort of work I can get to do.
It's--it's selling both body and soul. I prefer----"
He kissed her to stop her from finishing her sentence.
"Don't--please," he pleaded. "You don't understand. In this life
you'll soon grow hard and coarse and lose your beauty and your
health--and become a moral and physical wreck."
She reflected, the grave expression in her eyes--the expression
that gave whoever saw it the feeling of dread as before
impending tragedy. "Yes--I suppose so," she said. "But----Any
sooner than as a working girl living in a dirty hole in a
tenement? No--not so soon. And in this life I've got a chance if
I'm careful of my health and--and don't let things touch _me_. In
that other--there's no chance--none!"
"What chance have you got in this life?"
"I don't know exactly. I'm very ignorant yet. At worst, it's
simply that I've got no chance in either life--and this life is
more comfortable."
"Comfortable! With men you don't like frightful men----"
"Were you ever cold?" asked Susan.
But it made no impression upon him who had no conception of the
cold that knows not how it is ever to get warm again. He rushed on:
"Lorna, my God!" He caught hold of her and strained her to his
breast. "You are lovely and sweet! It's frightful--you in this life."
Her expression made the sobs choke up into his throat. She said
quietly: "Not worse than dirt and vermin and freezing cold and
long, long, dull--oh, _so_ dull hours of working among human
beings that don't ever wash--because they can't." She pushed him
gently away. "You don't understand. You haven't been through it.
Comfortable people talk like fools about those things. . . . Do
you remember my hands that first evening?"
He reddened and his eyes shifted. "I'm absurdly sensitive about
a woman's hands," he muttered.
She laughed at him. "Oh, I saw--how you couldn't bear to look at
them--how they made you shiver. Well, the hands were
nothing--_nothing_!--beside what you didn't see."
"Lorna, do you love someone else?"
His eyes demanded an honest answer, and it seemed to her his
feeling for her deserved it. But she could not put the answer
into words. She lowered her gaze.
"Then why----" he began impetuously. But there he halted, for he
knew she would not lift the veil over herself, over her past.
"I'm very, very fond of you," she said with depressing
friendliness. Then with a sweet laugh, "You ought to be glad I'm
not able to take you at your word. And you will be glad soon."
She sighed. "What a good time we've had!"
"If I only had a decent allowance, like Fatty!" he groaned.
"No use talking about that. It's best for us to separate best
for us both. You've been good to me--you'll never know how good.
And I can't play you a mean trick. I wish I could be selfish
enough to do it, but I can't."
"You don't love me. That's the reason."
"Maybe it is. Yes, I guess that's why I've got the courage to be
square with you. Anyhow, John, you can't afford to care for me.
And if I cared for you, and put off the parting--why it'd only
put off what I've got to go through with before----" She did not
finish; her eyes became dreamy.
"Before what?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, returning with a sigh. "Something I
see--yet don't see in the darkness, ahead of me."
"I can't make you out," cried he. Her expression moved him to
the same awe she inspired in Etta--a feeling that gave both of
them the sense of having known her better, of having been more
intimate with her when they first met her than they ever had
been since or ever would be again.
When Redmond embraced and kissed her for the last time, he was
in another and less sympathetic mood, was busy with his own
wounds to vanity and perhaps to heart. He thought her
heartless--good and sweet and friendly, but without sentiment.
She refused to help him make a scene; she refused to say she
would write to him, and asked him not to write to her. "You know
we'll probably see each other soon."
"Not till the long vacation--not till nearly July."
"Only three months."
"Oh, if you look at it that way!" said he, piqued and sullen.
Girls had always been more than kind, more than eager, when he
had shown interest.
Etta, leaving on a later train, was even more depressed about
Susan's heart. She wept hysterically, wished Susan to do the
same; but Susan stood out firmly against a scene, and would not
have it that Etta was shamefully deserting her, as Etta
tearfully accused herself. "You're going to be happy," she
said. "And I'm not so selfish as to be wretched about it. And
don't you worry a minute on my account. I'm better off in every
way than I've ever been. I'll get on all right."
"I know you gave up John to help me with August. I know you mean
to break off everything. Oh, Lorna, you mustn't--you mustn't."
"Don't talk nonsense," was Susan's unsatisfactory reply.
When it came down to the last embrace and the last kiss, Etta
did feel through Susan's lips and close encircling arms a
something that dried up her hysterical tears and filled her
heart with an awful aching. It did not last long. No matter how
wildly shallow waters are stirred, they soon calm and murmur
placidly on again. The three who had left her would have been
amazed could they have seen her a few minutes after Etta's train
rolled out of the Union Station. The difference between strong
natures and weak is not that the strong are free from cowardice
and faint-heartedness, from doubt and foreboding, from love and
affection, but that they do not stay down when they are crushed
down, stagger up and on.
Susan hurried to the room they had helped her find the day
before--a room in a house where no questions were asked or
answered. She locked herself in and gave way to the agonies of
her loneliness. And when her grief had exhausted her, she lay
upon the bed staring at the wall with eyes that looked as though
her soul had emptied itself through them of all that makes life
endurable, even of hope. For the first time in her life she
thought of suicide--not suicide the vague possibility, not
suicide the remote way of escape, but suicide the close and
intimate friend, the healer of all woes, the solace of all
griefs--suicide, the speedy, accurate solver of the worst
problem destiny can put to man.
She saw her pocketbook on the floor where she had dropped it.
"I'll wait till my money's gone," thought she. Then she
remembered Etta--how gentle and loving she was, how utterly she
gave herself--for Susan was still far from the profound
knowledge of character that enables us to disregard outward
signs in measuring actualities. "If I really weren't harder than
Etta," her thoughts ran on reproachfully, "I'd not wait until
the money went. I'd kill myself now, and have it over with." The
truth was that if the position of the two girls had been
reversed and Susan had loved Gulick as intensely as Etta
professed and believed she loved him, still Susan would have
given him up rather than have left Etta alone. And she would
have done it without any sense of sacrifice. And it must be
admitted that, whether or not there are those who deserve credit
for doing right, certainly those who do right simply because
they cannot do otherwise--the only trustworthy people--deserve
no credit for it.
She counted her money--twenty-three dollars in bills, and some
change. Redmond had given her fifty dollars each time they had
gone shopping, and had made her keep the balance--his indirect
way of adjusting the financial side. Twenty-three dollars meant
perhaps two weeks' living. Well, she would live those two weeks
decently and comfortably and then--bid life adieu unless
something turned up--for back to the streets she would not go.
With Etta gone, with not a friend anywhere on earth, life was
not worth the price she had paid for Etta and herself to the
drunken man. Her streak of good fortune in meeting Redmond had
given her no illusions; from Mabel Connemora, from what she
herself had heard and seen--and experienced--she knew the street
woman's life, and she could not live that life for herself
alone. She could talk about it to Redmond tranquilly. She could
think about it in the abstract, could see how other women did
it, and how those who had intelligence might well survive and
lift themselves up in it. But do it she could not. So she
resolved upon suicide, firmly believing in her own resolve. And
she was not one to deceive herself or to shrink from anything
whatsoever. Except the insane, only the young make these
resolves and act upon them; for the young have not yet learned
to value life, have not yet fallen under life's sinister spell
that makes human beings cling more firmly and more cravenly to
it as they grow older. The young must have something--some hope,
however fanatic and false--to live for. They will not tarry just
to live. And in that hour Susan had lost hope.
She took off her street dress and opened her trunk to get a
wrapper and bedroom slippers. As she lifted the lid, she saw an
envelope addressed "Lorna"; she remembered that Redmond had
locked and strapped the trunk. She tore the end from the
envelope, looked in. Some folded bills; nothing more. She sat on
the floor and counted two twenties, five tens, two fives--a
hundred dollars! She looked dazedly at the money--gave a cry of
delight--sprang to her feet, with a change like the startling
shift from night to day in the tropics.
"I can pay!" she cried. "I can pay!"
Bubbling over with smiles and with little laughs, gay as even
champagne and the release from the vile prison of the slums had
made her, she with eager hands took from the trunk her best
clothes--the jacket and skirt of dark gray check she had bought
for thirty dollars at Shillito's and had had altered to her
figure and her taste; the blouse of good quality linen with
rather a fancy collar; the gray leather belt with a big
oxidized silver buckle; her only pair of silk stockings; the
pair of high-heeled patent leather shoes--the large black hat
with a gray feather curling attractively round and over its
brim. The hat had cost only fourteen dollars because she had put
it together herself; if she had bought it made, she would have
paid not less than thirty dollars.
All these things she carefully unpacked and carefully laid out.
Then she thoroughly brushed her hair and did it up in a graceful
pompadour that would go well with the hat. She washed away the
traces of her outburst of grief, went over her finger nails, now
almost recovered from the disasters incident to the life of
manual labor. She went on to complete her toilet, all with the
same attention to detail--a sure indication, in one so young, of
a desire to please some specific person. When she had the hat
set at the satisfactory angle and the veil wound upon it and
draped over her fresh young face coquettishly, she took from her
slender store of gloves a fresh gray pair and, as she put them
on, stood before the glass examining herself.
There was now not a trace of the tenement working girl of a week
and a day before. Here was beauty in bloom, fresh and alluring
from head to narrow, well-booted feet. More than a hint of a
fine color sense--that vital quality, if fashion, the
conventional, is to be refined and individualized into style,
the rare--more than a hint of color sense showed in the harmony
of the pearl gray in the big feather, the pearl gray in the
collar of the blouse, and the pearl white of her skin. Susan had
indeed returned to her own class. She had left it, a small-town
girl with more than a suggestion of the child in eyes and mouth;
she had returned to it, a young woman of the city, with that
look in her face which only experience can give--experience that
has resulted in growth. She locked all her possessions away in
her trunk--all but her money; that she put in her
stockings--seventy-five dollars well down in the right leg, the
rest of the bills well down in the left leg; the two dollars or
so in change was all she intrusted to the pocketbook she
carried. She cast a coquettish glance down at her charmingly
arrayed feet--a harmless glance of coquetry that will be
condemned by those whose physical vanity happens to center
elsewhere. After this glance she dropped her skirts--and was ready.
By this time dusk had fallen, and it was nearly six o'clock. As
she came out of the house she glanced toward the west--the
instinctive gesture of people who live in rainy climates. Her
face brightened; she saw an omen in the long broad streak of
reddened evening sky.
CHAPTER XXIII
SHE went down to Fourth Street, along it to Race, to the
_Commercial_ building. At the entrance to the corridor at the far
side of which were elevator and stairway, she paused and
considered. She turned into the business office.
"Is Mr. Roderick Spenser here?" she asked of a heavily built,
gray-bearded man in the respectable black of the old-fashioned
financial employee, showing the sobriety and stolidity of his
character in his dress.
"He works upstairs," replied the old man, beaming approvingly
upon the pretty, stylish young woman.
"Is he there now?"
"I'll telephone." He went into the rear office, presently
returned with the news that Mr. Spenser had that moment left,
was probably on his way down in the elevator. "And you'll catch
him if you go to the office entrance right away."
Susan, the inexperienced in the city ways of men with women, did
not appreciate what a tribute to her charms and to her
character, as revealed in the honest, grave eyes, was the old
man's unhesitating assumption that Spenser would wish to see
her. She lost no time in retracing her steps. As she reached the
office entrance she saw at the other end of the long hall two
young men coming out of the elevator. After the habit of youth,
she had rehearsed speech and manner for this meeting; but at
sight of him she was straightway trembling so that she feared
she would be unable to speak at all. The entrance light was dim,
but as he glanced at her in passing he saw her looking at him
and his hand moved toward his hat. His face had not changed--the
same frank, careless expression, the same sympathetic,
understanding look out of the eyes. But he was the city man in
dress now--notably the city man.
"Mr. Spenser," said she shyly.
He halted; his companion went on. He lifted his hat, looked
inquiringly at her--the look of the enthusiast and connoisseur
on the subject of pretty women, when he finds a new specimen
worthy of his attention.
"Don't you know me?"
His expression of puzzled and flirtatious politeness gradually
cleared away. The lighting up of his eyes, the smile round his
mouth delighted her; and she grew radiant when he exclaimed
eagerly, "Why, it's the little girl of the rock again! How
you've grown--in a year--less than a year!"
"Yes, I suppose I have," said she, thinking of it for the first
time. Then, to show him at once what a good excuse she had for
intruding again, she hastened to add, "I've come to pay you that
money you loaned me."
He burst out laughing, drew her into the corridor where the
light was brighter. "And you've gone back to your husband," he
said--she noted the quick, sharp change in his voice.
"Why do you think that?" she said.
The way his eyes lingered upon the charming details toilet that
indicated anything but poverty might of a have given her a
simple explanation. He offered another.
"I can't explain. It's your different expression--a kind of
experienced look."
The color flamed and flared in Susan's face.
"You are--happy?" he asked.
"I've not seen--him," evaded she. "Ever since I left Carrollton
I've been wandering about."
"Wandering about?" he repeated absently, his eyes busy with
her appearance.
"And now," she went on, nervous and hurried, "I'm here in
town--for a while."
"Then I may come to see you?"
"I'd be glad. I'm alone in a furnished room I've taken--out near
Lincoln Park."
"Alone! You don't mean you're still wandering?"
"Still wandering."
He laughed. "Well, it certainly is doing you no harm. The
reverse." An embarrassed pause, then he said with returning
politeness: "Maybe you'll dine with me this evening?"
She beamed. "I've been hoping you'd ask me."
"It won't be as good as the one on the rock."
"There never will be another dinner like that," declared she.
"Your leg is well?"
Her question took him by surprise. In his interest and wonder as
to the new mystery of this mysterious young person he had not
recalled the excuses he made for dropping out of the
entanglement in which his impulses had put him. The color poured
into his face. "Ages ago," he replied, hurriedly. "I'd have
forgotten it, if it hadn't been for you. I've never been able to
get you out of my head." And as a matter of truth she had
finally dislodged his cousin Nell--without lingering long or
vividly herself. Young Mr. Spenser was too busy and too
self-absorbed a man to bother long about any one flower in a
world that was one vast field abloom with open-petaled flowers.
"Nor I you," said she, as pleased as he had expected, and
showing it with a candor that made her look almost the child he
had last seen. "You see, I owed you that money, and I wanted to
pay it."
"Oh--_that_ was all!" exclaimed he, half jokingly. "Wait here a
minute." And he went to the door, looked up and down the street,
then darted across it and disappeared into the St. Nicholas
Hotel. He was not gone more than half a minute.
"I had to see Bayne and tell him," he explained when he was with
her again. "I was to have dined with him and some others--over
in the cafe. Instead, you and I will dine upstairs. You won't
mind my not being dressed?"
It seemed to her he was dressed well enough for any occasion.
"I'd rather you had on the flannel trousers rolled up to your
knees," said she. "But I can imagine them."
"What a dinner that was!" cried he. "And the ride afterward,"
with an effort at ease that escaped her bedazzled eyes. "Why
didn't you ever write?"
He expected her to say that she did not know his address, and
was ready with protests and excuses. But she replied:
"I didn't have the money to pay what I owed you." They were
crossing Fourth Street and ascending the steps to the hotel.
"Then, too--afterward--when I got to know a little more about
life I----Oh, no matter. Really, the money was the only reason."
But he had stopped short. In a tone so correctly sincere that a
suspicious person might perhaps have doubted the sincerity of
the man using it, he said:
"What was in your mind? What did you think? What did
you--suspect me of? For I see in that honest, telltale face of
yours that it was a suspicion."
"I didn't blame you," protested the girl, "even if it was so. I
thought maybe you got to thinking it over--and--didn't want to be
bothered with anyone so troublesome as I had made myself."
"How _could_ you suspect _me_ of such a thing?"
"Oh, I really didn't," declared she, with all the earnestness of
a generous nature, for she read into his heightened color and
averted eyes the feelings she herself would have had before an
unjust suspicion. "It was merely an idea. And I didn't blame
you--not in the least. It would have been the sensible----"
Next thing, this child-woman, this mysterious mind of mixed
precocity and innocence, would be showing that she had guessed
a Cousin Nell.
"You are far too modest," interrupted he with a flirtatious
smile. "You didn't realize how strong an impression you made.
No, I really broke my leg. Don't you suppose I knew the
twenty-five in the pocketbook wouldn't carry you far?" He
saw--and naturally misunderstood--her sudden change of
expression as he spoke of the amount. He went on apologetically,
"I intended to bring more when I came. I was afraid to put money
in the note for fear it'd never be delivered, if I did. And
didn't I tell you to write--and didn't I give you my address
here? Would I have done that, if I hadn't meant to stand by you?"
Susan was convinced, was shamed by these smooth, plausible
assertions and explanations. "Your father's house--it's a big
brick, with stone trimmings, standing all alone outside the
little town--isn't it?"
Spenser was again coloring deeply. "Yes," admitted he uneasily.
But Susan didn't notice. "I saw the doctor--and your family--on
the veranda," she said.
He was now so nervous that she could not but observe it. "They
gave out that it was only a sprain," said he, "because I told
them I didn't want it known. I didn't want the people at the
office to know I was going to be laid up so long. I was afraid
I'd lose my job."
"I didn't hear anything about it," said she. "I only saw as I
was going by on a boat."
He looked disconcerted--but not to her eyes. "Well--it's far in
the past now," said he. "Let's forget--all but the fun."
"Yes--all but the fun." Then very sweetly, "But I'll never forget
what I owe you. Not the money--not that, hardly at all--but what
you did for me. It made me able to go on."
"Don't speak of it," cried he, flushed and shamefaced. "I didn't
do half what I ought." Like most human beings he was aware of
his more obvious--if less dangerous--faults and weaknesses. He
liked to be called generous, but always had qualms when so
called because he knew he was in fact of the familiar type
classed as generous only because human beings are so artless in
their judgments as to human nature that they cannot see that
quick impulses quickly die. The only deep truth is that there
are no generous natures but just natures--and they are rarely
classed as generous because their slowly formed resolves have
the air of prudence and calculation.
In the hotel she went to the dressing-room, took twenty-five
dollars from the money in her stocking. As soon as they were
seated in the restaurant she handed it to him.
"But this makes it you who are having me to dinner--and more,"
he protested.
"If you knew what a weight it's been on me, you'd not talk that
way," said she.
Her tone compelled him to accept her view of the matter. He
laughed and put the money in his waistcoat pocket, saying: "Then
I'll still owe you a dinner."
During the past week she had been absorbing as only a young
woman with a good mind and a determination to learn the business
of living can absorb. The lessons before her had been the life
that is lived in cities by those who have money to spend and
experience in spending it; she had learned out of all proportion
to opportunity. At a glance she realized that she was now in a
place far superior to the Bohemian resorts which had seemed to
her inexperience the best possible. From earliest childhood she
had shown the delicate sense of good taste and of luxury that
always goes with a practical imagination--practical as
distinguished from the idealistic kind of imagination that is
vague, erratic, and fond of the dreams which neither could nor
should come true. And the reading she had done--the novels, the
memoirs, the books of travel, the fashion and home
magazines--had made deep and distinct impressions upon her, had
prepared her--as they have prepared thousands of Americans in
secluded towns and rural regions where luxury and even comfort
are very crude indeed--for the possible rise of fortune that is
the universal American dream and hope. She felt these new
surroundings exquisitely--the subdued coloring, the softened
lights, the thick carpets, the quiet elegance and comfort of the
furniture. She noted the good manners of the well-trained
waiter; she listened admiringly and memorizingly as Spenser
ordered the dinner--a dinner of French good taste--small but
fine oysters, a thick soup, a guinea hen _en casserole_, a fruit
salad, fresh strawberry ice cream, dry champagne. She saw that
Spenser knew what he was about, and she was delighted with him
and proud to be with him and glad that he had tastes like her
own--that is, tastes such as she proposed to learn to have. Of
the men she had known or known about he seemed to her far and
away the best. It isn't necessary to explain into what an
attitude of mind and heart this feeling of his high superiority
immediately put her--certainly not for the enlightenment of any woman.
"What are you thinking?" he asked--the question that was so
often thrust at her because, when she thought intensely, there
was a curiosity-compelling expression in her eyes.
"Oh--about all this," replied she. "I like this sort of thing so
much. I never had it in my life, yet now that I see it I feel as
if I were part of it, as if it must belong to me." Her eyes met
his sympathetic gaze. "You understand, don't you?" He nodded.
"And I was wondering"--she laughed, as if she expected even him
to laugh at her--"I was wondering how long it would be before I
should possess it. Do you think I'm crazy?"
He shook his head. "I've got that same feeling," said he. "I'm
poor--don't dare do this often--have all I can manage in keeping
myself decently. Yet I have a conviction that I shall--shall
win. Don't think I'm dreaming of being rich--not at all. I--I
don't care much about that if I did go into business. But I want
all my surroundings to be right."
Her eyes gleamed. "And you'll get it. And so shall I. I know it
sounds improbable and absurd for me to say that about myself.
But--I know it."
"I believe you," said he. "You've got the look in your face--in
your eyes. . . . I've never seen anyone improve as you have in
this less than a year."
She smiled as she thought in what surroundings she had
apparently spent practically all that time. "If you could have
seen me!" she said. "Yes, I was learning and I know it. I led a
sort of double life. I----" she hesitated, gave up trying to
explain. She had not the words and phrases, the clear-cut ideas,
to express that inner life led by people who have real
imagination. With most human beings their immediate visible
surroundings determine their life; with the imaginative few
their horizon is always the whole wide world.
She sighed, "But I'm ignorant. I don't know how or where to
take hold."
"I can't help you there, yet," said he. "When we know each other
better, then I'll know. Not that you need me to tell you. You'll
find out for yourself. One always does."
She glanced round the attractive room again, then looked at him
with narrowed eyelids. "Only a few hours ago I was thinking of
suicide. How absurd it seems now!--I'll never do that again. At
least, I've learned how to profit by a lesson. Mr. Burlingham
taught me that."
"Who's he?"
"That's a long story. I don't feel like telling about it now."
But the mere suggestion had opened certain doors in her memory
and crowds of sad and bitter thoughts came trooping in.
"Are you in some sort of trouble?" said he, instantly leaning
toward her across the table and all aglow with the impulsive
sympathy that kindles in impressionable natures as quickly as
fire in dry grass. Such natures are as perfect conductors of
emotion as platinum is of heat--instantly absorbing it,
instantly throwing it off, to return to their normal and
metallic chill--and capacity for receptiveness. "Anything you
can tell me about?"
"Oh, no--nothing especial," replied she. "Just loneliness and a
feeling of--of discouragement." Strongly, "Just a mood. I'm
never really discouraged. Something always turns up."
"Please tell me what happened after I left you at that wretched hotel."
"I can't," she said. "At least, not now."
"There is----" He looked sympathetically at her, as if to assure
her that he would understand, no matter what she might confess.
"There is--someone?"
"No. I'm all alone. I'm--free." It was not in the least degree an
instinct for deception that made her then convey an impression
of there having been no one. She was simply obeying her innate
reticence that was part of her unusual self-unconsciousness.
"And you're not worried about--about money matters?" he asked.
"You see, I'm enough older and more experienced to give me
excuse for asking. Besides, unless a woman has money, she
doesn't find it easy to get on."
"I've enough for the present," she assured him, and the stimulus
of the champagne made her look--and feel--much more
self-confident than she really was. "More than I've ever had
before. So I'm not worried. When anyone has been through what I
have they aren't so scared about the future."
He looked the admiration he felt--and there was not a little of
the enthusiasm of the champagne both in the look and in the
admiration--"I see you've already learned to play the game
without losing your nerve."
"I begin to hope so," said she.
"Yes--you've got the signs of success in your face. Curious
about those signs. Once you learn to know them, you never miss
in sizing up people."
The dinner had come. Both were hungry, and it was as good a
dinner as the discussion about it between Spenser and the waiter
had forecast. As they ate the well-cooked, well-served food and
drank the delicately flavored champagne, mellow as the gorgeous
autumn its color suggested, there diffused through them an
extraordinary feeling of quiet intense happiness--happiness of
mind and body. Her face took on a new and finer beauty; into his
face came a tenderness that was most becoming to its rather
rugged features. And he had not talked with her long before he
discovered that he was facing not a child, not a childwoman, but
a woman grown, one who could understand and appreciate the
things men and women of experience say and do.
"I've always been expecting to hear from you every day since we
separated," he said--and he was honestly believing it now. "I've
had a feeling that you hadn't forgotten me. It didn't seem
possible I could feel so strongly unless there was real sympathy
between us."
"I came as soon as I could."
He reflected in silence a moment, then in a tone that made her
heart leap and her blood tingle, he said: "You say you're free?"
"Free as air. Only--I couldn't fly far."
He hesitated on an instinct of prudence, then ventured. "Far as
New York?"
"What is the railroad fare?"
"Oh, about twenty-five dollars--with sleeper."
"Yes--I can fly that far."
"Do you mean to say you've no ties of any kind?"
"None. Not one." Her eyes opened wide and her nostrils dilated. "Free!"
"You love it--don't you?"
"Don't you?"
"Above everything!" he exclaimed. "Only the free _live_."
She lifted her head higher in a graceful, attractive gesture of
confidence and happiness. "Well--I am ready to live."
"I'm afraid you don't realize," he said hesitatingly. "People
wouldn't understand. You've your reputation to think of, you know."
She looked straight at him. "No--not even that. I'm even free
from reputation." Then, as his face saddened and his eyes
glistened with sympathy, "You needn't pity me. See where it's
brought me."
"You're a strong swimmer--aren't you?" he said tenderly. "But
then there isn't any safe and easy crossing to the isles of
freedom. It's no wonder most people don't get further than
gazing and longing."
"Probably I shouldn't," confessed Susan, "if I hadn't been
thrown into the water. It was a case of swim or drown."
"But most who try are drowned--nearly all the women."
"Oh, I guess there are more survive than is generally supposed.
So much lying is done about that sort of thing."
"What a shrewd young lady it is! At any rate, you have reached
the islands."
"But I'm not queen of them yet," she reminded him. "I'm only a
poor, naked, out-of-breath castaway lying on the beach."
He laughed appreciatively. Very clever, this extremely pretty
young woman. "Yes--you'll win. You'll be queen." He lifted his
champagne glass and watched the little bubbles pushing gayly and
swiftly upward. "So--you've cast over your reputation."
"I told you I had reached the beach naked." A reckless light in
her eyes now. "Fact is, I had none to start with. Anybody has a
reason for starting--or for being started. That was mine, I guess."
"I've often thought about that matter of reputation--in a man or
a woman--if they're trying to make the bold, strong swim. To
care about one's reputation means fear of what the world says.
It's important to care about one's character--for without
character no one ever got anywhere worth getting to. But it's
very, very dangerous to be afraid for one's reputation. And--I
hate to admit it, because I'm hopelessly conventional at bottom,
but it's true--reputation--fear of what the world says--has sunk
more swimmers, has wrecked more characters than it ever helped.
So--the strongest and best swimmers swim naked."
Susan was looking thoughtfully at him over the rim of her glass.
She took a sip of the champagne, said: "If I hadn't been quite
naked, I'd have sunk--I'd have been at the bottom--with the
fishes----"
"Don't!" he cried. "Thank God, you did whatever you've
done--yes, I mean that--whatever you've done, since it enabled
you to swim on." He added, "And I know it wasn't anything
bad--anything unwomanly."
"I did the best I could--nothing I'm ashamed of--or proud of
either. Just--what I had to do."
"But you ought to be proud that you arrived."
"No--only glad," said she. "So--so _frightfully_ glad!"
In any event, their friendship was bound to flourish; aided by
that dinner and that wine it sprang up into an intimacy, a
feeling of mutual trust and of sympathy at every point. Like all
women she admired strength in a man above everything else. She
delighted in the thick obstinate growth of his fair hair, in the
breadth of the line of his eyebrows, in the aggressive thrust of
his large nose and long jawbone. She saw in the way his mouth
closed evidence of a will against which opposition would dash
about as dangerously as an egg against a stone wall. There was
no question of his having those birthmarks of success about
which he talked. She saw them--saw nothing of the less
obtrusive--but not less important--marks of weakness which might
have enabled an expert in the reading of faces to reach some
rather depressing conclusion as to the nature and the degree of
that success.
Finally, he burst out with, "Yes, I've made up my mind. I'll do
it! I'm going to New York. I've been fooling away the last five
years here learning a lot, but still idling--drinking--amusing
myself in all kinds of ways. And about a month ago--one night,
as I was rolling home toward dawn--through a driving sleet
storm--do you remember a line in `Paradise Lost'"
"I never read it," interrupted Susan.
"Well--it's where the devils have been kicked out of Heaven and
are lying in agony flat on the burning lake--and Satan rises
up--and marches haughtily out among them--and calls out, `Awake!
Arise! Or forever more be damned!' That's what has happened to
me several times in my life. When I was a boy, idling about the
farm and wasting myself, that voice came to me--`Awake! Arise!
Or forever more be damned!' And I got a move on me, and insisted
on going to college. Again--at college--I became a
dawdler--poker--drink--dances--all the rest of it. And suddenly
that voice roared in my ears, made me jump like a rabbit when a
gun goes off. And last month it came again. I went to
work--finished a play I've been pottering over for three years.
But somehow I couldn't find the--the--whatever I needed--to make
me break away. Well--_you've_ given me that. I'll resign from the
_Commercial_ and with all I've got in the world--three hundred
dollars and a trunk full of good clothes, I'll break into Broadway."
Susan had listened with bright eyes and quickened breath, as
intoxicated and as convinced as was he by his eloquence.
"Isn't that splendid!" she exclaimed in a low voice.
"And you?" he said meaningly.
"I?" she replied, fearing she was misunderstanding.
"Will you go?"
"Do you want me?" she asked, low and breathlessly.
With a reluctance which suggested--but not to her--that his
generosity was winning a hard-fought battle with his vanity, he
replied: "I need you. I doubt if I'd dare, without you to back
me up."
"I've got a trunk full of fairly good clothes and about a
hundred dollars. But I haven't got any play--or any art--or any
trade even. Of course, I'll go." Then she hastily added, "I'll
not be a drag on you. I pay my own way."
"But you mustn't be suspicious in your independence," he warned
her. "You mustn't forget that I'm older than you and more
experienced and that it's far easier for a man to get money than
for a woman."
"To get it without lowering himself?"
"Ah!" he exclaimed, looking strangely at her. "You mean, without
bowing to some boss? Without selling his soul? I had no idea you
were so much of a woman when I met you that day."
"I wasn't--then," replied she. "And I didn't know where I'd got
till we began to talk this evening."
"And you're very young!"
"Oh, but I've been going to a school where they make you learn fast."
"Indeed I do need you." He touched his glass to hers. "On to
Broadway!" he cried.
"Broadway!" echoed she, radiant.
"Together--eh?"
She nodded. But as she drank the toast a tear splashed into her
glass. She was remembering how some mysterious instinct had
restrained her from going with John Redmond, though it seemed
the only sane thing to do. What if she had disobeyed that
instinct! And then--through her mind in swift ghostly march--past
trailed the persons and events of the days just gone--just gone,
yet seeming as far away as a former life in another world.
Redmond and Gulick--Etta--yes, Etta, too--all past and
gone--forever gone----
"What are you thinking about?"
She shook her head and the spectral procession vanished into the
glooms of memory's vistas. "Thinking?--of yesterday. I don't
understand myself--how I shake off and forget what's past.
Nothing seems real to me but the future."
"Not even the present?" said he with a smile.
"Not even the present," she answered with grave candor. "Nothing
seems to touch me--the real me. It's like--like looking out of
the window of the train at the landscape running by. I'm a
traveler passing through. I wonder if it'll always be that way.
I wonder if I'll ever arrive where I'll feel that I belong."
"I think so--and soon."
But she did not respond to his confident smile. "I--I hope so,"
she said with sad, wistful sweetness. "Then again--aren't there
some people who don't belong anywhere--aren't allowed to settle
down and be happy, but have to keep going--on and on--until----"
"Until they pass out into the dark," he finished for her. "Yes."
He looked at her in a wondering uneasy way. "You do suggest that
kind," said he. "But," smilingly, to hide his earnestness, "I'll
try to detain you."
"Please do," she said. "I don't want to go on--alone."
He dropped into silence, puzzled and in a way awed by the
mystery enveloping her--a mystery of aloofness and stoniness, of
complete separation from the contact of the world--the mystery
that incloses all whose real life is lived deep within themselves.
CHAPTER XXIV
LIKE days later, on the Eastern Express, they were not so
confident as they had been over the St. Nicholas champagne. As
confident about the remoter future, it was that annoying little
stretch near at hand which gave them secret uneasiness. There
had been nothing but dreaming and sentimentalizing in those four
days--and that disquietingly suggested the soldier who with an
impressive flourish highly resolves to give battle, then
sheathes his sword and goes away to a revel. Also, like all
idlers, they had spent money--far more money than total net cash
resources of less than five hundred dollars warranted.
"We've spent an awful lot of money," said Susan.
She was quick to see the faint frown, the warning that she was
on dangerous ground. Said he:
"Do you regret?"
"No, indeed--no!" cried she, eager to have that cloud vanish,
but honest too.
She no more than he regretted a single moment of the dreaming
and love-making, a single penny of the eighty and odd dollars
that had enabled them fittingly to embower their romance, to
twine myrtle in their hair and to provide Cupid's torch-bowls
with fragrant incense. Still--with the battle not begun, there
gaped that deep, wide hollow in the war chest.
Spenser's newspaper connection got them passes over one of the
cheaper lines to New York--and he tried to console himself by
setting this down as a saving of forty dollars against the
eighty dollars of the debit item. But he couldn't altogether
forget that they would have traveled on passes, anyhow. He was
not regretting that he had indulged in the extravagance of a
stateroom--but he couldn't deny that it was an extravagance.
However, he had only to look at her to feel that he had done
altogether well in providing for her the best, and to believe
that he could face with courage any fate so long as he had her
at his side.
"Yes, I can face anything with you," he said. "What I feel for
you is the real thing. The real thing, at last."
She had no disposition to inquire curiously into this. Her reply
was a flash of a smile that was like a flash of glorious light
upon the crest of a wave surging straight from her happy heart.
They were opposite each other at breakfast in the restaurant
car. He delighted in her frank delight in the novelty of
travel--swift and luxurious travel. He had never been East
before, himself, but he had had experience of sleepers and
diners; she had not, and every moment she was getting some new
sensation. She especially enjoyed this sitting at breakfast with
the express train rushing smoothly along through the
mountains--the first mountains either had seen. At times they
were so intensely happy that they laughed with tears in their
eyes and touched hands across the table to get from physical
contact the reassurances of reality.
"How good to eat everything is!" she exclaimed. "You'll think me
very greedy, I'm afraid. But if you'd eaten the stuff I have
since we dined on the rock!"
They were always going back to the rock, and neither wearied of
recalling and reminding each other of the smallest details. It
seemed to them that everything, even the least happening, at
that sacred spot must be remembered, must be recorded indelibly
in the book of their romance. "I'm glad we were happy together in
such circumstances," she went on. "It was a test--wasn't it, Rod?"
"If two people don't love each other enough to be happy
anywhere, they could be happy nowhere," declared he.
"So, we'll not mind being very, very careful about spending
money in New York," she ventured--for she was again bringing up
the subject she had been privately revolving ever since they had
formed the partnership. In her wanderings with Burlingham, in
her sojourn in the tenements, she had learned a great deal about
the care and spending of money--had developed that instinct for
forehandedness which nature has implanted in all normal women
along with the maternal instinct--and as a necessary supplement
to it. This instinct is more or less futile in most women
because they are more or less ignorant of the realities as to wise
and foolish expenditure. But it is found in the most extravagant
women no less than in the most absurdly and meanly stingy.
"Of course, we must be careful," assented Rod. "But I can't let
you be uncomfortable."
"Now, dear," she remonstrated, "you mustn't treat me that way.
I'm better fitted for hardship than you. I'd mind it less."
He laughed; she looked so fine and delicate, with her
transparent skin and her curves of figure, he felt that anything
so nearly perfect could not but easily be spoiled. And there he
showed how little he appreciated her iron strength, her almost
exhaustless endurance. He fancied he was the stronger because he
could have crushed her in his muscular arms. But exposures,
privations, dissipations that would have done for a muscularly
stronger man than he would have left no trace upon her after a
few days of rest and sleep.
"It's the truth," she insisted. "I could prove it, but I shan't.
I don't want to remember vividly. Rod, we _must_ live cheaply in
New York until you sell a play and I have a place in some company."
"Yes," he conceded. "But, Susie, not too cheap. A cheap way of
living makes a cheap man--gives a man a cheap outlook on life.
Besides, don't forget--if the worst comes to the worst, I can
always get a job on a newspaper."
She would not have let him see how uneasy this remark made her.
However, she could not permit it to pass without notice. Said
she a little nervously:
"But you've made up your mind to devote yourself to plays--to
stand or fall by that."
He remembered how he had thrilled her and himself with brave
talk about the necessity of concentrating, of selecting a goal
and moving relentlessly for it, letting nothing halt him or turn
him aside. For his years Rod Spenser was as wise in the
philosophy of success as Burlingham or Tom Brashear. But he had
done that brave and wise talking before he loved her as he now
did--before he realized how love can be in itself an achievement
and a possession so great that other ambitions dwarf beside it.
True, away back in his facile, fickle mind, behind the region
where self-excuse and somebody-else-always-to-blame reigned
supreme, a something--the something that had set the marks of
success so strongly upon his face--was whispering to him the
real reason for his now revolving a New York newspaper job. Real
reasons as distinguished from alleged reasons and imagined
reasons, from the reasons self-deception invents and vanity
gives out--real reasons are always interesting and worth noting.
What was Rod's? Not his love for her; nothing so superior, so
superhuman as that. No, it was weak and wobbly misgivings as to
his own ability to get on independently, the misgivings that
menace every man who has never worked for himself but has always
drawn pay--the misgivings that paralyze most men and keep them
wage or salary slaves all their lives. Rod was no better pleased
at this sly, unwelcome revelation of his real self to himself
than the next human being is in similar circumstances. The
whispering was hastily suppressed; love for her, desire that she
should be comfortable--those must be the real reasons. But he
must be careful lest she, the sensitive, should begin to brood
over a fear that she was already weakening him and would become
a drag upon him--the fear that, he knew, would take shape in his
own mind if things began to go badly. "You may be sure,
dearest," he said, "I'll do nothing that won't help me on." He
tapped his forehead with his finger. "This is a machine for
making plays. Everything that's put into it will be grist for it."
She was impressed but not convinced. He had made his point about
concentration too clear to her intelligence. She persisted:
"But you said if you took a place on a newspaper it would make
you fight less hard."
"I say a lot of things," he interrupted laughingly. "Don't be
frightened about me. What I'm most afraid of is that you'll
desert me. _That_ would be a real knock-out blow."
He said this smilingly; but she could not bear jokes on that one subject.
"What do you mean, Rod?"
"Now, don't look so funereal, Susie. I simply meant that I hate
to think of your going on the stage--or at anything else. I want
you to help _me_. Selfish, isn't it? But, dear heart, if I could
feel that the plays were _ours_, that we were both concentrated
on the one career--darling. To love each other, to work
together--not separately but together--don't you understand?"
Her expression showed that she understood, but was not at all in
sympathy. "I've got to earn my living, Rod," she objected. "I
shan't care anything about what I'll be doing. I'll do it simply
to keep from being a burden to you----"
"A burden, Susie! You! Why, you're my wings that enable me to
fly. It's selfish, but I want all of you. Don't you think, dear,
that if it were possible, it would be better for you to make us
a home and hold the fort while I go out to give battle to
managers--and bind up my wounds when I come back--and send me out
the next day well again? Don't you think we ought to concentrate?"
The picture appealed to her. All she wanted in life now was his
success. "But," she objected, "it's useless to talk of that
until we get on our feet--perfectly useless."
"It's true," he admitted with a sigh.
"And until we do, we must be economical."
"What a persistent lady it is," laughed he. "I wish I were like that."
In the evening's gathering dusk the train steamed into Jersey
City; and Spenser and Susan Lenox, with the adventurer's
mingling hope and dread, confidence and doubt, courage and fear,
followed the crowd down the long platform under the vast train
shed, went through the huge thronged waiting-room and aboard the
giant ferryboat which filled both with astonishment because of
its size and luxuriousness.
"I am a jay!" said she. "I can hardly keep my mouth from
dropping open."
"You haven't any the advantage of me," he assured her. "Are you
trembling all over?"
"Yes," she admitted. "And my heart's like lead. I suppose there
are thousands on thousands like us, from all over the
country--who come here every day--feeling as we do. "
"Let's go out on the front deck--where we can see it."
They went out on the upper front deck and, leaning against the
forward gates, with their traveling bags at their feet, they
stood dumb before the most astounding and most splendid scene in
the civilized world. It was not quite dark yet; the air was
almost July hot, as one of those prematurely warm days New York
so often has in March. The sky, a soft and delicate blue shading
into opal and crimson behind them, displayed a bright crescent
moon as it arched over the fairyland in the dusk before them.
Straight ahead, across the broad, swift, sparkling river--the
broadest water Susan had ever seen--rose the mighty, the
majestic city. It rose direct from the water. Endless stretches
of ethereal-looking structure, reaching higher and higher, in
masses like mountain ranges, in peaks, in towers and domes. And
millions of lights, like fairy lamps, like resplendent jewels,
gave the city a glory beyond that of the stars thronging the
heavens on a clear summer night.
They looked toward the north; on and on, to the far horizon's
edge stretched the broad river and the lovely city that seemed
the newborn offspring of the waves; on and on, the myriad
lights, in masses, in festoons, in great gleaming globes of fire
from towers rising higher than Susan's and Rod's native hills.
They looked to the south. There, too, rose city, mile after
mile, and then beyond it the expanse of the bay; and everywhere
the lights, the beautiful, soft, starlike lights, shedding a
radiance as of heaven itself over the whole scene. Majesty and
strength and beauty.
"I love it!" murmured the girl. "Already I love it."
"I never dreamed it was like this," said Roderick, in an awed tone.
"The City of the Stars," said she, in the caressing tone in
which a lover speaks the name of the beloved.
They moved closer together and clasped hands and gazed as if
they feared the whole thing--river and magic city and their own
selves--would fade away and vanish forever. Susan clutched Rod
in terror as she saw the vision suddenly begin to move, to
advance toward her, like apparitions in a dream before they
vanish. Then she exclaimed, "Why, we are moving!" The big
ferryboat, swift, steady as land, noiseless, had got under way.
Upon them from the direction of the distant and hidden sea blew
a cool, fresh breeze. Never before had either smelled that
perfume, strong and keen and clean, which comes straight from
the unbreathed air of the ocean to bathe New York, to put life
and hope and health into its people. Rod and Susan turned their
faces southward toward this breeze, drank in great draughts of
it. They saw a colossal statue, vivid as life in the dusk, in
the hand at the end of the high-flung arm a torch which sent a
blaze of light streaming out over land and water.
"That must be Liberty," said Roderick.
Susan slipped her arm through his. She was quivering with
excitement and joy. "Rod--Rod!" she murmured. "It's the isles of
freedom. Kiss me."
And he bent and kissed her, and his cheek felt the tears upon
hers. He reached for her hand, with an instinct to strengthen
her. But when he had it within his its firm and vital grasp sent
a thrill of strength through him.
A few minutes, and they paused at the exit from the ferry house.
They almost shrank back, so dazed and helpless did they feel
before the staggering billows of noise that swept savagely down
upon them--roar and crash, shriek and snort; the air was
shuddering with it, the ground quaking. The beauty had
vanished--the beauty that was not the city but a glamour to lure
them into the city's grasp; now that city stood revealed as a
monster about to seize and devour them.
"God!" He shouted in her ear. "Isn't this _frightful!_"
She was recovering more quickly than he. The faces she saw
reassured her. They were human faces; and while they were eager
and restless, as if the souls behind them sought that which
never could be found, they were sane and kind faces, too. Where
others of her own race lived, and lived without fear, she, too,
could hope to survive. And already she, who had loved this
mighty offspring of the sea and the sky at first glance, saw and
felt another magic--the magic of the peopled solitude. In this
vast, this endless solitude she and he would be free. They could
do as they pleased, live as they pleased, without thought of the
opinion of others. Here she could forget the bestial horrors of
marriage; here she would fear no scornful pointing at her
birthbrand of shame. She and Rod could be poor without shame;
they could make their fight in the grateful darkness of obscurity.
"Scared?" he asked.
"Not a bit," was her prompt answer. "I love it more than ever."
"Well, it frightens me a little. I feel helpless--lost in the
noise and the crowd. How can I do anything here!"
"Others have. Others do."
"Yes--yes! That's so. We must take hold!" And he selected a
cabman from the shouting swarm. "We want to go, with two trunks,
to the Hotel St. Denis," said he.
"All right, sir! Gimme the checks, please."
Spenser was about to hand them over when Susan said in an
undertone, "You haven't asked the price."
Spenser hastened to repair this important omission. "Ten
dollars," replied the cabman as if ten dollars were some such
trifle as ten cents.
Spenser laughed at the first experience of the famous New York
habit of talking in a faint careless way of large sums of
money--other people's money. "You did save us a swat," he said
to Susan, and beckoned another man. The upshot of a long and
arduous discussion, noisy and profane, was that they got the
carriage for six dollars--a price which the policeman who had
been drawn into the discussion vouched for as reasonable.
Spenser knew it was too high, knew the policeman would get a
dollar or so of the profit, but he was weary of the wrangle; and
he would not listen to Susan's suggestion that they have the
trunks sent by the express company and themselves go in a street
car for ten cents. At the hotel they got a large comfortable
room and a bath for four dollars a day. Spenser insisted it was
cheap; Susan showed her alarm--less than an hour in New York and
ten dollars gone, not to speak of she did not know how much
change. For Roderick had been scattering tips with what is for
some mysterious reason called "a princely hand," though princes
know too well the value of money and have too many extravagant
tastes ever to go far in sheer throwing away.
They had dinner in the restaurant of the hotel and set out to
explore the land they purposed to subdue and to possess. They
walked up Broadway to Fourteenth, missed their way in the dazzle
and glare of south Union Square, discovered the wandering
highway again after some searching. After the long, rather quiet
stretch between Union Square and Thirty-fourth Street they found
themselves at the very heart of the city's night life. They
gazed in wonder upon the elevated road with its trains
thundering by high above them. They crossed Greeley Square and
stood entranced before the spectacle--a street bright as day
with electric signs of every color, shape and size; sidewalks
jammed with people, most of them dressed with as much pretense
to fashion as the few best in Cincinnati; one theater after
another, and at Forty-second Street theaters in every direction.
Surely--surely--there would be small difficulty in placing his
play when there were so many theaters, all eager for plays.
They debated going to the theater, decided against it, as they
were tired from the journey and the excitement of crowding new
sensations. "I've never been to a real theater in my life," said
Susan. "I want to be fresh the first time I go."
"Yes," cried Rod. "That's right. Tomorrow night. That _will_ be
an experience!" And they read the illuminated signs, inspected
the show windows, and slowly strolled back toward the hotel. As
they were recrossing Union Square, Spenser said, "Have you
noticed how many street girls there are? We must have passed a
thousand. Isn't it frightful?"
"Yes," said Susan.
Rod made a gesture of disgust, and said with feeling, "How low
a woman must have sunk before she could take to that life!"
"Yes," said Susan.
"So low that there couldn't possibly be left any shred of
feeling or decency anywhere in her." Susan did not reply.
"It's not a question of morals, but of sensibility," pursued he.
"Some day I'm going to write a play or a story about it. A woman
with anything to her, who had to choose between that life and
death, wouldn't hesitate an instant. She couldn't. A
streetwalker!" And again he made that gesture of disgust.
"Before you write," said Susan, in a queer, quiet voice, "you'll
find out all about it. Maybe some of these girls--most of
them--all of them--are still human beings. It's not fair to
judge people unless you know. And it's so easy to say that
someone else ought to die rather than do this or that."
"You can't imagine yourself doing such a thing," urged he.
Susan hesitated, then--"Yes," she said.
Her tone irritated him. "Oh, nonsense! You don't know what
you're talking about."
"Yes," said Susan.
"Susie!" he exclaimed, looking reprovingly at her.
She met his eyes without flinching. "Yes," she said. "I have."
He stopped short and his expression set her bosom to heaving.
But her gaze was steady upon his. "Why did you tell me!" he
cried. "Oh, it isn't so--it can't be. You don't mean exactly that."
"Yes, I do," said she.
"Don't tell me! I don't want to know." And he strode on, she
keeping beside him.
"I can't let you believe me different from what I am," replied
she. "Not you. I supposed you guessed."
"Now I'll always think of it--whenever I look at you. . . . I
simply can't believe it. . . . You spoke of it as if you
weren't ashamed."
"I'm not ashamed," she said. "Not before you. There isn't
anything I've done that I wouldn't be willing to have you know.
I'd have told you, except that I didn't want to recall it. You
know that nobody can live without getting dirty. The thing is to
want to be clean--and to try to get clean afterward--isn't it?"
"Yes," he admitted, as if he had not been hearing. "I wish you
hadn't told me. I'll always see it and feel it when I look at you."
"I want you to," said she. "I couldn't love you as I do if I
hadn't gone through a great deal."
"But it must have left its stains upon you," said he. Again he
stopped short in the street, faced her at the curb, with the
crowd hurrying by and jostling them. "Tell me about it!" he
commanded.
She shook her head. "I couldn't." To have told would have been
like tearing open closed and healed wounds. Also it would have
seemed whining--and she had utter contempt for whining. "I'll
answer any question, but I can't just go on and tell."
"You deliberately went and did--that?"
"Yes."
"Haven't you any excuse, any defense?"
She might have told him about Burlingham dying and the need of
money to save him. She might have told him about Etta--her
health going--her mind made up to take to the streets, with no
one to look after her. She might have made it all a moving and
a true tale--of self-sacrifice for the two people who had done
most for her. But it was not in her simple honest nature to try
to shift blame. So all she said was:
"No, Rod."
"And you didn't want to kill yourself first?"
"No. I wanted to live. I was dirty--and I wanted to be clean. I
was hungry--and I wanted food. I was cold--that was the worst.
I was cold, and I wanted to get warm. And--I had been
married--but I couldn't tell even you about that--except--after
a woman's been through what I went through then, nothing in life
has any real terror or horror for her."
He looked at her long. "I don't understand," he finally said.
"Come on. Let's go back to the hotel."
She walked beside him, making no attempt to break his gloomy
silence. They went up to their room and she sat on the lounge by
the window. He lit a cigarette and half sat, half lay, upon the
bed. After a long time he said with a bitter laugh, "And I was
so sure you were a good woman!"
"I don't feel bad," she ventured timidly. "Am I?"
"Do you mean to tell me," he cried, sitting up, "that you don't
think anything of those things?"
"Life can be so hard and cruel, can make one do so many----"
"But don't you realize that what you've done is the very worst
thing a woman can do?"
"No," said she. "I don't. . . . I'm sorry you didn't understand.
I thought you did--not the details, but in a general sort of
way. I didn't mean to deceive you. That would have seemed to me
much worse than anything I did."
"I might have known! I might have known!" he cried--rather
theatrically, though sincerely withal--for Mr. Spenser was a
diligent worker with the tools of the play-making trade. "I
learned who you were as soon as I got home the night I left you
in Carrolton. They had been telephoning about you to the
village. So I knew about you."
"About my mother?" asked she. "Is that what you mean?"
"Oh, you need not look so ashamed," said he, graciously, pityingly.
"I am not ashamed," said she. But she did not tell him that her
look came from an awful fear that he was about to make her
ashamed of him.
"No, I suppose you aren't," he went on, incensed by this further
evidence of her lack of a good woman's instincts. "I really
ought not to blame you. You were born wrong--born with the moral
sense left out."
"Yes, I suppose so," said she, wearily.
"If only you had lied to me--told me the one lie!" cried he.
"Then you wouldn't have destroyed my illusion. You wouldn't have
killed my love."
She grew deathly white; that was all.
"I don't mean that I don't love you still," he hurried on. "But
not in the same way. That's killed forever."
"Are there different ways of loving?" she asked.
"How can I give you the love of respect and trust--now?"
"Don't you trust me--any more?"
"I couldn't. I simply couldn't. It was hard enough before on
account of your birth. But now----Trust a woman who had been a--
a--I can't speak the word. Trust you? You don't understand a man."
"No, I don't." She looked round drearily. Everything in ruins.
Alone again. Outcast. Nowhere to go but the streets--the life
that seemed the only one for such as she. "I don't understand
people at all. . . . Do you want me to go?"
She had risen as she asked this. He was beside her instantly.
"Go!" he cried. "Why I couldn't get along without you."
"Then you love me as I love you," Said she, putting her arms
round him. "And that's all I want. I don't want what you call
respect. I couldn't ever have hoped to get that, being born as
I was--could I? Anyhow, it doesn't seem to me to amount to much.
I can't help it, Rod--that's the way I feel. So just love me--do
with me whatever you will, so long as it makes you happy. And I
don't need to be trusted. I couldn't think of anybody but you."
He felt sure of her again, reascended to the peak of the moral
mountain. "You understand, we can never get married. We can
never have any children."
"I don't mind. I didn't expect that. We can _love_--can't we?"
He took her face between his hands. "What an exquisite face it
is," he said, "soft and smooth! And what clear, honest eyes!
Where is _it?_ Where _is_ it? It _must_ be there!"
"What, Rod?"
"The--the dirt."
She did not wince, but there came into her young face a deeper
pathos--and a wan, deprecating, pleading smile. She said:
"Maybe love has washed it away--if it was there. It never seemed
to touch me--any more than the dirt when I had to clean up my room."
"You mustn't talk that way. Why you are perfectly calm! You
don't cry or feel repentant. You don't seem to care."
"It's so--so past--and dead. I feel as if it were another
person. And it was, Rod!"
He shook his head, frowning. "Let's not talk about it," he said
harshly. "If only I could stop thinking about it!"
She effaced herself as far as she could, living in the same room
with him. She avoided the least show of the tenderness she felt,
of the longing to have her wounds soothed. She lay awake the
whole night, suffering, now and then timidly and softly
caressing him when she was sure that he slept. In the morning
she pretended to be asleep, let him call her twice before she
showed that she was awake. A furtive glance at him confirmed the
impression his voice had given. Behind her pale, unrevealing
face there was the agonized throb of an aching heart, but she
had the confidence of her honest, utter love; he would surely
soften, would surely forgive. As for herself--she had, through
loving and feeling that she was loved, almost lost the sense of
the unreality of past and present that made her feel quite
detached and apart from the life she was leading, from the
events in which she was taking part, from the persons most
intimately associated with her. Now that sense of isolation, of
the mere spectator or the traveler gazing from the windows of
the hurrying train--that sense returned. But she fought against
the feeling it gave her.
That evening they went to the theater--to see Modjeska in "Magda."
Susan had never been in a real theater. The only approach to a
playhouse in Sutherland was Masonic Hall. It had a sort of stage
at one end where from time to time wandering players gave poor
performances of poor plays or a minstrel show or a low
vaudeville. But none of the best people of Sutherland went--at
least, none of the women. The notion was strong in Sutherland
that the theater was of the Devil--not so strong as in the days
before they began to tolerate amateur theatricals, but still
vigorous enough to give Susan now, as she sat in the big,
brilliant auditorium, a pleasing sense that she, an outcast, was
at last comfortably at home. Usually the first sight of anything
one has dreamed about is pitifully disappointing. Neither nature
nor life can build so splendidly as a vivid fancy. But Susan, in
some sort prepared for the shortcomings of the stage, was not
disappointed. From rise to fall of curtain she was so
fascinated, so absolutely absorbed, that she quite forgot her
surroundings, even Rod. And between the acts she could not talk
for thinking. Rod, deceived by her silence, was chagrined. He
had been looking forward to a great happiness for himself in
seeing her happy, and much profit from the study of the
viewpoint of an absolutely fresh mind. It wasn't until they were
leaving the theater that he got an inkling of the true state of
affairs with her.
"Let's go to supper," said he.
"If you don't mind," replied she, "I'd rather go home. I'm very tired."
"You were sound asleep this morning. So you must have slept
well," said he sarcastically.
"It's the play," said she.
"_Why_ didn't you like it?" he asked, irritated.
She looked at him in wonder. "Like what? The play?" She drew a
long breath. "I feel as if it had almost killed me."
He understood when they were in their room and she could hardly
undress before falling into a sleep so relaxed, so profound,
that it made him a little uneasy. It seemed to him the
exhaustion of a child worn out with the excitement of a
spectacle. And her failure to go into ecstasies the next day led
him further into the same error. "Modjeska is very good as
_Magda_," said he, carelessly, as one talking without expecting
to be understood. "But they say there's an Italian
woman--Duse--who is the real thing."
Modjeska--Duse--Susan seemed indeed not to understand. "I hated
her father," she said. "He didn't deserve to have such a
wonderful daughter."
Spenser had begun to laugh with her first sentence. At the
second he frowned, said bitterly: "I might have known! You get
it all wrong. I suppose you sympathize with _Magda_?"
"I worshiped, her " said Susan, her voice low and tremulous with
the intensity of her feeling.
Roderick laughed bitterly. "Naturally," he said. "You can't
understand."
An obvious case, thought he. She was indeed one of those
instances of absolute lack of moral sense. Just as some people
have the misfortune to be born without arms or without legs, so
others are doomed to live bereft of a moral sense. A sweet
disposition, a beautiful body, but no soul; not a stained soul,
but no soul at all. And his whole mental attitude toward her
changed; or, rather, it was changed by the iron compulsion of
his prejudice. The only change in his physical attitude--that is,
in his treatment of her--was in the direction of bolder passion.
of complete casting aside of all the restraint a conventional
respecter of conventional womanhood feels toward a woman whom he
respects. So, naturally, Susan, eager to love and to be loved,
and easily confusing the not easily distinguished spiritual and
physical, was reassured. Once in a while a look or a phrase from
him gave her vague uneasiness; but on the whole she felt that,
in addition to clear conscience from straightforwardness, she
had a further reason for being glad Chance had forced upon her
the alternative of telling him or lying. She did not inquire
into the realities beneath the surface of their life--neither
into what he thought of her, nor into what she thought of
him--thought in the bottom of her heart. She continued to fight
against, to ignore, her feeling of aloneness, her feeling of
impending departure.
She was aided in this by her anxiety about their finances. In
his efforts to place his play he was spending what were for them
large sums of money--treating this man and that to dinners, to
suppers--inviting men to lunch with him at expensive Broadway
restaurants. She assumed that all this was necessary; he said
so, and he must know. He was equally open-handed when they were
alone, insisting on ordering the more expensive dishes, on
having suppers they really did not need and drink which she knew
she would be better off without--and, she suspected, he also. It
simply was not in him, she saw, to be careful about money. She
liked it, as a trait, for to her as to all the young and the
unthinking carelessness about money seems a sure, perhaps the
surest, sign of generosity--when in fact the two qualities are
in no way related. Character is not a collection of ignorant
impulses but a solidly woven fabric of deliberate purposes.
Carelessness about anything most often indicates a tendency to
carelessness about everything. She admired his openhanded way of
scattering; she wouldn't have admired it in herself, would have
thought it dishonest and selfish. But Rod was different. _He_ had
the "artistic temperament," while she was a commonplace nobody,
who ought to be--and was--grateful to him for allowing her to
stay on and for making such use of her as he saw fit. Still,
even as she admired, she saw danger, grave danger, a
disturbingly short distance ahead. He described to her the
difficulties he was having in getting to managers, in having his
play read, and the absurdity of the reasons given for turning it
down. He made light of all these; the next manager would see,
would give him a big advance, would put the play on--and then,
Easy Street!
But experience had already killed what little optimism there was
in her temperament--and there had not been much, because George
Warham was a successful man in his line, and successful men do
not create or permit optimistic atmosphere even in their houses.
Nor had she forgotten Burlingham's lectures on the subject with
illustrations from his own spoiled career; she understood it all
now--and everything else he had given her to store up in her
memory that retained everything. With that philippic against
optimism in mind, she felt what Spenser was rushing toward. She
made such inquiries about work for herself as her inexperience
and limited opportunities permitted. She asked, she begged him,
to let her try to get a place. He angrily ordered her to put any
such notion out of her head. After a time she nerved herself
again to speak. Then he frankly showed her why he was refusing.
"No," said he peremptorily, "I couldn't trust you in those
temptations. You must stay where I can guard you."
A woman who had deliberately taken to the streets--why, she
thought nothing of virtue; she would be having lovers with the
utmost indifference; and while she was not a liar yet--"at
least, I think not"--how long would that last? With virtue gone,
virtue the foundation of woman's character--the rest could no
more stand than a house set on sand.
"As long as you want me to love you, you've got to stay with
me," he declared. "If you persist, I'll know you're simply
looking for a chance to go back to your old ways."
And though she continued to think and cautiously to inquire
about work she said no more to him. She spent not a penny,
discouraged him from throwing money away--as much as she could
without irritating him--and waited for the cataclysm. Waited not
in gloom and tears but as normal healthy youth awaits any
adversity not definitely scheduled for an hour close at hand. It
would be far indeed from the truth to picture Susan as ever for
long a melancholy figure to the eye or even wholly melancholy
within. Her intelligence and her too sympathetic heart were
together a strong force for sadness in her life, as they cannot
but be in any life. In this world, to understand and to
sympathize is to be saddened. But there was in her a force
stronger than either or both. She had superb health. It made her
beautiful, strong body happy; and that physical happiness
brought her up quickly out of any depths--made her gay in spite
of herself, caused her to enjoy even when she felt that it was
"almost like hard-heartedness to be happy." She loved the sun
and in this city where the sun shone almost all the days,
sparkling gloriously upon the tiny salt particles filling the
air and making it delicious to breathe and upon the skin--in
this City of the Sun as she called it, she was gay even when she
was heavy-hearted.
Thus, she was no repellent, aggravating companion to Rod as she
awaited the cataclysm.
It came in the third week. He spent the entire day away from her,
toward midnight he returned, flushed with liquor. She had
gone to bed. "Get up and dress," said he with an irritability
toward her which she had no difficulty in seeing was really
directed at himself. "I'm hungry--and thirsty. We're going out
for some supper."
"Come kiss me first," said she, stretching out her arms. Several
times this device had shifted his purpose from spending money on
the needless and expensive suppers.
He laughed. "Not a kiss. We're going to have one final blow-out.
I start to work tomorrow. I've taken a place on the _Herald_--on
space, guaranty of twenty-five a week, good chance to average
fifty or sixty."
He said this hurriedly, carelessly, gayly--guiltily. She showed
then and there what a surpassing wise young woman she was, for
she did not exclaim or remind him of his high resolve to do or
die as a playwright. "I'll be ready in a minute," was all she said.
She dressed swiftly, he lounging on the sofa and watching her.
He loved to watch her dress, she did it so gracefully, and the
motions brought out latent charms of her supple figure. "You're
not so sure-fingered tonight as usual," said he. "I never saw
you make so many blunders--and you've got one stocking on wrong
side out."
She smiled into the glass at him. "The skirt'll cover that. I
guess I was sleepy."
"Never saw your eyes more wide-awake. What're you thinking about?"
"About supper," declared she. "I'm hungry. I didn't feel like
eating alone."
"I can't be here always," said he crossly--and she knew he was
suspecting what she really must be thinking.
"I wasn't complaining," replied she sweetly. "You know I
understand about business."
"Yes, I know," said he, with his air of generosity that always
made her feel grateful. "I always feel perfectly free about you."
"I should say!" laughed she. "You know I don't care what happens
so long as you succeed." Since their talk in Broadway that first
evening in New York she had instinctively never said "we."
When they were at the table at Rector's and he had taken a few
more drinks, he became voluble and plausible on the subject of
the trifling importance of his setback as a playwright. It was
the worst possible time of year; the managers were stocked up;
his play would have to be rewritten to suit some particular
star; a place on a newspaper, especially such an influential
paper as the _Herald_, would be of use to him in interesting
managers. She listened and looked convinced, and strove to
convince herself that she believed. But there was no gray in her
eyes, only the deepest hue of violets.
Next day they took a suite of two rooms and a bath in a
pretentious old house in West Forty-fourth Street near Long Acre
Square. She insisted that she preferred another much sunnier and
quieter suite with no bath but only a stationary washstand; it
was to be had for ten dollars a week. But he laughed at her as
too economical in her ideas, and decided for the eighteen-dollar
rooms. Also he went with her to buy clothes, made her spend
nearly a hundred dollars where she would have spent less than
twenty-five. "I prefer to make most of my things," declared she.
"And I've all the time in the world." He would not have it. In
her leisure time she must read and amuse herself and keep
herself up to the mark, especially physically. "I'm proud of
your looks," said he. "They belong to me, don't they? Well, take
care of my property, Miss."
She looked at him vaguely--a look of distance, of parting, of
pain. Then she flung herself into his arms with a hysterical
cry--and shut her eyes tight against the beckoning figure
calling her away. "No! No!" she murmured. "I belong here--_here!_"
"What are you saying?" he asked.
"Nothing--nothing," she replied.
CHAPTER XXV
AT the hotel they had been Mr. and Mrs. Spenser. When they
moved, he tried to devise some way round this; but it was
necessary that they have his address at the office, and Mrs.
Pershall with the glistening old-fashioned false teeth who kept
the furnished-room house was not one in whose withered bosom it
would be wise to raise a suspicion as to respectability. Only in
a strenuously respectable house would he live; in the other
sort, what might not untrustworthy Susan be up to? So Mr. and
Mrs. Spenser they remained, and the truth was suspected by only
a few of their acquaintances, was known by two or three of his
intimates whom he told in those bursts of confidence to which
voluble, careless men are given--and for which they in resolute
self-excuse unjustly blame strong drink.
One of his favorite remarks to her--sometimes made laughingly,
again ironically, again angrily, again insultingly, was in this strain:
"Your face is demure enough. But you look too damned attractive
about those beautiful feet of yours to be respectable at
heart--and trustable."
That matter of her untrustworthiness had become a fixed idea
with him. The more he concentrated upon her physical loveliness,
the more he revolved the dangers, the possibilities of
unfaithfulness; for a physical infatuation is always jealous.
His work on the _Herald_ made close guarding out of the question.
The best he could do was to pop in unexpectedly upon her from
time to time, to rummage through her belongings, to check up her
statements as to her goings and comings by questioning the
servants and, most important of all, each day to put her through
searching and skillfully planned cross-examination. She had to
tell him everything she did--every little thing--and he
calculated the time, to make sure she had not found half an hour
or so in which to deceive him. If she had sewed, he must look at
the sewing; if she had read, he must know how many pages and
must hear a summary of what those pages contained. As she would
not and could not deceive him in any matter, however small, she
was compelled to give over a plan quietly to look for work and
to fit herself for some occupation that would pay a living
wage--if there were such for a beginning woman worker.
At first he was covert in this detective work, being ashamed of
his own suspicions. But as he drank, as he associated again with
the same sort of people who had wasted his time in Cincinnati,
he rapidly became franker and more inquisitorial. And she
dreaded to see the look she knew would come into his eyes, the
cruel tightening of his mouth, if in her confusion and eagerness
she should happen not instantly to satisfy the doubt behind each
question. He tormented her; he tormented himself. She suffered
from humiliation; but she suffered more because she saw how his
suspicions were torturing him. And in her humility and
helplessness and inexperience, she felt no sense of right to
resist, no impulse to resist.
And she forced herself to look on his spasms of jealousy as the
occasional storms which occur even in the best climates. She
reminded herself that she was secure of his love, secure in his
love; and in her sad mood she reproached herself for not being
content when at bottom everything was all right. After what she
had been through, to be sad because the man she loved loved her
too well! It was absurd, ungrateful.
He pried into every nook and corner of her being with that
ingenious and tireless persistence human beings reserve for
searches for what they do not wish to find. At last he contrived
to find, or to imagine he had found, something that justified
his labors and vindicated his disbelief in her.
They were walking in Fifth Avenue one afternoon, at the hour
when there is the greatest press of equipages whose expensively
and showily dressed occupants are industriously engaged in the
occupation of imagining they are doing something when in fact
they are doing nothing. What a world! What a grotesque confusing
of motion and progress! What fantastic delusions that one is
busy when one is merely occupied! They were between Forty-sixth
Street and Forty-seventh, on the west side, when a small
victoria drew up at the curb and a woman descended and crossed
the sidewalk before them to look at the display in a milliner's
window. Susan gave her the swift, seeing glance which one woman
always gives another--the glance of competitors at each other's
offerings. Instead of glancing away, Susan stopped short and
gazed. Forgetting Rod, she herself went up to the millinery
display that she might have a fuller view of the woman who had
fascinated her.
"What's the matter?" cried Spenser. "Come on. You don't want any
of those hats."
But Susan insisted that she must see, made him linger until the
woman returned to her carriage and drove away. She said to Rod:
"Did you see her?"
"Yes. Rather pretty--nothing to scream about."
"But her _style!_" cried Susan.
"Oh, she was nicely dressed--in a quiet way. You'll see
thousands a lot more exciting after you've been about in this
town a while."
"I've seen scores of beautifully dressed women here--and in
Cincinnati, too," replied Susan. "But that woman--she was
_perfect_. And that's a thing I've never seen before."
"I'm glad you have such quiet tastes--quiet and inexpensive."
"Inexpensive!" exclaimed Susan. "I don't dare think how much
that woman's clothes cost. You only glanced at her, Rod, you
didn't _look_. If you had, you'd have seen. Everything she wore
was just right." Susan's eyes were brilliant. "Oh, it was
wonderful! The colors--the fit--the style--the making--every big
and little thing. She was a work of art, Rod! That's the first
woman I've seen in my life that I through and through envied."
Rod's look was interested now. "You like that sort of thing a
lot?" he inquired with affected carelessness.
"Every woman does," replied she, unsuspicious. "But I
care--well, not for merely fine clothes. But for the--the kind
that show what sort of person is in them." She sighed. "I wonder
if I'll ever learn--and have money enough to carry out. It'll
take so much--so much!" She laughed. "I've got terribly
extravagant ideas. But don't be alarmed--I keep them chained up."
He was eying her unpleasantly. Suddenly she became confused. He
thought it was because she was seeing and understanding his look
and was frightened at his having caught her at last. In fact, it
was because it all at once struck her that what she had
innocently and carelessly said sounded like a hint or a reproach
to him. He sneered:
"So you're crazy about finery--eh?"
"Oh, Rod!" she cried. "You know I didn't mean it that way. I
long for and dream about a whole lot of beautiful things, but
nothing else in the world's in the same class with--with what
we've got."
"You needn't try to excuse yourself," said he in a tone that
silenced her.
She wished she had not seen the woman who had thus put a cloud
over their afternoon's happiness. But long after she had
forgotten his queerness about what she said, she continued to
remember that "perfect" woman--to see every detail of her
exquisite toilet, so rare in a world where expensive-looking
finery is regarded as the chief factor in the art of dress. How
much she would have to learn before she could hope to dress like
that!--learn not merely about dress but about the whole artistic
side of life. For that woman had happened to cross Susan's
vision at just the right moment--in development and in mood--to
reveal to her clearly a world into which she had never
penetrated--a world of which she had vaguely dreamed as she read
novels of life in the lands beyond the seas, the life of palaces
and pictures and statuary, of opera and theater, of equipages
and servants and food and clothing of rare quality. She had
rather thought such a life did not exist outside of novels and
dreams. What she had seen of New York--the profuse, the gigantic
but also the undiscriminating--had tended to strengthen the
suspicion. But this woman proved her mistaken.
Our great forward strides are made unconsciously, are the
results of apparently trivial, often unnoted impulses. Susan,
like all our race, had always had vague secret dreams of
ambition--so vague thus far that she never thought of them as
impelling purposes in her life. Her first long forward stride
toward changing these dreams from the vague to the definite was
when Rod, before her on the horse on the way to Brooksburg,
talked over his shoulder to her of the stage and made her feel
that it was the life for her, the only life open to her where a
woman could hope to be judged as human being instead of as mere
instrument of sex. Her second long forward movement toward
sharply defined ambition dated from the sight of the woman of
the milliner's window--the woman who epitomized to Susan the
whole art side of life that always gives its highest expression
in some personal achievement--the perfect toilet, the perfect
painting or sculpture, the perfect novel or play.
But Rod saw in her enthusiasm only evidence of a concealed
longing for the money to indulge extravagant whims. With his
narrowing interest in women--narrowed now almost to sex--his
contempt for them as to their minds and their hearts was so far
advancing that he hardly took the trouble to veil it with
remnants of courtesy. If Susan had clearly understood--even if
she had let herself understand what her increasing knowledge
might have enabled her to understand--she would have hated him
in spite of the hold gratitude and habit had given him upon her
loyal nature--and despite the fact that she had, as far as she
could see, no alternative to living with him but the tenements
or the streets.
One day in midsummer she chanced to go into the Hotel Astor to
buy a magazine. As she had not been there before she made a
wrong turning and was forced to cross one of the restaurants. In
a far corner, half hidden by a group of palms, she saw Rod at a
small table with a strikingly pretty woman whose expression and
dress and manner most energetically proclaimed the actress. The
woman was leaning toward him, was touching his hand and looking
into his eyes with that show of enthusiasm which raises doubts
of sincerity in an experienced man and sets him to keeping an
eye or a hand--or both--upon his money. Real emotion, even a
professional expert at display of emotion, is rarely so adept at
exhibiting itself.
It may have been jealousy that guided her to this swift judgment
upon the character of the emotion correctly and charmingly
expressing itself. If so, jealousy was for once a trustworthy
guide. She turned swiftly and escaped unseen. The idea of
trapping him, of confronting him, never occurred to her. She
felt ashamed and self-reproachful that she had seen. Instead of
the anger that fires a vain woman, whether she cares about a man
or not, there came a profound humiliation. She had in some way
fallen short; she had not given him all he needed; it must be
that she hadn't it to give, since she had given him all she had.
He must not know--he must not! For if he knew he might dislike
her, might leave her--and she dared not think what life would be
without him, her only source of companionship and affection, her
only means of support. She was puzzled that her discovery, not
of his treachery--he had so broken her spirit with his
suspicions and his insulting questions that she did not regard
herself as of the rank and dignity that has the right to exact
fidelity--but of his no longer caring enough to be content with
her alone, had not stunned her with amazement. She did not
realize how completely the instinct that he was estranged from
her had prepared her for the thing that always accompanies
estrangement. Between the perfect accord, that is, the never
realized ideal for a man and a woman living together, and the
intolerable discord that means complete repulse there is a vast
range of states of feeling imperceptibly shading into each
other. Most couples constantly move along this range, now toward
the one extreme, now toward the other. As human kings are not
given to self-analysis, and usually wander into grotesque error
whenever they attempt it, no couple knows precisely where it is
upon the range, until something crucial happens to compel them
to know. Susan and Rod had begun as all couples begin--with an
imaginary ideal accord based upon their ignorance of each other
and their misunderstanding of what qualities they thought they
understood in each other. The delusion of accord vanished that
first evening in New York. What remained? What came in the
place? They knew no more about that than does the next couple.
They were simply "living along." A crisis, drawing them close
together or flinging them forever apart or forcing them to live
together, he frankly as keeper and she frankly as kept, might
come any day, any hour. Again it might never come.
After a few weeks the matter that had been out of her mind
accidentally and indirectly came to the surface in a chance
remark. She said:
"Sometimes I half believe a man could be untrue to a woman, even
though he loved her."
She did not appreciate the bearings of her remark until it was
spoken. With a sensation of terror lest the dreaded crisis might
be about to burst, she felt his quick, nervous glance. She
breathed freely again when she felt his reassurance and relief
as she successfully withstood.
"Certainly," he said with elaborate carelessness. "Men are a
rotten, promiscuous lot. That's why it's necessary for a woman
to be good and straight."
All this time his cross-examination had grown in severity.
Evidently he was fearing that she might be having a recurrence
of the moral disease which was fatal in womankind, though only
mild indiscretion in a man, if not positively a virtue, an
evidence of possessing a normal masculine nature. Her mind began
curiously--sadly--to revolve the occasional presents--of money,
of books, of things to wear--which he gave, always quite
unexpectedly. At first unconsciously, but soon consciously, she
began to associate these gifts, given always in an embarrassed,
shamefaced way, with certain small but significant indications
of his having strayed. And it was not long before she
understood; she was receiving his expiations for his
indiscretions. Like an honest man and a loyal--masculinely
loyal--lover he was squaring accounts. She never read the books
she owed to these twinges; it was thus that she got her aversion
to Thackeray--one of his "expiations" was a set of Thackeray.
The things to wear she contrived never to use. The conscience
money she either spent upon him or put back into his pocket a
little at a time, sure that he, the most careless of men about
money, would never detect her.
His work forced him to keep irregular hours; thus she could
pretend to herself that his absences were certainly because of
office duty. Still, whenever he was gone overnight, she became
unhappy--not the crying kind of unhappiness; to that she was
little given--but the kind that lies awake and aches and with
morbid vivid fancy paints the scenes suspicion suggests, and
stares at them not in anger but in despair. She was always
urging herself to content herself with what she was getting. She
recalled and lived again the things she had forgotten while
Roderick was wholly hers--the penalties of the birth brand of
shame--her wedding night--the miseries of the last period of her
wanderings with Burlingham--her tenement days--the dirt, the
nakedness, the brutal degradation, the vermin, the savage cold.
And the instant he returned, no matter how low-spirited she had
been, she was at once gay, often deliriously gay--until soon his
awakened suspicion as to what she had been up to in his absence
quieted her. There was little forcing or pretense in this
gayety; it bubbled and sparkled from the strong swift current of
her healthy passionate young life which, suspended in the icy
clutch of fear when he was away from her, flowed as freely as the
brooks in spring as soon as she realized that she still had him.
Did she really love him? She believed she did. Was she right?
Love is of many degrees--and kinds. And strange and confused
beyond untangling is the mixture of motives and ideas in the
mind of any human being as to any other being with whom his or
her relations are many sided.
Anyone who had not been roughly seized by destiny and forced to
fight desperately weaponless might have found it difficult to
understand how this intelligent, high-spirited girl could be so
reasonable--coarsely practical, many people would have said. A
brave soul--truly brave with the unconscious courage that lives
heroically without any taint of heroics--such a soul learns to
accept the facts of life, to make the best of things, to be
grateful for whatever sunshine may be and not to shriek and
gesticulate at storm. Suffering had given this sapling of a girl
the strong fiber that enables a tree to push majestically up
toward the open sky. Because she did not cry out was no sign
that she was not hurt; and because she did not wither and die of
her wounds was only proof of her strength of soul. The weak wail
and the weak succumb; the strong persist--and a world of wailers
and weaklings calls them hard, insensible, coarse.
Spenser was fond of exhibiting to his men friends--to some of
them--this treasure to which he always returned the more
enamoured for his vagary and its opportunity of comparison.
Women he would not permit. In general, he held that all women,
the respectable no less than the other kind, put mischief in
each other's heads and egged each other on to carry out the
mischief already there in embryo. In particular, he would have
felt that he was committing a gross breach of the proprieties,
not to say the decencies, had he introduced a woman of Susan's
origin, history and present status to the wives and sisters of
his friends; and, for reasons which it was not necessary even to
pretend to conceal from her, he forbade her having anything to
do with the kinds of woman who would not have minded, had they
known all about her. Thus, her only acquaintances, her only
associates, were certain carefully selected men. He asked to
dinner or to the theater or to supper at Jack's or Rector's only
such men as he could trust. And trustworthy meant physically
unattractive. Having small and dwindling belief in the mentality
of women, and no belief whatever in mentality as a force in the
relations of the sexes, he was satisfied to have about her any
man, however clever, provided he was absolutely devoid of
physical charm.
The friend who came oftenest was Drumley, an editorial writer
who had been his chum at college and had got him the place on
the _Herald_. Drumley he would have trusted alone with her on a
desert island; for several reasons, all of his personal
convenience, it pleased him that Susan liked Drumley and was
glad of his company, no matter how often he came or how long he
stayed. Drumley was an emaciated Kentucky giant with grotesquely
sloping shoulders which not all the ingenious padding of his
tailor could appreciably mitigate. His spare legs were bowed in
the calves. His skin looked rough and tough, like sandpaper and
emery board. The thought of touching his face gave one the same
sensation as a too deeply cut nail. His neck was thin and long,
and he wore a low collar--through that interesting passion of the
vain for seeing a defect in themselves as a charm and calling
attention to it. The lower part of his sallow face suggested
weakness--the weakness so often seen in the faces of
professional men, and explaining why they chose passive instead of
active careers. His forehead was really fine, but the development
of the rest of the cranium above the protuberant little ears was
not altogether satisfying to a claim of mental powers.
Drumley was a good sort--not so much through positive virtue as
through the timidity which too often accounts for goodness, that
is, for the meek conformity which passes as goodness. He was an
insatiable reader, had incredible stores of knowledge; and as he
had a large vocabulary and a ready speech he could dole out of
those reservoirs an agreeable treacle of commonplace philosophy
or comment--thus he had an ideal equipment for editorial
writing. He was absolutely without physical magnetism. The most
he could ever expect from any woman was respect; and that woman
would have had to be foolish enough not to realize that there is
as abysmal a difference between knowledge and mentality as there
is between reputation and character. Susan liked him because he
knew so much. She had developed still further her innate passion
for educating herself. She now wanted to know all about
everything. He told her what to read, set her in the way to
discovering and acquiring the art of reading--an art he was
himself capable of acquiring only in its rudiments--an art the
existence of which is entirely unsuspected by most persons who
regard themselves and are regarded as readers. He knew the
histories and biographies that are most amusing and least
shallow and mendacious. He instructed her in the great
playwrights and novelists and poets, and gave--as his own--the
reasons for their greatness assigned by the world's foremost
critical writers. He showed her what scientific books to
read--those that do not bore and do not hide the simple
fascinating facts about the universe under pretentious,
college-professor phraseology.
He was a pedant, but his pedantry was disguised, therefore
mitigated by his having associated with men of the world instead
of with the pale and pompous capons of the student's closet. His
favorite topic was beauty and ugliness--and his abhorrence for
anyone who was not good to look at. As he talked this subject,
his hearers were nervous and embarrassed. He was a drastic cure
for physical vanity. If this man could so far deceive himself
that he thought himself handsome, who in all the world could be
sure he or she was not the victim of the same incredible
delusion? It was this hallucination of physical beauty that
caused Rod to regard him as the safest of the safe. For it made
him pitiful and ridiculous.
At first he came only with Spenser. Afterward, Spenser used to
send him to dine with Susan and to spend the evenings with her
when he himself had to be--or wished to be elsewhere. When she
was with Drumley he knew she was not "up to any of her old
tricks." Drumley fell in love with her; but, as in his
experience the female sex was coldly chaste, he never developed
even the slight hope necessary to start in a man's mind the idea
of treachery to his friend about a woman. Whenever Drumley heard
that a woman other than the brazenly out and out disreputables
was "loose" or was inclined that way, he indignantly denied it
as a libel upon the empedestaled sex. If proofs beyond dispute
were furnished, he raved against the man with all the venom of
the unsuccessful hating the successful for their success. He had
been sought of women, of course, for he had a comfortable and
secure position and money put by. But the serious women who had
set snares for him for the sake of a home had not attracted him;
as for the better looking and livelier women who had come
a-courting with alimony in view, they had unwisely chosen the
method of approach that caused him to set them down as nothing
but professional loose characters. Thus his high ideal of
feminine beauty and his lofty notion of his own deserts, on the
one hand, and his reverence for womanly propriety, on the other
hand, had kept his charms and his income unshared.
Toward the end of Spenser's first year on the _Herald_--it was
early summer--he fell into a melancholy so profound and so
prolonged that Susan became alarmed. She was used to his having
those fits of the blues that are a part of the nervous, morbidly
sensitive nature and in the unhealthfulness of an irregular and
dissipated life recur at brief intervals. He spent more and more
time with her, became as ardent as in their first days together,
with an added desperation of passionate clinging that touched
her to the depths. She had early learned to ignore his moods, to
avoid sympathy which aggravates, and to meet his blues with a
vigorous counterirritant of liveliness. After watching the
course of this acute attack for more than a month, she decided
that at the first opportunity she would try to find out from
Drumley what the cause was. Perhaps she could cure him if she
were not working in the dark.
One June evening Drumley came to take her to dinner at the
Casino in Central Park. She hesitated. She still liked Drumley's
mind; but latterly he had fallen into the way of gazing
furtively, with a repulsive tremulousness of his loose eyelids,
at her form and at her ankles--especially at her
ankles--especially at her ankles. This furtive debauch gave her
a shivery sense of intrusion. She distinctly liked the candid,
even the not too coarse, glances of the usual man. But not this
shy peeping. However, as there were books she particularly
wished to talk about with him, she accepted.
It was an excursion of which she was fond. They strolled along
Seventh Avenue to the Park, entered and followed the lovely
walk, quiet and green and odorous, to the Mall. They sauntered
in the fading light up the broad Mall, with its roof of boughs
of majestic trees, with its pale blue vistas of well-kept lawns.
At the steps leading to the Casino they paused to delight in the
profusely blooming wistaria and to gaze away northward into and
over what seemed an endless forest with towers and cupolas of
castle and fortress and cathedral rising serene and graceful
here and there above the sea of green. There was the sound of
tinkling fountains, the musical chink-chink of harness chains of
elegant equipages; on the Mall hundreds of children were playing
furiously, to enjoy to the uttermost the last few moments before
being snatched away to bed--and the birds were in the same
hysterical state as they got ready for their evening song. The
air was saturated with the fresh odors of spring and early
summer flowers. Susan, walking beside the homely Drumley, was a
charming and stylish figure of girlish womanhood. The year and
three months in New York had wrought the same transformations in
her that are so noticeable whenever an intelligent and observant
woman with taste for the luxuries is dipped in the magic of city
life. She had grown, was now perhaps a shade above the medium
height for women, looked even taller because of the slenderness
of her arms, of her neck, of the lines of her figure. There was
a deeper melancholy in her violet-gray eyes. Experience had
increased the allure of her wide, beautifully curved mouth.
They took a table under the trees, with beds of blooming flowers
on either hand. Drumley ordered the sort of dinner she liked,
and a bottle of champagne and a bottle of fine burgundy to make
his favorite drink--champagne and burgundy, half and half. He
was running to poetry that evening--Keats and Swinburne.
Finally, after some hesitation, he produced a poem by Dowson--"I
ran across it today. It's the only thing of his worth while, I
believe--and it's so fine that Swinburne must have been sore
when he read it because he hadn't thought to write it himself.
Its moral tone is not high, but it's so beautiful, Mrs. Susan,
that I'll venture to show it to you. It comes nearer to
expressing what men mean by the man sort of constancy than
anything I ever read. Listen to this:
"I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished, and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara!--the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire;
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion."
Susan took the paper, read the four stanzas several times,
handed it back to him without a word. "Don't you think it fine?"
asked he, a little uneasily--he was always uneasy with a woman
when the conversation touched the relations of the sexes--uneasy
lest he might say or might have said something to send a shiver
through her delicate modesty.
"Fine," Susan echoed absently. "And true. . . . I suppose it is
the best a woman can expect--to be the one he returns to.
And--isn't that enough?"
"You are very different from any woman I ever met," said
Drumley. "Very different from what you were last
fall--wonderfully different. But you were different then, too."
"I'd have been a strange sort of person if it weren't so. I've
led a different life. I've learned--because I've had to learn."
"You've been through a great deal--suffered a great deal for one
of your age?"
Susan shrugged her shoulders slightly. She had her impulses to
confide, but she had yet to meet the person who seriously
tempted her to yield to them. Not even Rod; no, least of all Rod.
"You are--happy?"
"Happy--and more. I'm content."
The reply was the truth, as she saw the truth. Perhaps it was
also the absolute truth; for when a woman has the best she has
ever actually possessed, and when she knows there is nowhere
else on earth for her, she is likely to be content. Their
destiny of subordination has made philosophers of women.
Drumley seemed to be debating how to disclose something he had
in mind. But after several glances at the sweet, delicate face
of the girl, he gave it over. In the subdued light from the
shaded candles on their table, she looked more child-like than
he had ever seen. Perhaps her big pale-blue hat and graceful
pale-blue summer dress had something to do with it, also. "How
old are you?" he asked abruptly.
"Nearly nineteen."
"I feel like saying, `So much!'--and also `So little!' How long
have you been married?"
"Why all these questions?" demanded she, smiling.
He colored with embarrassment. "I didn't mean to be
impertinent," said he.
"It isn't impertinence--is it?--to ask a woman how long she's
been married."
But she did not go on to tell him; instead, she pretended to
have her attention distracted by a very old man and a very young
girl behaving in most lover-like fashion, the girl outdoing the
man in enthusiastic determination to convince. She was elegantly
and badly dressed in new clothes--and she seemed as new to that
kind of clothes as those particular clothes were new to her.
After dinner they walked down through the Park by the way they
had come; it did not look like the same scene now, with the
moonlight upon it, with soft shadows everywhere and in every
shadow a pair of lovers. They had nearly reached the entrance
when Drumley said: "Let's sit on this bench here. I want to have
a serious talk with you."
Susan seated herself and waited. He lit a cigar with the
deliberation of one who is striving to gain time. The bench
happened to be one of those that are divided by iron arms into
individual seats. He sat with a compartment between them. The
moonbeams struck across his profile as he turned it toward her;
they shone full upon her face. He looked, hastily glanced away.
With a gruffness as if the evening mist had got into his throat
he said:
"Let's take another bench."
"Why?" objected she. "I like this beautiful light."
He rose. "Please let me have my way." And he led her to a bench
across which a tree threw a deep shadow; as they sat there,
neither could see the other's face except in dimmest outline.
After a brief silence he began:
"You love Rod--don't you?"
She laughed happily.
"Above everything on earth?"
"Or in heaven."
"You'd do anything to have him succeed?"
"No one could prevent his succeeding. He's got it in him. It's
bound to come out."
"So I'd have said--until a year ago--that is, about a year ago."
As her face turned quickly toward him, he turned profile to her.
"What do you mean?" said she, quickly, almost imperiously.
"Yes--I mean _you_," replied he.
"You mean you think I'm hindering him?"
When Drumley's voice finally came, it was funereally solemn.
"You are dragging him down. You are killing his ambition."
"You don't understand," she protested with painful expression.
"If you did, you wouldn't say that."
"You mean because he is not true to you?"
"Isn't he?" said she, loyally trying to pretend surprise. "If
that's so, you've no right to tell me--you, his friend. If it
isn't, you----"
"In either case I'd be beneath contempt--unless I knew that you
knew already. Oh, I've known a long time that you knew--ever
since the night you looked away when he absentmindedly pulled a
woman's veil and gloves out of his pocket. I've watched you
since then, and I know."
"You are a very dear friend, Mr. Drumley," said she. "But you
must not talk of him to me."
"I must," he replied. And he hastened to make the self-fooled
hypocrite's familiar move to the safety of duty's skirts. "It
would be a crime to keep silent."
She rose. "I can't listen. It may be your duty to speak. It's my
duty to refuse to hear."
"He is overwhelmed with debt. He is about to lose his position.
It is all because he is degraded--because he feels he is
entangled in an intrigue with a woman he is ashamed to love--a
woman he has struggled in vain to put out of his heart."
Susan, suddenly weak, had seated herself again. From his first
words she had been prey to an internal struggle--her heart
fighting against understanding things about her relations with
Rod, about his feeling toward her, which she had long been
contriving to hide from herself. When Drumley began she knew
that the end of self-deception was at hand--if she let him
speak. But the instant he had spoken, the struggle ended. If he
had tried to stop she would have compelled him to go on.
"That woman is you," he continued in the same solemn measured
way. "Rod will not marry you. He cannot leave you. And you are
dragging him down. You are young. You don't know that passionate
love is a man's worst enemy. It satisfies his ambition--why
struggle when one already has attained the climax of desire? It
saps his strength, takes from him the energy without which
achievement is impossible. Passion dies poisoned of its own
sweets. But passionate love kills--at least, it kills the man. If
you did not love him, I'd not be talking to you now. But you do
love him. So I say, you are killing him. . . . Don't think he
has told me "
"I know he didn't," she interrupted curtly. "He does not whine."
She hadn't a doubt of the truth of her loyal defense. And
Drumley could not have raised a doubt, even if she had been
seeing the expression of his face. His long practice of the
modern editorial art of clearness and brevity and compact
statement had enabled him to put into those few sentences more
than another might have been unable to express in hours of
explanation and appeal. And the ideas were not new to her. Rod
had often talked them in a general way and she had thought much
about them. Until now she had never seen how they applied to Rod
and herself. But she was seeing and feeling it now so acutely
that if she had tried to speak or to move she could not have
done so.
After a long pause, Drumley said: "Do you comprehend what I mean?"
She was silent--so it was certain that she comprehended.
"But you don't believe?. . . He began to borrow money almost
immediately on his arrival here last summer. He has been
borrowing ever since--from everybody and anybody. He owes now,
as nearly as I can find out, upwards of three thousand dollars."
Susan made a slight but sharp movement.
"You don't believe me?"
"Yes. Go on."
"He has it in him, I'm confident, to write plays--strong plays.
Does he ever write except ephemeral space stuff for the paper?"
"No."
"And he never will so long as he has you to go home to. He lives
beyond his means because he will have you in comfortable
surroundings and dressed to stimulate his passion. If he would
marry you, it might be a little better--though still he would
never amount to anything as long as his love lasted--the kind of
love you inspire. But he will never marry you. I learned that
from what I know of his ideas and from what I've observed as to
your relations--not from anything he ever said about you."
If Susan had been of the suspicious temperament, or if she had
been a few years older, the manner of this second protest might
have set her to thinking how unlike Drumley, the inexpert in
matters of love and passion, it was to analyze thus and to form
such judgments. And thence she might have gone on to consider
that Drumley's speeches sounded strangely like paraphrases of
Spenser's eloquent outbursts when he "got going." But she had
not a suspicion. Besides, her whole being was concentrated upon
the idea Drumley was trying to put into words. She asked:
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because I love him," replied Drumley with feeling. "We're about
the same age, but he's been like my son ever since we struck up
a friendship in the first term of Freshman year."
"Is that your only reason?"
"On my honor." And so firmly did he believe it, he bore her
scrutiny as she peered into his face through the dimness.
She drew back. "Yes," she said in a low voice, half to herself.
"Yes, I believe it is." There was silence for a long time, then
she asked quietly:
"What do you think I ought to do?"
"Leave him--if you love him," replied Drumley.
"What else can you do?. . . Stay on and complete his ruin?"
"And if I go--what?"
"Oh, you can do any one of many things. You can----"
"I mean--what about him?"
"He will be like a crazy man for a while. He'll make that a
fresh excuse for keeping on as he's going now. Then he'll brace
up, and I'll be watching over him, and I'll put him to work in
the right direction. He can't be saved, he can't even be kept
afloat as long as you are with him, or within reach. With you
gone out of his life--his strength will return, his self-respect
can be roused. I've seen the same thing in other cases again and
again. I could tell you any number of stories of----"
"He does not care for me?"
"In _one_ way, a great deal. But you're like drink, like a drug
to him. It is strange that a woman such as you, devoted,
single-hearted, utterly loving, should be an influence for bad.
But it's true of wives also. The best wives are often the worst.
The philosophers are right. A man needs tranquillity at home."
"I understand," said she. "I understand--perfectly. " And her
voice was unemotional, as always when she was so deeply moved
that she dared not release anything lest all should be released.
She was like a seated statue. The moon had moved so that it
shone upon her face. He was astonished by its placid calm. He
had expected her to rave and weep, to protest and plead--before
denouncing him and bidding him mind his own business. Instead,
she was making it clear that after all she did not care about
Roderick; probabLy she was wondering what would become of her,
now that her love was ruined. Well, wasn't it natural? Wasn't it
altogether to her credit--wasn't it additional proof that she was
a fine pure woman? How could she have continued deeply to care
for a man scandalously untrue, and drunk much of the time?
Certainly, it was in no way her fault that Rod made her the
object and the victim of the only kind of so-called love of
which he was capable. No doubt one reason he was untrue to her
was that she was too pure for his debauched fancy. Thus reasoned
Drumley with that mingling of truth and error characteristic of
those who speculate about matters of which they have small and
unfixed experience.
"About yourself," he proceeded. "I have a choice of professions
for you--one with a company on the road--on the southern
circuit--with good prospects of advancement. I know, from what
I have seen of you, and from talks we have had, that you would
do well on the stage. But the life might offend your
sensibilities. I should hesitate to recommend it to a delicate,
fine-fibered woman like you. The other position is a clerkship
in a business office in Philadelphia--with an increase as soon
as you learn stenography and typewriting. It is respectable. It
is sheltered. It doesn't offer anything brilliant. But except
the stage and literature, nothing brilliant offers for a woman.
Literature is out of the question, I think--certainly for the
present. The stage isn't really a place for a woman of lady-like
instincts. So I should recommend the office position."
She remained silent.
"While my main purpose in talking to you," he continued, "was to
try to save him, I can honestly say that it was hardly less my
intention to save you. But for that, I'd not have had the
courage to speak. He is on the way down. He's dragging you with
him. What future have you with him? You would go on down and
down, as low as he should sink and lower. You've completely
merged yourself in him--which might do very well if you were his
wife and a good influence in his life or a mere negation like
most wives. But in the circumstances it means ruin to you. Don't
you see that?"
"What did you say?"
"I was talking about you--your future your----"
"Oh, I shall do well enough." She rose. "I must be going."
Her short, indifferent dismissal of what was his real object in
speaking--though he did not permit himself to know it--cut him
to the quick. He felt a sickening and to him inexplicable sense
of defeat and disgrace. Because he must talk to distract his
mind from himself, he began afresh by saying:
"You'll think it over?"
"I am thinking it over. . . . I wonder that----"
With the fingers of one hand she smoothed her glove on the
fingers of the other--"I wonder that I didn't think of it long
ago. I ought to have thought of it. I ought to have seen."
"I can't tell you how I hate to have been the----"
"Please don't say any more," she requested in a tone that made
it impossible for a man so timid as he to disobey.
Neither spoke until they were in Fifty-ninth Street; then he,
unable to stand the strain of a silent walk of fifteen blocks,
suggested that they take the car down. She assented. In the car
the stronger light enabled him to see that she was pale in a way
quite different from her usual clear, healthy pallor, that
there was an unfamiliar look about her mouth and her eyes--a
look of strain, of repression, of resolve. These signs and the
contrast of her mute motionlessness with her usual vivacity of
speech and expression and gesture made him uneasy.
"I'd advise," said he, "that you reflect on it all carefully and
consult with me before you do anything--if you think you ought
to do anything."
She made no reply. At the door of the house he had to reach for
her hand, and her answer to his good night was a vague absent
echo of the word. "I've only done what I saw was my duty," said
he, appealingly.
"Yes, I suppose so. I must go in."
"And you'll talk with me before you----"
The door had closed behind her; she had not known he was speaking.
When Spenser came, about two hours later, and turned on the
light in their bedroom, she was in the bed, apparently asleep.
He stood staring with theatric self-consciousness at himself in
the glass for several minutes, then sat down before the bureau
and pulled out the third drawer--where he kept collars, ties,
handkerchiefs, gloves and a pistol concealed under the
handkerchiefs. With the awful solemnity of the youth who takes
himself--and the theater--seriously he lifted the pistol, eyed
it critically, turning it this way and that as if interested in
the reflections of light from the bright cylinder and barrel at
different angles. He laid it noiselessly back, covered it over
with the handkerchiefs, sat with his fingers resting on the edge
of the drawer. Presently he moved uneasily, as a man--on the
stage or in its amusing imitation called civilized life among
the self-conscious classes--moves when he feels that someone is
behind him in a "crucial moment."
He slowly turned round. She had shifted her position so that her
face was now toward him. But her eyes were closed and her face
was tranquil. Still, he hoped she had seen the little episode of
the pistol, which he thought fine and impressive. With his arm
on the back of the chair and supporting that resolute-looking
chin of his, he stared at her face from under his thick
eyebrows, so thick that although they were almost as fair as his
hair they seemed dark. After a while her eyelids fluttered and
lifted to disclose eyes that startled him, so intense, so
sleepless were they.
"Kiss me," she said, in her usual sweet, tender way--a little
shyness, much of passion's sparkle and allure. "Kiss me."
"I've often thought," said he, "what would I do if I should go
smash, reach the end of my string? Would I kill you before
taking myself off? Or would that be cowardly?"
She had not a doubt that he meant this melodramatic twaddle. It
did not seem twaddle or melodramatic to her--or, for that
matter, to him. She clasped him more closely. "What's the
matter, dear?" she asked, her head on his breast.
"Oh, I've had a row at the _Herald_, and have quit. But I'll get
another place tomorrow."
"Of course. I wish you'd fix up that play the way Drumley suggested."
"Maybe I shall. We'll see."
"Anything else wrong?"
"Only the same old trouble. I love you too much. Too damn much,"
he added in a tone not intended for her ears. "Weak fool--that's
what I am. Weak fool. I've got _you_, anyhow. Haven't I?"
"Yes," she said. "I'd do anything for you--anything."
"As long as I keep my eyes on you," said he, half mockingly.
"I'm weak, but you're weaker. Aren't you?"
"I guess so. I don't know." And she drew a long breath, nestled
into his arms, and upon his breast, with her perfumed hair
drowsing his senses.
He soon slept; when he awoke, toward noon, he did not disturb
her. He shaved and bathed and dressed, and was about to go out
when she called him. "Oh, I thought you were asleep," said he.
"I can't wait for you to get breakfast. I must get a move on."
"Still blue?"
"No, indeed." But his face was not convincing. "So long, pet."
"Aren't you going to kiss me good-by?"
He laughed tenderly, yet in bitter self-mockery too. "And waste
an hour or so? Not much. What a siren you are!"
She put her hand over her face quickly.
"Now, perhaps I can risk one kiss." He bent over her; his lips
touched her hair. She stretched out her hand, laid it against
his cheek. "Dearest," she murmured.
"I must go."
"Just a minute. No, don't look at me. Turn your face so that I
can see your profile--so!" She had turned his head with a hand
that gently caressed as it pushed. "I like that view best. Yes,
you are strong and brave. You will succeed! No--I'll not keep
you a minute." She kissed his hand, rested her head for an
instant on his lap as he sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly
flung herself to the far side of the bed, with her face toward
the wall.
"Go to sleep again, lazy!" cried he. "I'll try to be home about
dinner-time. See that you behave today! Good lord, how hard it
is to leave you! Having you makes nothing else seem worth while.
Good-by!"
And he was off. She started to a sitting posture, listened to
the faint sound of his descending footsteps. She darted to the
window, leaned out, watched him until he rounded the corner into
Broadway. Then she dropped down with elbows on the window sill
and hands pressing her cheeks; she stared unseeingly at the
opposite house, at a gilt cage with a canary hopping and
chirping within. And once more she thought all the thoughts that
had filled her mind in the sleepless hours of that night and
morning. Her eyes shifted in color from pure gray to pure
violet--back and forth, as emotion or thought dominated her
mind. She made herself coffee in the French machine, heated the
milk she brought every day from the dairy, drank her _cafe au
lait_ slowly, reading the newspaper advertisements for "help
wanted--female"--a habit she had formed when she first came to
New York and had never altogether dropped. When she finished
her coffee she took the scissors and cut out several of the
demands for help.
She bathed and dressed. She moved through the routine of
life--precisely as we all do, whatever may be in our minds and
hearts. She went out, crossed Long Acre and entered the shop of
a dealer in women's cast-off clothes. She reappeared in the
street presently with a fat, sloppy looking woman in black. She
took her to the rooms, offered for sale her entire wardrobe
except the dress she had on and one other, the simply trimmed
sailor upon her head, the ties on her feet and one pair of boots
and a few small articles. After long haggling the woman made a
final price--ninety-five dollars for things, most of them almost
new, which had cost upwards of seven hundred. Susan accepted the
offer; she knew she could do no better. The woman departed,
returned with a porter and several huge sweets of wrapping
paper. The two made three bundles of the purchases; the money
was paid over; they and Susan's wardrobe departed.
Next, Susan packed in the traveling bag she had brought from
Cincinnati the between seasons dress of brown serge she had
withheld, and some such collection of bare necessities as she
had taken with her when she left George Warham's. Into the bag
she put the pistol from under Spenser's handkerchiefs in the
third bureau drawer. When all was ready, she sent for the maid
to straighten the rooms. While the maid was at work, she wrote
this note:
DEAREST--Mr. Drumley will tell you why I have gone. You will
find some money under your handkerchiefs in the bureau. When you
are on your feet again, I may come--if you want me. It won't be
any use for you to look for me. I ought to have gone before, but
I was selfish and blind. Good-by, dear love--I wasn't so bad as
you always suspected. I was true to you, and for the sake of
what you have been to me and done for me I couldn't be so
ungrateful as not to go. Don't worry about me. I shall get on.
And so will you. It's best for us both. Good-by, dear heart--I
was true to you. Good-by.
She sealed this note, addressed it, fastened it over the mantel
in the sitting-room where they always put notes for each other.
And after she had looked in each drawer and in the closet at all
his clothing, and had kissed the pillow on which his head had
lain, she took her bag and went. She had left for him the
ninety-five dollars and also eleven dollars of the money she had
in her purse. She took with her two five-dollar bills and a
dollar and forty cents in change.
The violet waned in her eyes, and in its stead came the gray of
thought and action.
********THE END OF VOLUME I*******
SUSAN LENOX: HER RISE AND FALL
by
David Graham Phillips
Volume II
WITH A PORTRAIT
OF THE AUTHOR
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1917
COPYRIGHT 1917, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
----
COPYRIGHT, 1915,1916, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
I
SUSAN'S impulse was toward the stage. It had become a
definite ambition with her, the stronger because Spenser's
jealousy and suspicion had forced her to keep it a secret, to
pretend to herself that she had no thought but going on
indefinitely as his obedient and devoted mistress. The
hardiest and best growths are the growths inward--where they
have sun and air from without. She had been at the theater
several times every week, and had studied the performances at
a point of view very different from that of the audience. It
was there to be amused; she was there to learn. Spenser and
such of his friends as he would let meet her talked plays and
acting most of the time. He had forbidden her to have women
friends. "Men don't demoralize women; women demoralize each
other," was one of his axioms. But such women as she had a
bowing acquaintance with were all on the stage--in comic
operas or musical farces. She was much alone; that meant many
hours every day which could not but be spent by a mind like
hers in reading and in thinking. Only those who have observed
the difference aloneness makes in mental development, where
there is a good mind, can appreciate how rapidly, how broadly,
Susan expanded. She read plays more than any other kind of
literature. She did not read them casually but was always
thinking how they would act. She was soon making in
imagination stage scenes out of dramatic chapters in novels as
she read. More and more clearly the characters of play and
novel took shape and substance before the eyes of her fancy.
But the stage was clearly out of the question.
While the idea of a stage career had been dominant, she had
thought in other directions, also. Every Sunday, indeed almost
every day, she found in the newspapers articles on the subject
of work for women.
"Why do you waste time on that stuff?" said Drumley, when he
discovered her taste for it.
"Oh, a woman never can tell what may happen," replied she.
"She'll never learn anything from those fool articles,"
answered he. "You ought to hear the people who get them up
laughing about them. I see now why they are printed. It's good
for circulation, catches the women--even women like you."
However, she persisted in reading. But never did she find an
article that contained a really practical suggestion--that is,
one applying to the case of a woman who had to live on what
she made at the start, who was without experience and without
a family to help her. All around her had been women who were
making their way; but few indeed of them--even of those
regarded as successful--were getting along without outside aid
of some kind. So when she read or thought or inquired about
work for women, she was sometimes amused and oftener made
unhappy by the truth as to the conditions, that when a common
worker rises it is almost always by the helping hand of a man,
and rarely indeed a generous hand--a painful and shameful
truth which a society resolved at any cost to think well of
itself fiercely conceals from itself and hypocritically lies about.
She felt now that there was hope in only one direction--hope
of occupation that would enable her to live in physical, moral
and mental decency. She must find some employment where she
could as decently as might be realize upon her physical
assets. The stage would be best--but the stage was impossible,
at least for the time. Later on she would try for it; there
was in her mind not a doubt of that, for unsuspected of any
who knew her there lay, beneath her sweet and gentle exterior,
beneath her appearance of having been created especially for
love and laughter and sympathy, tenacity of purpose and daring
of ambition that were--rarely--hinted at the surface in her
moments of abstraction. However, just now the stage was
impossible. Spenser would find her immediately. She must go
into another part of town, must work at something that touched
his life at no point.
She had often been told that her figure would be one of her
chief assets as a player. And ready-made clothes fitted her
with very slight alterations--showing that she had a model
figure. The advertisements she had cut out were for cloak
models. Within an hour after she left Forty-fourth Street, she
found at Jeffries and Jonas, in Broadway a few doors below
Houston, a vacancy that had not yet been filled--though as a
rule all the help needed was got from the throng of applicants
waiting when the store opened.
"Come up to my office," said Jeffries, who happened to be near
the door as she entered. "We'll see how you shape up. We want
something extra--something dainty and catchy."
He was a short thick man, with flat feet, a flat face and an
almost bald head. In his flat nostrils, in the hollows of his
great forward bent ears and on the lobes were bunches of
coarse, stiff gray hairs. His eyebrows bristled; his small,
sly brown eyes twinkled with good nature and with sensuality.
His skin had the pallor that suggests kidney trouble. His
words issued from his thick mouth as if he were tasting each
beforehand--and liked the flavor. He led Susan into his private
office, closed the door, took a tape measure from his desk.
"Now, my dear," said he, eyeing her form gluttonously, "we'll
size you up--eh? You're exactly the build I like."
And under the pretense of taking her measurements, he fumbled
and felt, pinched and stroked every part of her person,
laughing and chuckling the while. "My, but you are sweet! And
so firm! What flesh! Solid--solid! Mighty healthy! You are a
good girl--eh?"
"I am a married woman."
"But you've got no ring."
"I've never worn a ring."
"Well--well! I believe that is one of the new wrinkles, but I
don't approve. I'm an old-fashioned family man. Let me see
again. Now, don't mind a poor old man like me, my dear. I've
got a wife--the best woman in the world, and I've never been
untrue to her. A look over the fence occasionally--but not an
inch out of the pasture. Don't stiffen yourself like that. I
can't judge, when you do. Not too much hips--neither sides nor
back. Fine! Fine! And the thigh slender--yes--quite lovely, my
dear. Thick thighs spoil the hang of garments. Yes--yes--a
splendid figure. I'll bet the bosom is a corker--fine skin and
nice ladylike size. You can have the place."
"What does it pay?" she asked.
"Ten dollars, to start with. Splendid wages. __I__ started on
two fifty. But I forgot--you don't know the business?"
"No--nothing about it," was her innocent, honest answer.
"Ah--well, then--nine dollars--eh?"
Susan hesitated.
"You can make quite a neat little bunch on the outside--_you_
can. We cater only to the best trade, and the buyers who come
to us are big easy spenders. But I'm supposed to know nothing
about that. You'll find out from the other girls." He
chuckled. "Oh, it's a nice soft life except for a few weeks
along at this part of the year--and again in winter. Well--ten
dollars, then."
Susan accepted. It was more than she had expected to get; it
was less than she could hope to live on in New York in
anything approaching the manner a person of any refinement or
tastes or customs of comfort regards as merely decent. She
must descend again to the tenements, must resume the fight
against that physical degradation which sooner or later
imposes--upon those _descending_ to it--a degradation of mind
and heart deeper, more saturating, more putrefying than any
that ever originated from within. Not so long as her figure
lasted was she the worse off for not knowing a trade. Jeffries
was telling the truth; she would be getting splendid wages,
not merely for a beginner but for any woman of the working
class. Except in rare occasional instances wages and salaries
for women were kept down below the standard of decency by
woman's peculiar position--by such conditions as that most
women took up work as a temporary makeshift or to piece out a
family's earnings, and that almost any woman could
supplement--and so many did supplement--their earnings at
labor with as large or larger earnings in the stealthy
shameful way. Where was there a trade that would bring a girl
ten dollars a week at the start? Even if she were a
semi-professional, a stenographer and typewriter, it would
take expertness and long service to lift her up to such wages.
Thanks to her figure--to its chancing to please old Jeffries'
taste--she was better off than all but a few working women,
than all but a few workingmen. She was of the labor aristocracy;
and if she had been one of a family of workers she would
have been counted an enviable favorite of fortune. Unfortunately,
she was alone unfortunately for herself, not at all from the
standpoint of the tenement class she was now joining. Among them
she would be a person who could afford the luxuries of life as
life reveals itself to the tenements.
"Tomorrow morning at seven o'clock," said Jeffries. "You have
lost your husband?"
"Yes."
"I saw you'd had great grief. No insurance, I judge? Well--you
will find another--maybe a rich one. No--you'll not have to
sleep alone long, my dear." And he patted her on the shoulder,
gave her a parting fumble of shoulders and arms.
She was able to muster a grateful smile; for she felt a rare
kindness of heart under the familiar animalism to which
good-looking, well-formed women who go about much unescorted
soon grow accustomed. Also, experience had taught her that, as
things go with girls of the working class, his treatment was
courteous, considerate, chivalrous almost. With men in
absolute control of all kinds of work, with women stimulating
the sex appetite by openly or covertly using their charms as
female to assist them in the cruel struggle for
existence--what was to be expected?
Her way to the elevator took her along aisles lined with
tables, hidden under masses of cloaks, jackets, dresses and
materials for making them. They exuded the odors of the
factory--faint yet pungent odors that brought up before her
visions of huge, badly ventilated rooms, where women aged or
ageing swiftly were toiling hour after hour
monotonously--spending half of each day in buying the right to
eat and sleep unhealthily. The odors--or, rather, the visions
they evoked--made her sick at heart. For the moment she came
from under the spell of her peculiar trait--her power to do
without whimper or vain gesture of revolt the inevitable
thing, whatever it was. She paused to steady herself, half
leaning against a lofty uppiling of winter cloaks. A girl,
young at first glance, not nearly so young thereafter,
suddenly appeared before her--a girl whose hair had the sheen
of burnished brass and whose soft smooth skin was of that
frog-belly whiteness which suggests an inheritance of some
bleaching and blistering disease. She had small regular
features, eyes that at once suggested looseness, good-natured
yet mercenary too. She was dressed in the sleek tight-fitting
trying-on robe of the professional model, and her figure was
superb in its firm luxuriousness.
"Sick?" asked the girl with real kindliness.
"No--only dizzy for the moment."
"I suppose you've had a hard day."
"It might have been easier," Susan replied, attempting a smile.
"It's no fun, looking for a job. But you've caught on?"
"Yes. He took me."
"I made a bet with myself that he would when I saw you go in."
The girl laughed agreeably. "He picked you for Gideon."
"What department is that?"
The girl laughed again, with a cynical squinting of the eyes.
"Oh, Gideon's our biggest customer. He buys for the largest
house in Chicago."
"I'm looking for a place to live," said Susan. "Some place in
this part of town."
"How much do you want to spend?"
"I'm to have ten a week. So I can't afford more than twelve or
fourteen a month for rent, can I?"
"If you happen to have to live on the ten," was the reply with
a sly, merry smile.
"It's all I've got."
Again the girl laughed, the good-humored mercenary eyes twinkling
rakishly. "Well--you can't get much for fourteen a month."
"I don't care, so long as it's clean."
"Gee, you're reasonable, ain't you?" cried the girl. "Clean!
I pay fourteen a week, and all kinds of things come through
the cracks from the other apartments. You must be a stranger
to little old New York--bugtown, a lady friend of mine calls
it. Alone?"
"Yes."
"Um--" The girl shook her head dubiously. "Rents are mighty
steep in New York, and going up all the time. You see, the
rich people that own the lands and houses here need a lot of
money in their business. You've got either to take a room or
part of one in with some tenement family, respectable but
noisy and dirty and not at all refined, or else you've got to
live in a house where everything goes. You want to live
respectable, I judge?"
"Yes."
"That's the way with me. Do what you please, __I__ say, but for
_God's sake_, don't make yourself _common!_ You'll want to be
free to have your gentlemen friends come--and at the same time
a room you'll not be ashamed for 'em to see on account of dirt
and smells and common people around."
"I shan't want to see anyone in my room."
The young woman winced, then went on with hasty enthusiasm.
"I knew you were refined the minute I looked at you. I think
you might get a room in the house of a lady friend of mine--
Mrs. Tucker, up in Clinton Place near University Place--an
elegant neighborhood--that is, the north side of the street.
The south side's kind o' low, on account of dagoes having
moved in there. They live like vermin--but then all tenement
people do."
"They've got to," said Susan.
"Yes, that's a fact. Ain't it awful? I'll write down the name
and address of my lady friend. I'm Miss Mary Hinkle."
"My name is Lorna Sackville," said Susan, in response to the
expectant look of Miss Hinkle.
"My, what a swell name! You've been sick, haven't you?"
"No, I'm never sick."
"Me too. My mother taught me to stop eating as soon as I felt
bad, and not to eat again till I was all right."
"I do that, too," said Susan. "Is it good for the health?"
"It starves the doctors. You've never worked before?"
"Oh, yes--I've worked in a factory."
Miss Hinkle looked disappointed. Then she gave Susan a side
glance of incredulity. "I'd never, a' thought it. But I can
see you weren't brought up to that. I'll write the address."
And she went back through the showroom, presently to reappear
with a card which she gave Susan. "You'll find Mrs. Tucker a
perfect lady--too much a lady to get on. I tell her she'll go
to ruin--and she will."
Susan thanked Miss Hinkle and departed. A few minutes' walk
brought her to the old, high-stooped, brown-stone where Mrs.
Tucker lived. The dents, scratches and old paint scales on the
door, the dust-streaked windows, the slovenly hang of the
imitation lace window curtains proclaimed the cheap
middle-class lodging or boarding house of the humblest grade.
Respectable undoubtedly; for the fitfully prosperous
offenders against laws and morals insist upon better
accommodations. Susan's heart sank. She saw that once more she
was clinging at the edge of the precipice. And what hope was
there that she would get back to firm ground? Certainly not by
"honest labor." Back to the tenement! "Yes, I'm on the way
back," she said to herself. However, she pulled the loose
bell-knob and was admitted to a dingy, dusty hallway by a maid
so redolent of stale perspiration that it was noticeable even
in the hall's strong saturation of smells of cheap cookery.
The parlor furniture was rapidly going to pieces; the chromos
and prints hung crazily awry; dust lay thick upon the center
table, upon the chimney-piece, upon the picture frames, upon
the carving in the rickety old chairs. Only by standing did
Susan avoid service as a dust rag. It was typical of the
profound discouragement that blights or blasts all but a small
area of our modern civilization--a discouragement due in part
to ignorance--but not at all to the cause usually assigned--to
"natural shiftlessness." It is chiefly due to an unconscious
instinctive feeling of the hopelessness of the average lot.
While Susan explained to Mrs. Tucker how she had come and what
she could afford, she examined her with results far from
disagreeable. One glance into that homely wrinkled face was
enough to convince anyone of her goodness of heart--and to
Susan in those days of aloneness, of uncertainty, of the
feeling of hopelessness, goodness of heart seemed the supreme
charm. Such a woman as a landlady, and a landlady in New York,
was pathetically absurd. Even to still rather simple-minded
Susan she seemed an invitation to the swindler, to the sponger
with the hard-luck story, to the sinking who clutch about
desperately and drag down with them everyone who permits them
to get a hold.
"I've only got one room," said Mrs. Tucker. "That's not any
too nice. I did rather calculate to get five a week for it,
but you are the kind I like to have in the house. So if you
want it I'll let it to you for fourteen a month. And I do hope
you'll pay as steady as you can. There's so many in such hard
lines that I have a tough time with my rent. I've got to pay
my rent, you know."
"I'll go as soon as I can't pay," replied Susan. The
landlady's apologetic tone made her sick at heart, as a
sensitive human being must ever feel in the presence of a
fellow-being doomed to disaster.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Tucker gratefully. "I do wish----" She
checked herself. "No, I don't mean that. They do the best they
can--and I'll botch along somehow. I look at the bright side
of things."
The incurable optimism of the smile accompanying these words
moved Susan, abnormally bruised and tender of heart that
morning, almost to tears. A woman with her own way to make,
and always looking at the bright side!
"How long have you had this house?"
"Only five months. My husband died a year ago. I had to give
up our little business six months after his death. Such a nice
little stationery store, but I couldn't seem to refuse credit
or to collect bills. Then I came here. This looks like losing,
too. But I'm sure I'll come out all right. The Lord will
provide, as the Good Book says. I don't have no trouble
keeping the house full. Only they don't seem to pay. You want
to see your room?"
She and Susan ascended three flights to the top story--to a
closet of a room at the back. The walls were newly and
brightly papered. The sloping roof of the house made one wall
a ceiling also, and in this two small windows were set. The
furniture was a tiny bed, white and clean as to its linen, a
table, two chairs, a small washstand with a little bowl and a
less pitcher, a soap dish and a mug. Along one wall ran a row
of hooks. On the floor was an old and incredibly dirty carpet,
mitigated by a strip of clean matting which ran from the door,
between washstand and bed, to one of the windows.
Susan glanced round--a glance was enough to enable her to see
all--all that was there, all that the things there implied.
Back to the tenement life! She shuddered.
"It ain't much," said Mrs. Tucker. "But usually rooms like
these rents for five a week."
The sun had heated the roof scorching hot; the air of this
room, immediately underneath, was like that of a cellar where
a furnace is in full blast. But Susan knew she was indeed in
luck. "It's clean and nice here," said she to Mrs. Tucker,
"and I'm much obliged to you for being so reasonable with me."
And to clinch the bargain she then and there paid half a
month's rent. "I'll give you the rest when my week at the
store's up."
"No hurry," said Mrs. Tucker who was handling the money and
looking at it with glistening grateful eyes. "Us poor folks
oughtn't to be hard on each other--though, Lord knows, if we
was, I reckon we'd not be quite so poor. It's them that has
the streak of hard in 'em what gets on. But the Bible teaches
us that's what to expect in a world of sin. I suppose you want
to go now and have your trunk sent?"
"This is all I've got," said Susan, indicating her bag on the table.
Into Mrs. Tucker's face came a look of terror that made Susan
realize in an instant how hard-pressed she must be. It was the
kind of look that comes into the eyes of the deer brought down
by the dogs when it sees the hunter coming up.
"But I've a good place," Susan hastened to say. "I get ten a week.
And as I told you before, when I can't pay I'll go right away."
"I've lost so much in bad debts," explained the landlady
humbly. "I don't seem to see which way to turn." Then she
brightened. "It'll all come out for the best. I work hard
and I try to do right by everybody."
"I'm sure it will," said Susan believingly.
Often her confidence in the moral ideals trained into her from
childhood had been sorely tried. But never had she permitted
herself more than a hasty, ashamed doubt that the only way to
get on was to work and to practice the Golden Rule. Everyone
who was prosperous attributed his prosperity to the steadfast
following of that way; as for those who were not prosperous,
they were either lazy or bad-hearted, or would have been even
worse off had they been less faithful to the creed that was
best policy as well as best for peace of mind and heart.
In trying to be as inexpensive to Spenser as she could
contrive, and also because of her passion for improving
herself, Susan had explored far into the almost unknown art of
living, on its shamefully neglected material side. She had
cultivated the habit of spending much time about her purchases
of every kind--had spent time intelligently in saving money
intelligently. She had gone from shop to shop, comparing
values and prices. She had studied quality in food and in
clothing, and thus she had discovered what enormous sums are
wasted through ignorance--wasted by poor even more lavishly
than by rich or well-to-do, because the shops where the poor
dealt had absolutely no check on their rapacity through the
occasional canny customer. She had learned the fundamental
truth of the material art of living; only when a good thing
happens to be cheap is a cheap thing good. Spenser,
cross-examining her as to how she passed the days, found out
about this education she was acquiring. It amused him. "A
waste of time!" he used to say. "Pay what they ask, and don't
bother your head with such petty matters." He might have
suspected and accused her of being stingy had not her
generosity been about the most obvious and incessant trait of
her character.
She was now reduced to an income below what life can be
decently maintained upon--the life of a city-dweller with
normal tastes for cleanliness and healthfulness. She proceeded
without delay to put her invaluable education into use. She
must fill her mind with the present and with the future. She
must not glance back. She must ignore her wounds--their aches,
their clamorous throbs. She took off her clothes, as soon as
Mrs. Tucker left her alone, brushed them and hung them up, put
on the thin wrapper she had brought in her bag. The fierce
heat of the little packing-case of a room became less
unendurable; also, she was saving the clothes from useless
wear. She sat down at the table and with pencil and paper
planned her budget.
Of the ten dollars a week, three dollars and thirty cents must
be subtracted for rent--for shelter. This left six dollars and
seventy cents for the other two necessaries, food and
clothing--there must be no incidental expenses since there was
no money to meet them. She could not afford to provide for
carfare on stormy days; a rain coat, overshoes and umbrella,
more expensive at the outset, were incomparably cheaper in the
long run. Her washing and ironing she would of course do for
herself in the evenings and on Sundays. Of the two items which
the six dollars and seventy cents must cover, food came first
in importance. How little could she live on?
That stifling hot room! She was as wet as if she had come undried
from a bath. She had thought she could never feel anything but
love for the sun of her City of the Sun. But this undreamed-of
heat--like the cruel caresses of a too impetuous lover--
How little could she live on?"
Dividing her total of six dollars and seventy cents by seven,
she found that she had ninety-five cents a day. She would soon
have to buy clothes, however scrupulous care she might take of
those she possessed. It was modest indeed to estimate fifteen
dollars for clothes before October. That meant she must save
fifteen dollars in the remaining three weeks of June, in July,
August and September--in one hundred and ten days. She must
save about fifteen cents a day. And out of that she must buy
soap and tooth powder, outer and under clothes, perhaps a hat
and a pair of shoes. Thus she could spend for food not more
than eighty cents a day, as much less as was consistent with
buying the best quality--for she had learned by bitter
experience the ravages poor quality food makes in health and
looks, had learned why girls of the working class go to pieces
swiftly after eighteen. She must fight to keep health--sick
she did not dare be. She must fight to keep looks--her figure
was her income.
Eighty cents a day. The outlook was not so gloomy. A cup of
cocoa in the morning--made at home of the best cocoa, the kind
that did not overheat the blood and disorder the skin--it
would cost her less than ten cents. She would carry lunch with
her to the store. In the evening she would cook a chop or
something of that kind on the gas stove she would buy. Some
days she would be able to save twenty or even twenty-five
cents toward clothing and the like. Whatever else happened,
she was resolved never again to sink to dirt and rags. Never
again!--never! She had passed through that experience once
without loss of self-respect only because it was by way of
education. To go through it again would be yielding ground in
the fight--the fight for a destiny worth while which some latent
but mighty instinct within her never permitted her to forget.
She sat at the table, with the shutters closed against the
fiery light of the summer afternoon sun. That hideous
unacceptable heat! With eyelids drooped--deep and dark were the
circles round them--she listened to the roar of the city, a
savage sound like the clamor of a multitude of famished wild
beasts. A city like the City of Destruction in "Pilgrim's
Progress"--a city where of all the millions, but a few
thousands were moving toward or keeping in the sunlight of
civilization. The rest, the swarms of the cheap boarding
houses, cheap lodging houses, tenements--these myriads were
squirming in darkness and squalor, ignorant and never to be
less ignorant, ill fed and never to be better fed, clothed in
pitiful absurd rags or shoddy vulgar attempts at finery, and
never to be better clothed. She would not be of those! She
would struggle on, would sink only to mount. She would work;
she would try to do as nearly right as she could. And in the
end she must triumph. She would get at least a good part of
what her soul craved, of what her mind craved, of what her
heart craved.
The heat of this tenement room! The heat to which poverty was
exposed naked and bound! Would not anyone be justified in
doing anything--yes, _anything_--to escape from this fiend?
II
ELLEN, the maid, slept across the hall from Susan, in a closet
so dirty that no one could have risked in it any article of
clothing with the least pretension to cleanness. It was no
better, no worse than the lodgings of more than two hundred
thousand New Yorkers. Its one narrow opening, beside the door,
gave upon a shaft whose odors were so foul that she kept the
window closed, preferring heat like the inside of a steaming
pan to the only available "outside air." This in a civilized
city where hundreds of dogs with jeweled collars slept in
luxurious rooms on downiest beds and had servants to wait upon
them! The morning after Susan's coming, Ellen woke her, as
they had arranged, at a quarter before five. The night before,
Susan had brought up from the basement a large bucket of water;
for she had made up her mind, to take a bath every day, at
least until the cold weather set in and rendered such a luxury
impossible. With this water and what she had in her little
pitcher, Susan contrived to freshen herself up. She had bought
a gas stove and some indispensable utensils for three dollars
and seventeen cents in a Fourteenth Street store, a pound of
cocoa for seventy cents and ten cents' worth of rolls--three
rolls, well baked, of first quality flour and with about as
good butter and other things put into the dough as one can
expect in bread not made at home. These purchases had reduced
her cash to forty-three cents--and she ought to buy without
delay a clock with an alarm attachment. And pay
day--Saturday--was two days away.
She made a cup of cocoa, drank it slowly, eating one of the
rolls--all in the same methodical way like a machine that
continues to revolve after the power has been shut off. It was
then, even more than during her first evening alone, even more
than when she from time to time startled out of troubled
sleep--it was then, as she forced down her lonely breakfast,
that she most missed Rod. When she had finished, she completed
her toilet. The final glance at herself in the little mirror
was depressing. She looked fresh for her new surroundings and
for her new class. But in comparison with what she usually
looked, already there was a distinct, an ominous falling off.
"I'm glad Rod never saw me looking like this," she said aloud
drearily. Taking a roll for lunch, she issued forth at
half-past six. The hour and three-quarters she had allowed for
dressing and breakfasting had been none too much. In the
coolness and comparative quiet she went down University Place
and across Washington Square under the old trees, all alive
with song and breeze and flashes of early morning light. She
was soon in Broadway's deep canyon, was drifting absently along
in the stream of cross, mussy-looking workers pushing
southward. Her heart ached, her brain throbbed. It was
horrible, this loneliness; and every one of the wounds where
she had severed the ties with Spenser was bleeding. She was
astonished to find herself before the building whose upper
floors were occupied by Jeffries and Jonas. How had she got
there? Where had she crossed Broadway?
"Good morning, Miss Sackville." It was Miss Hinkle, just
arriving. Her eyes were heavy, and there were the crisscross
lines under them that tell a story to the expert in the
different effects of different kinds of dissipation. Miss
Hinkle was showing her age--and she was "no spring chicken."
Susan returned her greeting, gazing at her with the dazed eyes
and puzzled smile of an awakening sleeper.
"I'll show you the ropes," said Miss Hinkle, as they climbed
the two flights of stairs. "You'll find the job dead easy.
They're mighty nice people to work for, Mr. Jeffries
especially. Not easy fruit, of course, but nice for people
that have got on. You didn't sleep well?"
"Yes--I think so."
"I didn't have a chance to drop round last night. I was out
with one of the buyers. How do you like Mrs. Tucker?"
"She's very good, isn't she?"
"She'll never get along. She works hard, too--but not for
herself. In this world you have to look out for Number One.
I had a swell dinner last night. Lobster--I love lobster--and
elegant champagne--up to Murray's--such a refined place--all
fountains and mirrors--really quite artistic. And my gentleman
friend was so nice and respectful. You know, we have to go out
with the buyers when they ask us. It helps the house sell
goods. And we have to be careful not to offend them."
Miss Hinkle's tone in the last remark was so significant that
Susan looked at her--and, looking, understood.
"Sometimes," pursued Miss Hinkle, eyes carefully averted,
"sometimes a new girl goes out with an important customer and
he gets fresh and she kicks and complains to Mr. Jeffries--or
Mr. Jonas--or Mr. Ratney, the head man. They always sympathize
with her--but--well, I've noticed that somehow she soon loses
her job."
"What do you do when--when a customer annoys you?"
"I!" Miss Hinkle laughed with some embarrassment. "Oh, I do
the best I can." A swift glance of the cynical, laughing,
"fast" eyes at Susan and away. "The best I can--for the
house--and for myself. . . . I talk to you because I know
you're a lady and because I don't want to see you thrown down.
A woman that's living quietly at home--like a lady--she can be
squeamish. But out in the world a woman can't afford to
be--no, nor a man, neither. You don't find this set down in the
books, and they don't preach it in the churches--leastways they
didn't when I used to go to church. But it's true, all the same."
They were a few minutes early; so Miss Hinkle continued the
conversation while they waited for the opening of the room
where Susan would be outfitted for her work. "I called you
Miss Sackville," said she, "but you've been married--haven't you?"
"Yes."
"I can always tell--or at least I can see whether a woman's had
experience or not. Well, I've never been regularly married,
and I don't expect to, unless something pretty good offers.
Think I'd marry one of these rotten little clerks?" Miss Hinkle
answered her own question with a scornful sniff. "They can
hardly make a living for themselves. And a man who amounts to
anything, he wants a refined lady to help him on up, not a
working girl. Of course, there're exceptions. But as a rule
a girl in our position either has to stay single or marry
beneath her--marry some mechanic or such like. Well, I ain't
so lazy, or so crazy about being supported, that I'd sink to be
cook and slop-carrier--and worse--for a carpenter or a
bricklayer. Going out with the buyers--the gentlemanly
ones--has spoiled my taste. I can't stand a coarse man--coarse
dress and hands and manners. Can you?"
Susan turned hastily away, so that her face was hidden from
Miss Hinkle.
"I'll bet you wasn't married to a coarse man."
"I'd rather not talk about myself," said Susan with an effort.
"It's not pleasant."
Her manner of checking Miss Hinkle's friendly curiosity did not
give offense; it excited the experienced working woman's
sympathy. She went on:
"Well, I feel sorry for any woman that has to work. Of course
most women do--and at worse than anything in the stores and
factories. As between being a drudge to some dirty common
laborer like most women are, and working in a factory even,
give me the factory. Yes, give me a job as a pot slinger even,
low as that is. Oh, I _hate_ working people! I love
refinement. Up to Murray's last night I sat there, eating my
lobster and drinking my wine, and I pretended I was a
lady--and, my, how happy I was!"
The stockroom now opened. Susan, with the help of Miss Hinkle
and the stock keeper, dressed in one of the tight-fitting satin
slips that revealed every curve and line of her form, made
every motion however slight, every breath she drew, a gesture
of sensuousness. As she looked at herself in a long glass in
one of the show-parlors, her face did not reflect the
admiration frankly displayed upon the faces of the two other
women. That satin slip seemed to have a moral quality, an
immoral character. It made her feel naked--no, as if she were
naked and being peeped at through a crack or keyhole.
"You'll soon get used to it," Miss Hinkle assured her. "And
you'll learn to show off the dresses and cloaks to the best
advantage." She laughed her insinuating little laugh again,
amused, cynical, reckless. "You know, the buyers are men.
Gee, what awful jay things we work off on them, sometimes!
They can't see the dress for the figure. And you've got such
a refined figure, Miss Sackville--the kind I'd be crazy about
if I was a man. But I must say----" here she eyed herself in
the glass complacently--"most men prefer a figure like mine.
Don't they, Miss Simmons?"
The stock keeper shook her fat shoulders in a gesture of
indifferent disdain. "They take whatever's handiest--that's
_my_ experience."
About half-past nine the first customer appeared--Mr. Gideon,
it happened to be. He was making the rounds of the big
wholesale houses in search of stock for the huge Chicago
department store that paid him fifteen thousand a year and
expenses. He had been contemptuous of the offerings of
Jeffries and Jonas for the winter season, had praised with
enthusiasm the models of their principal rival, Icklemeier,
Schwartz and Company. They were undecided whether he was
really thinking of deserting them or was feeling for lower
prices. Mr. Jeffries bustled into the room where Susan stood
waiting; his flat face quivered with excitement. "Gid's come!"
he said in a hoarse whisper. "Everybody get busy. We'll try
Miss Sackville on him."
And he himself assisted while they tricked out Susan in an
afternoon costume of pale gray, putting on her head a big pale
gray hat with harmonizing feathers. The model was offered in
all colors and also in a modified form that permitted its use
for either afternoon or evening. Susan had received her
instructions, so when she was dressed, she was ready to sweep
into Gideon's presence with languid majesty. Jeffries' eyes
glistened as he noted her walk. "She looks as if she really
was a lady!" exclaimed he. "I wish I could make my daughters
move around on their trotters like that."
Gideon was enthroned in an easy chair, smoking a cigar. He was
a spare man of perhaps forty-five, with no intention of
abandoning the pretensions to youth for many a year. In dress
he was as spick and span as a tailor at the trade's annual
convention. But he had evidently been "going some" for several
days; the sour, worn, haggard face rising above his elegantly
fitting collar suggested a moth-eaten jaguar that has been for
weeks on short rations or none.
"What's the matter?" he snapped, as the door began to open.
"I don't like to he kept waiting."
In swept Susan; and Jeffries, rubbing his thick hands, said
fawningly, "But I think, Mr. Gideon, you'll say it was worth
waiting for."
Gideon's angry, arrogant eyes softened at first glimpse of
Susan. "Um!" he grunted, some such sound as the jaguar
aforesaid would make when the first chunk of food hurtled
through the bars and landed on his paws. He sat with cigar
poised between his long white fingers while Susan walked up and
down before him, displaying the dress at all angles, Jeffries
expatiating upon it the while.
"Don't talk so damn much, Jeff!" he commanded with the
insolence of a customer containing possibilities of large
profit. "I judge for myself. I'm not a damn fool."
"I should say not," cried Jeffries, laughing the merchant's
laugh for a customer's pleasantry. "But I can't help talking
about it, Gid, it's so lovely!"
Jeffries' shrewd eyes leaped for joy when Gideon got up from
his chair and, under pretense of examining the garment,
investigated Susan's figure. As his gentle, insinuating hands
traveled over her, his eyes sought hers. "Excuse me," said
Jeffries. "I'll see that they get the other things ready."
And out he went, winking at Mary Hinkle to follow him--an
unnecessary gesture as she was already on her way to the door.
Gideon understood as well as did they why they left. "I don't
think I've seen you before, my dear," said he to Susan.
"I came only this morning," replied she.
"I like to know everybody I deal with. We must get better
acquainted. You've got the best figure in the business--the
very best."
"Thank you," said Susan with a grave, distant smile.
"Got a date for dinner tonight?" inquired he; and, assuming
that everything would yield precedence to him, he did not wait
for a reply, but went on, "Tell me your address. I'll send a
cab for you at seven o'clock."
"Thank you," said Susan, "but I can't go."
Gideon smiled. "Oh, don't be shy. Of course you'll go. Ask
Jeffries. He'll tell you it's all right."
"There are reasons why I'd rather not be seen in the restaurants."
"That's even better. I'll come in the cab myself and we'll go
to a quiet place."
His eyes smiled insinuatingly at her. Now that she looked at
him more carefully he was unusually attractive for a man of his
type--had strength and intelligence in his features, had a
suggestion of mastery, of one used to obedience, in his voice.
His teeth were even and sound, his lips firm yet not too thin.
"Come," said he persuasively. "I'll not eat you up--" with a
gay and gracious smile--"at least I'll try not to."
Susan remembered what Miss Hinkle had told her. She saw that
she must either accept the invitation or give up her position.
She said:
"Very well," and gave him her address.
Back came Jeffries and Miss Hinkle carrying the first of the
wraps. Gideon waved them away. "You've shown 'em to me
before," said he. "I don't want to see 'em again. Give me
the evening gowns."
Susan withdrew, soon to appear in a dress that left her arms
and neck bare. Gideon could not get enough of this. Jeffries
kept her walking up and down until she was ready to drop with
weariness of the monotony, of the distasteful play of Gideon's
fiery glance upon her arms and shoulders and throat. Gideon
tried to draw her into conversation, but she would--indeed
could--go no further than direct answers to his direct
questions. "Never mind," said he to her in an undertone.
"I'll cheer you up this evening. I think I know how to order
a dinner."
Her instant conquest of the difficult and valuable Gideon so
elated Jeffries that he piled the work on her. He used her
with every important buyer who came that day. The temperature
was up in the high nineties, the hot moist air stood stagnant
as a barnyard pool; the winter models were cruelly hot and
heavy. All day long, with a pause of half an hour to eat her
roll and drink a glass of water, Susan walked up and down the
show parlors weighted with dresses and cloaks, furs for arctic
weather. The other girls, even those doing almost nothing,
were all but prostrated. It was little short of intolerable,
this struggle to gain the "honest, self-respecting living by
honest work" that there was so much talk about. Toward five
o'clock her nerves abruptly and completely gave way, and she
fainted--for the first time in her life. At once the whole
establishment was in an uproar. Jeffries cursed himself loudly
for his shortsightedness, for his overestimating her young
strength. "She'll look like hell this evening," he wailed,
wringing his hands like a distracted peasant woman. "Maybe she
won't be able to go out at all."
She soon came round. They brought her whiskey, and afterward
tea and sandwiches. And with the power of quick recuperation
that is the most fascinating miracle of healthy youth, she not
only showed no sign of her breakdown but looked much better.
And she felt better. We shall some day understand why it is
that if a severe physical blow follows upon a mental blow,
recovery from the physical blow is always accompanied by a
relief of the mental strain. Susan came out of her fit of
faintness and exhaustion with a different point of view--as if
time had been long at work softening her, grief. Spenser
seemed part of the present no longer, but of the past--a past
far more remote than yesterday.
Mary Hinkle sat with her as she drank the tea. "Did you make
a date with Gid?" inquired she. Her tone let Susan know that
the question had been prompted by Jeffries.
"He asked me to dine with him, and I said I would."
"Have you got a nice dress--dinner dress, I mean?"
"The linen one I'm wearing is all. My other dress is for
cooler weather."
"Then I'll give you one out of stock--I mean I'll borrow one
for you. This dinner's a house affair, you know--to get Gid's
order. It'll be worth thousands to them."
"There wouldn't be anything to fit me on such short notice,"
said Susan, casting about for an excuse for not wearing
borrowed finery.
"Why, you've got a model figure. I'll pick you out a white
dress--and a black and white hat. I know 'em all, and I know
one that'll make you look simply lovely."
Susan did not protest. She was profoundly indifferent to what
happened to her. Life seemed a show in which she had no part,
and at which she sat a listless spectator. A few minutes, and in
puffed Jeffries, solicitous as a fussy old bird with a new family.
"You're a lot better, ain't you?" cried he, before he had
looked at her. "Oh, yes, you'll be all right. And you'll have
a lovely time with Mr. Gideon. He's a perfect gentleman--knows
how to treat a lady. . . . The minute I laid eyes on you I
said to myself, said I, `Jeffries, she's a mascot.' And you
are, my dear. You'll get us the order. But you mustn't talk
business with him, you understand?"
"Yes," said Susan, wearily.
"He's a gentleman, you know, and it don't do to mix business
and social pleasures. You string him along quiet and ladylike
and elegant, as if there wasn't any such things as cloaks or
dresses in the world. He'll understand all right. . . . If
you land the order, my dear, I'll see that you get a nice
present. A nice dress--the one we're going to lend you--if he
gives us a slice. The dress and twenty-five in cash, if he
gives us all. How's that?"
"Thank you," said Susan. "I'll do my best."
"You'll land it. You'll land it. I feel as if we had it with
his O. K. on it."
Susan shivered. "Don't--don't count on me too much," she said
hesitatingly. "I'm not in very good spirits, I'm sorry to say."
"A little pressed for money?" Jeffries hesitated, made an
effort, blurted out what was for him, the business man, a giddy
generosity. "On your way out, stop at the cashier's. He'll
give you this week's pay in advance." Jeffries hesitated,
decided against dangerous liberality. "Not ten, you
understand, but say six. You see, you won't have been with us
a full week." And he hurried away, frightened by his prodigality,
by these hysterical impulses that were rushing him far from the
course of sound business sense. "As Jones says, I'm a generous
old fool," he muttered. "My soft heart'll ruin me yet."
Jeffries sent Mary Hinkle home with Susan to carry the dress
and hat, to help her make a toilet and to "start her off
right." In the hour before they left the store there was
offered a typical illustration of why and how "business" is
able to suspend the normal moral sense and to substitute for it
a highly ingenious counterfeit of supreme moral obligation to
it. The hysterical Jeffries had infected the entire personnel
with his excitement, with the sense that a great battle was
impending and that the cause of the house, which was the cause
of everyone who drew pay from it, had been intrusted to the
young recruit with the fascinating figure and the sweet, sad
face. And Susan's sensitive nature was soon vibrating in
response to this feeling. It terrified her that she, the
inexperienced, had such grave responsibility. It made her
heart heavy to think of probable failure, when the house had
been so good to her, had taken her in, had given her unusual
wages, had made it possible for her to get a start in life, had
intrusted to her its cause, its chance to retrieve a bad season
and to protect its employees instead of discharging a lot of them.
"Have you got long white gloves?" asked Mary Hinkle, as they
walked up Broadway, she carrying the dress and Susan the hat box.
"Only a few pairs of short ones."
"You must have long white gloves--and a pair of white stockings."
"I can't afford them."
"Oh, Jeffries told me to ask you--and to go to work and buy
them if you hadn't."
They stopped at Wanamaker's. Susan was about to pay, when Mary
stopped her. "If you pay," said she, "maybe you'll get your
money back from the house, and maybe you won't. If I pay,
they'll not make a kick on giving it back to me."
The dress Mary had selected was a simple white batiste, cut out
at the neck prettily, and with the elbow sleeves that were then
the fashion. "Your arms and throat are lovely," said Mary.
"And your hands are mighty nice, too--that's why I'm sure
you've never been a real working girl--leastways, not for a
long time. When you get to the restaurant and draw off your
gloves in a slow, careless, ladylike kind of way, and put your
elbows on the table--my, how he will take on!" Mary looked at
her with an intense but not at all malignant envy. "If you don't
land high, it'll be because you're a fool. And you ain't that."
"I'm afraid I am," replied Susan. "Yes, I guess I'm what's
called a fool--what probably is a fool."
"You want to look out then," warned Miss Hinkle. "You want to
go to work and get over that. Beauty don't count, unless a
girl's got shrewdness. The streets are full of beauties
sellin' out for a bare living. They thought they couldn't help
winning, and they got left, and the plain girls who had to
hustle and manage have passed them. Go to Del's or Rector's or
the Waldorf or the Madrid or any of those high-toned places,
and see the women with the swell clothes and jewelry! The
married ones, and the other kind, both. Are they raving
tearing beauties? Not often. . . . The trouble with me is
I've been too good-hearted and too soft about being flattered.
I was too good looking, and a small easy living came too easy.
You--I'd say you were--that you had brains but were shy about
using them. What's the good of having them? Might as well be
a boob. Then, too, you've got to go to work and look out about
being too refined. The refined, nice ones goes the lowest--if
they get pushed--and this is a pushing world. You'll get
pushed just as far as you'll let 'em. Take it from me. I've
been down the line."
Susan's low spirits sank lower. These disagreeable truths--for
observation and experience made her fear they were
truths--filled her with despondency. What was the matter with
life? As between the morality she had been taught and the
practical morality of this world upon which she had been
cast, which was the right? How "take hold"? How avert the
impending disaster? What of the "good" should--_must_--she
throw away? What should--_must_--she cling to?
Mary Hinkle was shocked by the poor little room. "This is no
place for a lady!" cried she. "But it won't last long--not
after tonight, if you play your cards halfway right."
"I'm very well satisfied," said Susan. "If I can only keep this!"
She felt no interest in the toilet until the dress and hat were
unpacked and laid out upon the bed. At sight of them her eyes
became a keen and lively gray--never violet for that kind of
emotion--and there surged up the love of finery that dwells in
every normal woman--and in every normal man--that is put there
by a heredity dating back through the ages to the very
beginning of conscious life--and does not leave them until life
gives up the battle and prepares to vacate before death.
Ellen, the maid, passing the door, saw and entered to add her
ecstatic exclamations to the excitement. Down she ran to bring
Mrs. Tucker, who no sooner beheld the glory displayed upon the
humble bed than she too was in a turmoil. Susan dressed with
the aid of three maids as interested and eager as ever robed a
queen for coronation. Ellen brought hot water and a larger
bowl. Mrs. Tucker wished to lend a highly scented toilet soap
she used when she put on gala attire; but Susan insisted upon
her own plain soap. They all helped her bathe; they helped her
select the best underclothes from her small store. Susan would
put on her own stockings; but Ellen got one foot into one of
the slippers and Mrs. Tucker looked after the other foot.
"Ain't they lovely?" said Ellen to Mrs. Tucker, as they knelt
together at their task. "I never see such feet. Not a lump on
'em, but like feet in a picture."
"It takes a mighty good leg to look good in a white stocking,"
observed Mary. "But yours is so nice and long and slim that
they'd stand most anything."
Mrs. Tucker and Ellen stood by with no interference save
suggestion and comment, while Mary, who at one time worked for
a hairdresser, did Susan's thick dark hair. Susan would permit
no elaborations, much to Miss Hinkle's regret. But the three
agreed that she was right when the simple sweep of the vital
blue-black hair was finished in a loose and graceful knot at
the back, and Susan's small, healthily pallid face looked its
loveliest, with the violet-gray eyes soft and sweet and
serious. Mrs. Tucker brought the hat from the bed, and Susan
put it on--a large black straw of a most becoming shape with
two pure white plumes curling round the crown and a third, not
so long, rising gracefully from the big buckle where the three
plumes met. And now came the putting on of the dress. With as
much care as if they were handling a rare and fragile vase,
Mary and Mrs. Tucker held the dress for Susan to step into it.
Ellen kept her petticoat in place while the other two escorted
the dress up Susan's form.
Then the three worked together at hooking and smoothing. Susan
washed her hands again, refused to let Mrs. Tucker run and
bring powder, produced from a drawer some prepared chalk and
with it safeguarded her nose against shine; she tucked the
powder rag into her stocking. Last of all the gloves went on and
a small handkerchief was thrust into the palm of the left glove.
"How do I look?" asked Susan. "Lovely"--"Fine"--"Just grand,"
exclaimed the three maids.
"I feel awfully dressed up," said she. "And it's so hot!"
"You must go right downstairs where it's cool and you won't get
wilted," cried Mrs. Tucker. "Hold your skirts close on the
way. The steps and walls ain't none too clean."
In the bathroom downstairs there was a long mirror built into
the wall, a relic of the old house's long departed youth of
grandeur. As the tenant--Mr. Jessop--was out, Mrs. Tucker led
the way into it. There Susan had the first satisfactory look
at herself. She knew she was a pretty woman; she would have
been weak-minded had she not known it. But she was amazed at
herself. A touch here and there, a sinuous shifting of the
body within the garments, and the suggestion of "dressed up"
vanished before the reflected eyes of her agitated assistants,
who did not know what had happened but only saw the results.
She hardly knew the tall beautiful woman of fashion gazing at
her from the mirror. Could it be that this was her
hair?--these eyes hers--and the mouth and nose and the skin?
Was this long slender figure her very own? What an astounding
difference clothes did make! Never before had Susan worn
anything nearly so fine. "This is the way I ought to look all
the time," thought she. "And this is the way I _will_ look!"
Only better--much better. Already her true eye was seeing the
defects, the chances for improvement--how the hat could be
re-bent and re-trimmed to adapt it to her features, how the
dress could be altered to make it more tasteful, more effective
in subtly attracting attention to her figure.
"How much do you suppose the dress cost, Miss Hinkle?" asked
Ellen--the question Mrs. Tucker had been dying to put but had
refrained from putting lest it should sound unrefined.
"It costs ninety wholesale," said Miss Hinkle. "That'd mean a
hundred and twenty-five--a hundred and fifty, maybe if you was
to try to buy it in a department store. And the hat--well,
Lichtenstein'd ask fifty or sixty for it and never turn a hair."
"Gosh--ee?" exclaimed Ellen. "Did you ever hear the like?"
"I'm not surprised," said Mrs. Tucker, who in fact was
flabbergasted. "Well--it's worth the money to them that can
afford to buy it. The good Lord put everything on earth to be
used, I reckon. And Miss Sackville is the build for things
like that. Now it'd be foolish on me, with a stomach and
sitter that won't let no skirt hang fit to look at."
The bell rang. The excitement died from Susan's face, leaving
it pale and cold. A wave of nausea swept through her. Ellen
peeped out, Mrs. Tucker and Miss Hinkle listening with anxious
faces. "It's him!" whispered Ellen," and there's a taxi, too."
It was decided that Ellen should go to the door, that as she
opened it Susan should come carelessly from the back room and
advance along the hall. And this program was carried out with
the result that as Gideon said, "Is Miss Sackville here?" Miss
Sackville appeared before his widening, wondering, admiring
eyes. He was dressed in the extreme of fashion and costliness
in good taste; while it would have been impossible for him to
look distinguished, he did look what he was--a prosperous
business man with prospects. He came perfumed and rustling.
But he felt completely outclassed--until he reminded himself
that for all her brave show of fashionable lady she was only a
model while he was a fifteen-thousand-a-year man on the way to
a partnership.
"Don't you think we might dine on the veranda at Sherry's?"
suggested he. "It'd be cool there."
At sight of him she had nerved herself, had keyed herself up
toward recklessness. She was in for it. She would put it
through. No futile cowardly shrinking and whimpering! Why not
try to get whatever pleasure there was a chance for?
But--Sherry's--was it safe? Yes, almost any of the Fifth
Avenue places--except the Waldorf, possibly--was safe enough.
The circuit of Spenser and his friends lay in the more Bohemian
Broadway district. He had taken her to Sherry's only once, to
see as part of a New York education the Sunday night crowd of
fashionable people. "If you like," said she.
Gideon beamed. He would be able to show off his prize! As
they drove away Susan glanced at the front parlor windows, saw
the curtains agitated, felt the three friendly, excited faces
palpitating. She leaned from the cab window, waved her hand,
smiled. The three faces instantly appeared and immediately hid
again lest Gideon should see.
But Gideon was too busy planning conversation. He knew Miss
Sackville was "as common as the rest of 'em--and an old hand at
the business, no doubt." But he simply could not abruptly
break through the barrier; he must squirm through gradually.
"That's a swell outfit you've got on," he began.
"Yes," replied Susan with her usual candor. "Miss Hinkle
borrowed it out of the stock for me to wear."
Gideon was confused. He knew how she had got the hat and
dress, but he expected her to make a pretense. He couldn't
understand her not doing it. Such candor--any kind of
candor--wasn't in the game of men and women as women had played
it in his experience. The women--all sorts of women--lied and
faked at their business just as men did in the business of
buying and selling goods. And her voice--and her way of
speaking--they made him feel more than ever out of his class.
He must get something to drink as soon as it could be served;
that would put him at his ease. Yes--a drink--that would set
him up again. And a drink for her--that would bring her down
from this queer new kind of high horse. "I guess she must be
a top notcher--the real thing, come down in the world--and not
out of the near silks. But she'll be all right after a drink.
One drink of liquor makes the whole world kin." That last
thought reminded him of his own cleverness and he attacked the
situation afresh. But the conversation as they drove up the
avenue was on the whole constrained and intermittent--chiefly
about the weather. Susan was observing--and feeling--and
enjoying. Up bubbled her young spirits perpetually renewed by
her healthy, vital youth of body. She was seeing her beloved
City of the Sun again. As they turned out of the avenue for
Sherry's main entrance Susan realized that she was in
Forty-fourth Street. The street where she and Spenser had
lived!--had lived only yesterday. No--not yesterday--impossible!
Her eyes closed and she leaned back in the cab.
Gideon was waiting to help her alight. He saw that something
was wrong; it stood out obviously in her ghastly face. He
feared the carriage men round the entrance would "catch on" to
the fact that he was escorting a girl so unused to swell
surroundings that she was ready to faint with fright. "Don't
be foolish," he said sharply. Susan revived herself,
descended, and with head bent low and trembling body entered
the restaurant. In the agitation of getting a table and
settling at it Gideon forgot for the moment her sickly pallor.
He began to order at once, not consulting her--for he prided
himself on his knowledge of cookery and assumed that she knew
nothing about it. "Have a cocktail?" asked he. "Yes, of
course you will. You need it bad and you need it quick."
She said she preferred sherry. She had intended to drink
nothing, but she must have aid in conquering her faintness and
overwhelming depression. Gideon took a dry martini; ordered a
second for himself when the first came, and had them both down
before she finished her sherry. "I've ordered champagne," said
he. "I suppose you like sweet champagne. Most ladies do, but
I can't stand seeing it served even."
"No--I like it very dry," said Susan.
Gideon glinted his eyes gayly at her, showed his white jaguar
teeth. "So you're acquainted with fizz, are you?" He was
feeling his absurd notion of inequality in her favor dissipate
as the fumes of the cocktails rose straight and strong from his
empty stomach to his brain. "Do you know, I've a sort of
feeling that we're going to like each other a lot. I think we
make a handsome couple--eh--what's your first name?"
"Lorna."
"Lorna, then. My name's Ed, but everybody calls me Gid."
As soon as the melon was served, he ordered the champagne
opened. "To our better acquaintance," said he, lifting his
glass toward her.
"Thank you," said she, in a suffocated voice, touching her
glass to her lips.
He was too polite to speak, even in banter, of what he thought
was the real cause of her politeness and silence. But he must
end this state of overwhelmedness at grand surroundings. Said he:
"You're kind o' shy, aren't you, Lorna? Or is that your game?"
"I don't know. You've had a very interesting life, haven't
you? Won't you tell me about it?"
"Oh--just ordinary," replied he, with a proper show of modesty.
And straightway, as Susan had hoped, he launched into a minute
account of himself--the familiar story of the energetic,
aggressive man twisting and kicking his way up from two or
three dollars a week. Susan seemed interested, but her mind
refused to occupy itself with a narrative so commonplace.
After Rod and his friends this boastful business man was dull
and tedious. Whenever he laughed at an account of his superior
craft--how he had bluffed this man, how he had euchered that
one--she smiled. And so in one more case the common masculine
delusion that women listen to them on the subject of
themselves, with interest and admiration as profound as their
own, was not impaired.
"But," he wound up, "I've stayed plain Ed Gideon. I never have
let prosperity swell _my_ head. And anyone that knows me'll
tell you I'm a regular fool for generosity with those that come
at me right. . . . I've always been a favorite with the ladies."
As he was pausing for comment from her, she said, "I can
believe it." The word "generosity" kept echoing in her mind.
Generosity--generosity. How much talk there was about it!
Everyone was forever praising himself for his generosity, was
reciting acts of the most obvious selfishness in proof. Was
there any such thing in the whole world as real generosity?
"They like a generous man," pursued Gid. "I'm tight in
business--I can see a dollar as far as the next man and chase
it as hard and grab it as tight. But when it comes to the
ladies, why, I'm open-handed. If they treat me right, I treat
them right." Then, fearing that he had tactlessly raised a
doubt of his invincibility, he hastily added, "But they always
do treat me right."
While he had been talking on and on, Susan had been appealing
to the champagne to help her quiet her aching heart. She
resolutely set her thoughts to wandering among the couples at
the other tables in that subdued softening light--the
beautifully dressed women listening to their male companions
with close attention--were they too being bored by such trash
by way of talk? Were they too simply listening because it is
the man who pays, because it is the man who must be conciliated
and put in a good humor with himself, if dinners and dresses
and jewels are to be bought? That tenement attic--that hot
moist workroom--poverty--privation--"honest work's" dread
rewards----
"Now, what kind of a man would you say I was?" Gideon was inquiring.
"How do you mean?" replied Susan, with the dexterity at vagueness
that habitually self-veiling people acquire as an instinct.
"Why, as a man. How do I compare with the other men you've
known?" And he "shot" his cuffs with a gesture of careless
elegance that his cuff links might assist in the picture of the
"swell dresser" he felt he was posing.
"Oh--you--you're--very different."
"I _am_ different," swelled Gideon. "You see, it's this
way----" And he was off again into another eulogy of himself;
it carried them through the dinner and two quarts of champagne.
He was much annoyed that she did not take advantage of the
pointed opportunity he gave her to note the total of the bill;
he was even uncertain whether she had noted that he gave the
waiter a dollar. He rustled and snapped it before laying it
upon the tray, but her eyes looked vague.
"Well," said he, after a comfortable pull at an
expensive-looking cigar, "sixteen seventy-five is quite a
lively little peel-off for a dinner for only two. But it was
worth it, don't you think?"
"It was a splendid dinner," said Susan truthfully.
Gideon beamed in intoxicated good humor. "I knew you'd like
it. Nothing pleases me better than to take a nice girl who
isn't as well off as I am out and blow her off to a crackerjack
dinner. Now, you may have thought a dollar was too much to tip
the waiter?"
"A dollar is--a dollar, isn't it?" said Susan.
Gideon laughed. "I used to think so. And most men wouldn't
give that much to a waiter. But I feel sorry for poor devils
who don't happen to be as lucky or as brainy as I am. What do
you say to a turn in the Park? We'll take a hansom, and kind
of jog along. And we'll stop at the Casino and at Gabe's for
a drink."
"I have to get up so early " began Susan.
"Oh, that's all right." He slowly winked at her. "You'll not
have to bump the bumps for being late tomorrow--if you treat
_me_ right."
He carried his liquor easily. Only in his eyes and in his ever
more slippery smile that would slide about his face did he show
that he had been drinking. He helped her into a hansom with a
flourish and, overruling her protests, bade the driver go to
the Casino. Once under way she was glad; her hot skin and her
weary heart were grateful for the air blowing down the avenue
from the Park's expanse of green. When Gideon attempted to put
his arm around her, she moved close into the corner and went on
talking so calmly about calm subjects that he did not insist.
But when he had tossed down a drink of whiskey at the Casino
and they resumed the drive along the moonlit, shady roads, he
tried again.
"Please," said she, "don't spoil a delightful evening."
"Now look here, my dear--haven't I treated you right?"
"Indeed you have, Mr. Gideon."
"Oh, don't be so damned formal. Forget the difference between
our positions. Tomorrow I'm going to place a big order with
your house, if you treat me right. I'm dead stuck on you--and
that's a God's fact. You've taken me clean off my feet. I'm
thinking of doing a lot for you."
Susan was silent.
"What do you say to throwing up your job and coming to Chicago
with me? How much do you get?"
"Ten."
"Why, _you_ can't live on that."
"I've lived on less--much less."
"Do you like it?"
"Naturally not."
"You want to get on--don't you?"
"I must."
"You're down in the heart about something. Love?"
Susan was silent.
"Cut love out. Cut it out, my dear. That ain't the way to get
on. Love's a good consolation prize, if you ain't going to get
anywhere, and know you ain't. And it's a good first prize
after you've arrived and can afford the luxuries of life. But
for a man--or a woman--that's pushing up, it's sheer ruination!
Cut it out!"
"I am cutting it out," said Susan. "But that takes time."
"Not if you've got sense. The way to cut anything out is--cut
it out!--a quick slash--just cut. If you make a dozen little
slashes, each of them hurts as much as the one big slash--and
the dozen hurt twelve times as much--bleed twelve times as
much--put off the cure a lot more than twelve times as long."
He had Susan's attention for the first time.
"Do you know why women don't get on?"
"Tell me," said she. "That's what I want to hear."
"Because they don't play the game under the rules. Now, what
does a man do? Why, he stakes everything he's got--does
whatever's necessary, don't stop at _nothing_ to help him get
there. How is it with women? Some try to be virtuous--when
their bodies are their best assets. God! I wish I'd 'a' had
your looks and your advantages as a woman to help me. I'd be
a millionaire this minute, with a house facing this Park and a
yacht and all the rest of it. A woman that's squeamish about
her virtue can't hope to win--unless she's in a position to
make a good marriage. As for the loose ones, they are as big
fools as the virtuous ones. The virtuous ones lock away their
best asset; the loose ones throw it away. Neither one _use_ it.
Do you follow me?"
"I think so." Susan was listening with a mind made abnormally
acute by the champagne she had freely drunk. The coarse
bluntness and directness of the man did not offend her. It
made what he said the more effective, producing a rude
arresting effect upon her nerves. It made the man himself seem
more of a person. Susan was beginning to have a kind of
respect for him, to change her first opinion that he was merely
a vulgar, pushing commonplace.
"Never thought of that before?"
"Yes--I've thought of it. But----" She paused.
"But--what?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Never mind. Some womanish heart nonsense, I suppose. Do you
see the application of what I've said to you and me?"
"Go on." She was leaning forward, her elbows on the closed
doors of the hansom, her eyes gazing dreamily into the moonlit
dimness of the cool woods through which they were driving.
"You don't want to stick at ten per?"
"No."
"It'll be less in a little while. Models don't last. The
work's too hard."
"I can see that."
"And anyhow it means tenement house."
"Yes. Tenement house."
"Well--what then? What's your plan?"
"I haven't any."
"Haven't a plan--yet want to get on! Is that good sense?
Did ever anybody get anywhere without a plan?"
"I'm willing to work. I'm going to work. I _am_ working."
"Work, of course. Nobody can keep alive without working. You
might as well say you're going to breathe and eat--Work don't
amount to anything, for getting on. It's the kind of
work--working in a certain direction--working with a plan."
"I've got a plan. But I can't begin at it just yet."
"Will it take money?"
"Some."
"Have you got it?"
"No," replied Susan. "I'll have to get it."
"As an honest working girl?" said he with good-humored irony.
Susan laughed. "It does sound ridiculous, doesn't it?" said she.
"Here's another thing that maybe you haven't counted in.
Looking as you do, do you suppose men that run things'll let
you get past without paying toll? Not on your life, my dear.
If you was ugly, you might after several years get twenty or
twenty-five by working hard--unless you lost your figure first.
But the men won't let a good looker rise that way. Do you
follow me?"
"Yes."
"I'm not talking theory. I'm talking life. Take you and me
for example. I can help you--help you a lot. In fact I can
put you on your feet. And I'm willing. If you was a man and
I liked you and wanted to help you, I'd make you help me, too.
I'd make you do a lot of things for me--maybe some of 'em not
so very nice--maybe some of 'em downright dirty. And you'd do
'em, as all young fellows, struggling up, have to. But you're
a woman. So I'm willing to make easier terms. But I can't
help you with you not showing any appreciation. That wouldn't
be good business--would it?--to get no return but, `Oh, thank
you so much, Mr. Gideon. So sweet of you. I'll remember you
in my prayers.' Would that be sensible?"
"No," said Susan.
"Well, then! If I do you a good turn, you've got to do me a
good turn--not one that I don't want done, but one I do want
done. Ain't I right? Do you follow me?"
"I follow you."
Some vague accent in Susan's voice made him feel dissatisfied
with her response. "I hope you do," he said sharply. "What
I'm saying is dresses on your back and dollars in your
pocket--and getting on in the world--if you work it right."
"Getting on in the world," said Susan, pensively.
"I suppose that's a sneer."
"Oh, no. I was only thinking."
"About love being all a woman needs to make her happy, I suppose?"
"No. Love is--Well, it isn't happiness."
"Because you let it run you, instead of you running it. Eh?"
"Perhaps."
"Sure! Now, let me tell you, Lorna dear. Comfort and luxury,
money in bank, property, a good solid position--_that's_ the
foundation. Build on _that_ and you'll build solid. Build on
love and sentiment and you're building upside down. You're
putting the gingerbread where the rock ought to be. Follow me?"
"I see what you mean."
He tried to find her hand. "What do you say?"
"I'll think of it."
"Well, think quick, my dear. Opportunity doesn't wait round in
anybody's outside office . . . Maybe you don't trust
me--don't think I'll deliver the goods?"
"No. I think you're honest."
"You're right I am. I do what I say I'll do. That's why I've got
on. That's why I'll keep on getting on. Let's drive to a hotel."
She turned her head and looked at him for the first time since
he began his discourse on making one's way in the world. Her
look was calm, inquiring--would have been chilling to a man of
sensibility--that is, of sensibility toward an unconquered woman.
"I want to give your people that order, and I want to help you."
"I want them to get the order. I don't care about the rest,"
she replied dully.
"Put it any way you like."
Again he tried to embrace her. She resisted firmly. "Wait,"
said she. "Let me think."
They drove the rest of the way to the upper end of the Park
in silence.
He ordered the driver to turn. He said to her; "Well, do you
get the sack or does the house get the order?"
She was silent.
"Shall I drive you home or shall we stop at Gabe's for a drink?"
"Could I have champagne?" said she.
"Anything you like if you choose right."
"I haven't any choice," said she.
He laughed, put his arm around her, kissed her unresponsive but
unresisting lips. "You're right, you haven't," said he. "It's
a fine sign that you have the sense to see it. Oh, you'll get
on. You don't let trifles stand in your way."
III
AT the lunch hour the next day Mary Hinkle knocked at the
garret in Clinton Place. Getting no answer, she opened the
door. At the table close to the window was Susan in a
nightgown, her hair in disorder as if she had begun to arrange
it and had stopped halfway. Her eyes turned listlessly in
Mary's direction--dull eyes, gray, heavily circled.
"You didn't answer, Miss Sackville. So I thought I'd come in and
leave a note," explained Mary. Her glance was avoiding Susan's.
"Come for the dress and hat?" said Susan. "There they are."
And she indicated the undisturbed bed whereon hat and dress
were carelessly flung.
"My, but it's hot in this room!" exclaimed Mary. "You must
move up to my place. There's a room and bath vacant--only
seven per."
Susan seemed not to hear. She was looking dully at her hands
upon the table before her.
"Mr. Jeffries sent me to ask you how you were. He was worried
because you didn't come." With a change of voice, "Mr. Gideon
telephoned down the order a while ago. Mr. Jeffries says you
are to keep the dress and hat."
"No," said Susan. "Take them away with you."
"Aren't you coming down this afternoon?"
"No," replied Susan. "I've quit."
"Quit?" cried Miss Hinkle. Her expression gradually shifted
from astonishment to pleased understanding. "Oh, I see!
You've got something better."
"No. But I'll find something."
Mary studied the situation, using Susan's expressionless face
as a guide. After a time she seemed to get from it a clew.
With the air of friendly experience bent on aiding helpless
inexperience she pushed aside the dress and made room for
herself on the bed. "Don't be a fool, Miss Sackville," said
she. "If you don't like that sort of thing--you know what I
mean--why, you can live six months--maybe a year--on the
reputation of what you've done and their hope that you'll
weaken down and do it again. That'll give you time to look
round and find something else. For pity's sake, don't turn
yourself loose without a job. You got your place so easy that
you think you can get one any old time. There's where you're
wrong. Believe me, you played in luck--and luck don't come
round often. I know what I'm talking about. So I say, don't
be a fool!"
"I am a fool," said Susan.
"Well--get over it. And don't waste any time about it, either."
"I can't go back," said Susan stolidly. "I can't face them."
"Face who?" cried Mary. "Business is business. Everybody
understands that. All the people down there are crazy about
you now. You got the house a hundred-thousand-dollar order.
You don't _suppose_ anybody in business bothers about how an
order's got--do you?"
"It's the way __I__ feel--not the way _they_ feel."
"As for the women down there--of course, there's some that
pretend they won't do that sort of thing. Look at 'em--at
their faces and figures--and you'll see why they don't. Of
course a girl keeps straight when there's nothing in not being
straight--leastways, unless she's a fool. She knows that if
the best she can do is marry a fellow of her own class, why
she'd only get left if she played any tricks with them cheap
skates that have to get married or go without because they're
too poor to pay for anything--and by marrying can get that and
a cook and a washwoman and mender besides--and maybe, too,
somebody who can go out and work if they're laid up sick. But
if a girl sees a chance to get on----don't be a fool, Miss
Sackville."
Susan listened with a smile that barely disturbed the stolid
calm of her features. "I'm not going back," she said.
Mary Hinkle was silenced by the quiet finality of her voice.
Studying that delicate face, she felt, behind its pallid
impassiveness, behind the refusal to return, a reason she could
not comprehend. She dimly realized that she would respect it
if she could understand it; for she suspected it had its origin
somewhere in Susan's "refined ladylike nature." She knew that
once in a while among the women she was acquainted with there
did happen one who preferred death in any form of misery to
leading a lax life--and indisputable facts had convinced her
that not always were these women "just stupid ignorant fools."
She herself possessed no such refinement of nerves or of
whatever it was. She had been brought up in a loose family and
in a loose neighborhood. She was in the habit of making all
sorts of pretenses, because that was the custom, while being
candid about such matters was regarded as bad form. She was
not fooled by these pretenses in other girls, though they often
did fool each other. In Susan, she instinctively felt, it was
not pretense. It was something or other else--it was a
dangerous reality. She liked Susan; in her intelligence and
physical charm were the possibilities of getting far up in the
world; it seemed a pity that she was thus handicapped. Still,
perhaps Susan would stumble upon some worth while man who,
attempting to possess her without marriage and failing, would
pay the heavy price. There was always that chance--a small
chance, smaller even than finding by loose living a worth while
man who would marry you because you happened exactly to suit
him--to give him enough only to make him feel that he wanted
more. Still, Susan was unusually attractive, and luck
sometimes did come a poor person's way--sometimes.
"I'm overdue back," said Mary. "You want me to tell 'em that?"
"Yes."
"You'll have hard work finding a job at anything like as much
as ten per. I've got two trades, and I couldn't at either one."
"I don't expect to find it."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Take what I can get--until I've been made hard enough--or
strong enough--or whatever it is--to stop being a fool."
This indication of latent good sense relieved Miss Hinkle.
"I'll tell 'em you may be down tomorrow. Think it over for
another day."
Susan shook her head. "They'll have to get somebody else."
And, as Miss Hinkle reached the threshold, "Wait till I do the
dress up. You'll take it for me?"
"Why send the things back?" urged Mary. "They belong to you.
God knows you earned 'em."
Susan, standing now, looked down at the finery. "So I did.
I'll keep them," said she. "They'd pawn for something."
"With your looks they'd wear for a heap more. But keep 'em,
anyhow. And I'll not tell Jeffries you've quit. It'll do no
harm to hold your job open a day or so."
"As you like," said Susan, to end the discussion. "But I have quit."
"No matter. After you've had something to eat, you'll feel different."
And Miss Hinkle nodded brightly and departed. Susan resumed
her seat at the bare wobbly little table, resumed her listless
attitude. She did not move until Ellen came in, holding out a
note and saying, "A boy from your store brung this--here."
"Thank you," said Susan, taking the note. In it she found a
twenty-dollar bill and a five. On the sheet of paper round it
was scrawled:
Take the day off. Here's your commission. We'll raise your
pay in a few weeks, L. L. J.
So Mary Hinkle had told them either that she was quitting or
that she was thinking of quitting, and they wished her to stay,
had used the means they believed she could not resist. In a
dreary way this amused her. As if she cared whether or not
life was kept in this worthless body of hers, in her tired
heart, in her disgusted mind! Then she dropped back into
listlessness. When she was aroused again it was by Gideon,
completely filling the small doorway. "Hello, my dear!" cried
he cheerfully. "Mind my smoking?"
Susan slowly turned her head toward him, surveyed him with an
expression but one removed from the blank look she would have
had if there had been no one before her.
"I'm feeling fine today," pursued Gideon, advancing a step and
so bringing himself about halfway to the table. "Had a couple
of pick-me-ups and a fat breakfast. How are you?"
"I'm always well."
"Thought you seemed a little seedy. "His shrewd sensual eyes
were exploring the openings in her nightdress. "You'll be
mighty glad to get out of this hole. Gosh! It's hot. Don't
see how you stand it. I'm a law abiding citizen but I must say
I'd turn criminal before I'd put up with this."
In the underworld from which Gideon had sprung--the underworld
where welters the overwhelming mass of the human race--there
are three main types. There are the hopeless and
spiritless--the mass--who welter passively on, breeding and
dying. There are the spirited who also possess both shrewdness
and calculation; they push upward by hook and by crook, always
mindful of the futility of the struggle of the petty criminal
of the slums against the police and the law; they arrive and
found the aristocracies of the future. The third is the
criminal class. It is also made up of the spirited--but the
spirited who, having little shrewdness and no calculation--that
is, no ability to foresee and measure consequences--wage clumsy
war upon society and pay the penalty of their fatuity in lives
of wretchedness even more wretched than the common lot. Gideon
belonged to the second class--the class that pushes upward
without getting into jail; he was a fair representative of this
type, neither its best nor its worst, but about midway of its
range between arrogant, all-dominating plutocrat and shystering
merchant or lawyer or politician who barely escapes the
criminal class.
"You don't ask me to sit down, dearie," he went on facetiously.
"But I'm not so mad that I won't do it."
He took the seat Miss Hinkle had cleared on the bed. His
glance wandered disgustedly from object to object in the
crowded yet bare attic. He caught a whiff of the odor from
across the hall--from the fresh-air shaft--and hastily gave
several puffs at his cigar to saturate his surroundings with
its perfume. Susan acted as if she were alone in the room.
She had not even drawn together her nightgown.
"I phoned your store about you," resumed Gideon. "They said
you hadn't showed up--wouldn't till tomorrow. So I came round
here and your landlady sent me up. I want to take you for a
drive this afternoon. We can dine up to Claremont or farther,
if you like."
"No, thanks," said Susan. "I can't go."
"Upty-tupty!" cried Gideon. "What's the lady so sour about?"
"I'm not sour."
"Then why won't you go?"
"I can't."
"But we'll have a chance to talk over what I'm going to do for you."
"You've kept your word," said Susan.
"That was only part. Besides, I'd have given your house the
order, anyhow."
Susan's eyes suddenly lighted up. "You would?" she cried.
"Well--a part of it. Not so much, of course. But I never let
pleasure interfere with business. Nobody that does ever gets
very far."
Her expression made him hasten to explain--without being
conscious why. "I said--_part_ of the order, my dear. They owe
to you about half of what they'll make off me. . . . What's
that money on the table? Your commission?"
"Yes."
"Twenty-five? Um!" Gideon laughed. "Well, I suppose it's as
generous as I'd be, in the same circumstances. Encourage your
employees, but don't swell-head 'em--that's the good rule. I've
seen many a promising young chap ruined by a raise of pay. . . .
Now, about you and me." Gideon took a roll of bills from
his trousers pocket, counted off five twenties, tossed them on
the table. "There!"
One of the bills in falling touched Susan's hand. She jerked
the hand away as if the bill had been afire. She took all five
of them, folded them, held them out to him. "The house has
paid me," said she.
"That's honest," said he, nodding approvingly. "I like it.
But in your case it don't apply."
These two, thus facing a practical situation, revealed an
important, overlooked truth about human morals. Humanity
divides broadly into three classes: the arrived; those who will
never arrive and will never try; those in a state of flux,
attempting and either failing or succeeding. The arrived and
the inert together preach and to a certain extent practice an
idealistic system of morality that interferes with them in no
way. It does not interfere with the arrived because they have
no need to infringe it, except for amusement; it does not
interfere with the inert, but rather helps them to bear their
lot by giving them a cheering notion that their insignificance
is due to their goodness. This idealistic system receives the
homage of lip service from the third and struggling section of
mankind, but no more, for in practice it would hamper them at
every turn in their efforts to fight their way up. Susan was,
at that stage of her career, a candidate for membership in the
struggling class. Her heart was set firmly against the
unwritten, unspoken, even unwhispered code of practical
morality which dominates the struggling class. But life had at
least taught her the folly of intolerance. So when Gideon
talked in terms of that practical morality, she listened
without offense; and she talked to him in terms of it because
to talk the idealistic morality in which she had been bred and
before which she bowed the knee in sincere belief would have
been simply to excite his laughter at her innocence and his
contempt for her folly.
"I feel that I've been paid," said she. "I did it for the
house--because I owed it to them."
"Only for the house?" said he with insinuating tenderness. He
took and pressed the fingers extended with the money in them.
"Only for the house," she repeated, a hard note in her voice.
And her fingers slipped away, leaving the money in his hand.
"At least, I suppose it must have been for the house," she
added, reflectively, talking to herself aloud. "Why did I do
it? I don't know. I don't know. They say one always has a
reason for what one does. But I often can't find any reason
for things I do--that, for instance. I simply did it because
it seemed to me not to matter much what __I__ did with myself,
and they wanted the order so badly." Then she happened to
become conscious of his presence and to see a look of
uneasiness, self-complacence, as if he were thinking that he
quite understood this puzzle. She disconcerted him with what
vain men call a cruel snub. "But whatever the reason, it
certainly couldn't have been you," said she.
"Now, look here, Lorna," protested Gideon, the beginnings of
anger in his tone. "That's not the way to talk if you want to
get on."
She eyed him with an expression which would have raised a
suspicion that he was repulsive in a man less self-confident,
less indifferent to what the human beings he used for pleasure
or profit thought of him.
"To say nothing of what I can do for you, there's the matter of
future orders. I order twice a year--in big lots always."
"I've quit down there."
"Oh! Somebody else has given you something good--eh? _That's_
why you're cocky."
"No."
"Then why've you quit?"
"I wish you could tell me. I don't understand. But--I've done it."
Gideon puzzled with this a moment, decided that it was beyond
him and unimportant, anyhow. He blew out a cloud of smoke,
stretched his legs and took up the main subject. "I was about
to say, I've got a place for you. I'd like to take you to
Chicago, but there's a Mrs. G.--as dear, sweet, good a soul as
ever lived--just what a man wants at home with the children and
to make things respectable. I wouldn't grieve her for worlds.
But I can't live without a little fun--and Mrs. G. is a bit
slow for me. . . . Still, it's no use talking about having
you out there. She ought to be able to understand that an
active man needs two women. One for the quiet side of his
nature, the other for the lively side. Sometimes I think
she--like a lot of wives--wouldn't object if it wasn't that she
was afraid the other lady would get me away altogether and
she'd be left stranded."
"Naturally," said Susan.
"Not at all!" cried he. "Don't you get any such notion in that
lovely little head of yours, my dear. You women don't
understand honor--a man's sense of honor."
"Naturally," repeated Susan.
He gave a glance of short disapproval. Her voice was not to
his liking. "Let's drop Mrs. G. out of this," said he. "As
I was saying, I've arranged for you to take a place here--easy
work--something to occupy you--and I'll foot the bills over and
above----"
He stopped short or, rather, was stopped by the peculiar smile
Susan had turned upon him. Before it he slowly reddened, and
his eyes reluctantly shifted. He had roused her from
listlessness, from indifference. The poisons in her blood were
burned up by the fresh, swiftly flowing currents set in motion
by his words, by the helpfulness of his expression, of his
presence. She became again the intensely healthy, therefore
intensely alive, therefore energetic and undaunted Susan Lenox,
who, when still a child, had not hesitated to fly from home,
from everyone she knew, into an unknown world.
"What are you smiling at me that way for?" demanded he in a
tone of extreme irritation.
"So you look on me as your mistress?" And never in all her
life had her eyes been so gray--the gray of cruelest irony.
"Now what's the use discussing those things? You know the
world. You're a sensible woman."
Susan made closer and more secure the large loose coil of her
hair, rose and leaned against the table. "You don't
understand. You couldn't. I'm not one of those respectable
women, like your Mrs. G., who belong to men. And I'm not one
of the other kind who also throw in their souls with their
bodies for good measure. Do _you_ think you had _me?_" She
laughed with maddening gentle mockery, went on: "I don't hate
you. I don't despise you even. You mean well. But the sight
of you makes me sick. It makes me feel as I do when I think of
a dirty tenement I used to have to live in, and of the things
that I used to have to let crawl over me. So I want to forget
you as soon as I can--and that will be soon after you get out
of my sight."
Her blazing eyes startled him. Her voice, not lifted above its
usual quiet tones, enraged him. "You--you!" he cried. "You
must be crazy, to talk to _me_ like that!"
She nodded. "Yes--crazy," said she with the same quiet intensity.
"For I know what kind of a beast you are--a clean, good-natured
beast, but still a beast. And how could you understand?"
He had got upon his feet. He looked as if he were going to
strike her.
She made a slight gesture toward the door. He felt at a
hopeless disadvantage with her--with this woman who did not
raise her voice, did not need to raise it to express the
uttermost of any passion. His jagged teeth gleamed through his
mustache; his shrewd little eyes snapped like an angry rat's.
He fumbled about through the steam of his insane rage for
adequate insults--in vain. He rushed from the room and bolted
downstairs.
Within an hour Susan was out, looking for work. There could be
no turning back now. Until she went with Gideon it had been as
if her dead were still unburied and in the house. Now----
Never again could she even indulge in dreams of going to Rod.
That part of her life was finished with all the finality of the
closed grave. Grief--yes. But the same sort of grief as when
a loved one, after a long and painful illness, finds relief in
death. Her love for Rod had been stricken of a mortal illness
the night of their arrival in New York. After lingering for a
year between life and death, after a long death agony, it had
expired. The end came--these matters of the exact moment of
inevitable events are unimportant but have a certain melancholy
interest--the end came when she made choice where there was no
choice, in the cab with Gideon.
For better or for worse she was free. She was ready to begin
her career.
IV
AFTER a few days, when she was viewing her situation in a
calmer, more normal mood with the practical feminine eye, she
regretted that she had refused Gideon's money. She was proud
of that within herself which had impelled and compelled her to
refuse it; but she wished she had it. Taking it, she felt,
would have added nothing to her humiliation in her own sight;
and for what he thought of her, one way or the other, she cared
not a pin. It is one of the familiar curiosities of human
inconsistency which is at bottom so completely consistent, that
she did not regret having refused his far more valuable offer
to aid her.
She did not regret even during those few next days of
disheartening search for work. We often read how purpose can
be so powerful that it compels. No doubt if Susan's purpose
had been to get temporary relief--or, perhaps, had it been to
get permanent relief by weaving a sex spell--she would in that
desperate mood have been able to compel. Unfortunately she was
not seeking to be a pauper or a parasite; she was trying to
find steady employment at living wages--that is, at wages above
the market value for female and for most male--labor. And that
sort of purpose cannot compel.
Our civilization overflows with charity--which is simply
willingness to hand back to labor as generous gracious alms a
small part of the loot from the just wages of labor. But of
real help--just wages for honest labor--there is little, for real
help would disarrange the system, would abolish the upper classes.
She had some faint hopes in the direction of millinery and
dressmaking, the things for which she felt she had distinct
talent. She was soon disabused. There was nothing for her,
and could be nothing until after several years of doubtful
apprenticeship in the trades to which any female person seeking
employment to piece out an income instinctively turned first
and offered herself at the employer's own price. Day after
day, from the first moment of the industrial day until its end,
she hunted--wearily, yet unweariedly--with resolve living on
after the death of hope. She answered advertisements; despite
the obviously sensible warnings of the working girls she talked
with she even consulted and took lists from the religious and
charitable organizations, patronized by those whose enthusiasm
about honest work had never been cooled by doing or trying to
do any of it, and managed by those who, beginning as workers,
had made all haste to escape from it into positions where they
could live by talking about it and lying about it--saying the
things comfortable people subscribe to philanthropies to hear.
There was work, plenty of it. But not at decent wages, and not
leading to wages that could be earned without viciously
wronging those under her in an executive position. But even in
those cases the prospect of promotion was vague and remote,
with illness and failing strength and poor food, worse clothing
and lodgings, as certainties straightway. At some places she
was refused with the first glance at her. No good-looking
girls wanted; even though they behaved themselves and attracted
customers, the customers lost sight of matters of merchandise
in the all-absorbing matter of sex. In offices a good-looking
girl upset discipline, caused the place to degenerate into a
deer-haunt in the mating season. No place did she find
offering more than four dollars a week, except where the dress
requirements made the nominally higher wages even less.
Everywhere women's wages were based upon the assumption that
women either lived at home or made the principal part of their
incomes by prostitution, disguised or frank. In fact, all
wages even the wages of men except in a few trades--were too
small for an independent support. There had to be a family--and
the whole family had to work--and even then the joint income
was not enough for decency. She had no family or friends to
help her--at least, no friends except those as poor as herself,
and she could not commit the crime of adding to their miseries.
She had less than ten dollars left. She must get to work at
once--and what she earned must supply her with all. A note
came from Jeffries--a curt request that she call--curt to
disguise the eagerness to have her back. She tore it up. She
did not even debate the matter. It was one of her significant
qualities that she never had the inclination, apparently lacked
the power, to turn back once she had turned away. Mary Hinkle
came, urged her. Susan listened in silence, merely shook her
head for answer, changed the subject.
In the entrance to the lofts of a tall Broadway building she
saw a placard: "Experienced hands at fancy ready-to-wear hat
trimming wanted." She climbed three steep flights and was in
a large, low-ceilinged room where perhaps seventy-five girls
were at work. She paused in the doorway long enough to observe
the kind of work--a purely mechanical process of stitching a
few trimmings in exactly the same way upon a cheap hat frame.
Then she went to an open window in a glass partition and asked
employment of a young Jew with an incredibly long nose
thrusting from the midst of a pimply face which seemed merely
its too small base.
"Experienced?" asked the young man.
"I can do what those girls are doing."
With intelligent eyes he glanced at her face, then let his
glance rove contemptuously over the room full of workers. "I
should hope so," said he. "Forty cents a dozen. Want to try it?"
"When may I go to work?"
"Right away. Write your name here."
Susan signed her name to what she saw at a glance was some sort
of contract. She knew it contained nothing to her advantage,
much to her disadvantage. But she did not care. She had to
have work--something, anything that would stop the waste of her
slender capital. And within fifteen minutes she was seated in
the midst of the sweating, almost nauseatingly odorous women of
all ages, was toiling away at the simple task of making an ugly
hat frame still more ugly by the addition of a bit of tawdry
cotton ribbon, a buckle, and a bunch of absurdly artificial
flowers. She was soon able to calculate roughly what she could
make in six days. She thought she could do two dozen of the
hats a day; and twelve dozen hats at forty cents the dozen
would mean four dollars and eighty cents a week!
Four dollars and eighty cents! Less than she had planned to
set aside for food alone, out of her ten dollars as a model.
Next her on the right sat a middle-aged woman, grossly fat,
repulsively shapeless, piteously homely--one of those luckless
human beings who are foredoomed from the outset never to know
any of the great joys of life the joys that come through our
power to attract our fellow-beings. As this woman stitched
away, squinting through the steel-framed spectacles set upon
her snub nose, Susan saw that she had not even good health to
mitigate her lot, for her color was pasty and on her dirty skin
lay blotches of dull red. Except a very young girl here and
there all the women had poor or bad skins. And Susan was not
made disdainful by the odor which is far worse than that of any
lower animal, however dirty, because the human animal must wear
clothing. She had lived in wretchedness in a tenement; she
knew that this odor was an inevitable part of tenement life
when one has neither the time nor the means to be clean. Poor
food, foul air, broken sleep--bad health, disease, unsightly
faces, repulsive bodies!
No wonder the common people looked almost like another race in
contrast with their brothers and sisters of the comfortable
classes. Another race! The race into which she would soon be
reborn under the black magic of poverty! As she glanced and
reflected on what she saw, viewed it in the light of her
experience, her fingers slackened, and she could speed them up
only in spurts.
"If I stay here," thought she, "in a few weeks I shall be like
these others. No matter how hard I may fight, I'll be dragged
down." As impossible to escape the common lot as for a swimmer
alone in mid-ocean to keep up indefinitely whether long or
brief, the struggle could have but, the one end--to be sunk in,
merged in, the ocean.
It took no great amount of vanity for her to realize that she
was in every way the superior of all those around her--in every
way except one. What did she lack? Why was it that with her
superior intelligence, her superior skill both of mind and of
body, she could be thus dragged down and held far below her
natural level? Why could she not lift herself up among the
sort of people with whom she belonged--or even make a beginning
toward lifting herself up? Why could she not take hold? What
did she lack? What must she acquire--or what get rid of?
At lunch time she walked with the ugly woman up and down the
first side street above the building in which the factory was
located. She ate a roll she bought from a pushcart man, the
woman munched an apple with her few remnants of teeth. "Most
of the girls is always kicking," said the woman. "But I'm
mighty satisfied. I get enough to eat and to wear, and I've
got a bed to sleep in--and what else is there in life for
anybody, rich or poor?"
"There's something to be said for that," replied Susan,
marveling to find in this piteous creature the only case of
thorough content she had ever seen.
"I make my four to five per," continued the woman. "And I've
got only myself. Thank God, I was never fool enough to marry.
It's marrying that drags us poor people down and makes us
miserable. Some says to me, `Ain't you lonesome?' And I says
to them, says I, `Why, I'm used to being alone. I don't want
anything else.' If they was all like me, they'd not be fightin'
and drinkin' and makin' bad worse. The bosses always likes to
give me work. They say I'm a model worker, and I'm proud to
say they're right. I'm mighty grateful to the bosses that
provide for the like of us. What'd we do without 'em? That's
what __I__'d like to know."
She had pitied this woman because she could never hope to
experience any of the great joys of life. What a waste of pity,
she now thought. She had overlooked the joy of joys--delusions.
This woman was secure for life against unhappiness.
A few days, and Susan was herself regarded as a model worker.
She turned out hats so rapidly that the forewoman, urged on by
Mr. Himberg, the proprietor, began to nag at the other girls.
And presently a notice of general reduction to thirty-five
cents a dozen was posted. There had been a union; it had won
a strike two years before--and then had been broken up by
shrewd employing of detectives who had got themselves elected
officers. With the union out of the way, there was no check
upon the bosses in their natural and lawful effort to get that
profit which is the most high god of our civilization. A few
of the youngest and most spirited girls--those from families
containing several workers--indignantly quit. A few others
murmured, but stayed on. The mass dumbly accepted the extra
twist in the screw of the mighty press that was slowly
squeezing them to death. Neither to them nor to Susan herself
did it happen to occur that she was the cause of the general
increase of hardship and misery. However, to have blamed her
would have been as foolish and as unjust as to blame any other
individual. The system ordained it all. Oppression and
oppressed were both equally its helpless instruments. No
wonder all the vast beneficent discoveries of science that
ought to have made the whole human race healthy, long-lived and
prosperous, are barely able to save the race from swift decay
and destruction under the ravages of this modern system of
labor worse than slavery--for under slavery the slave, being
property whose loss could not be made good without expense, was
protected in life and in health.
Susan soon discovered that she had miscalculated her earning
power. She had been deceived by her swiftness in the first
days, before the monotony of her task had begun to wear her
down. Her first week's earnings were only four dollars and
thirty cents. This in her freshness, and in the busiest season
when wages were at the highest point.
In the room next hers--the same, perhaps a little
dingier--lived a man. Like herself he had no trade--that is,
none protected by a powerful union and by the still more
powerful--in fact, the only powerful shield--requirements of
health and strength and a certain grade of intelligence that
together act rigidly to exclude most men and so to keep wages
from dropping to the neighborhood of the line of pauperism. He
was the most industrious and, in his small way, the most
resourceful of men. He was insurance agent, toilet soap agent,
piano tuner, giver of piano lessons, seller of pianos and of
music on commission. He worked fourteen and sixteen hours a
day. He made nominally about twelve to fifteen a week.
Actually--because of the poverty of his customers and his too
sympathetic nature he made five to six a week--the most any
working person could hope for unless in one of the few favored
trades. Barely enough to keep body and soul together. And why
should capital that needs so much for fine houses and wines and
servants and automobiles and culture and charity and the other
luxuries--why should capital pay more when so many were
competing for the privilege of being allowed to work?
She gave up her room at Mrs. Tucker's--after she had spent
several evenings walking the streets and observing and thinking
about the miseries of the fast women of the only class she
could hope to enter. "A woman," she decided, "can't even earn
a decent living that way unless she has the money to make the
right sort of a start. `To him that hath shall be given; from
him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he
hath.' Gideon was my chance and I threw it away."
Still, she did not regret. Of all the horrors the most
repellent seemed to her to be dependence upon some one man who
could take it away at his whim.
She disregarded the advice of the other girls and made the
rounds of the religious and charitable homes for working girls.
She believed she could endure perhaps better than could girls
with more false pride, with more awe of snobbish
conventionalities--at least she could try to endure--the
superciliousness, the patronizing airs, the petty restraints
and oppressions, the nauseating smugness, the constant prying
and peeping, the hypocritical lectures, the heavy doses of smug
morality. She felt that she could bear with almost any
annoyances and humiliations to be in clean surroundings and to
get food that was at least not so rotten that the eye could see
it and the nose smell it. But she found all the homes full,
with long waiting lists, filled for the most part, so the
working girls said, with professional objects of charity. Thus
she had no opportunity to judge for herself whether there was
any truth in the prejudice of the girls against these few and
feeble attempts to mitigate the miseries of a vast and ever
vaster multitude of girls. Adding together all the
accommodations offered by all the homes of every description,
there was a total that might possibly have provided for the
homeless girls of a dozen factories or sweatshops--and the
number of homeless girls was more than a quarter of a million,
was increasing at the rate of more than a hundred a day.
Charity is so trifling a force that it can, and should be,
disregarded. It serves no _good_ useful service. It enables
comfortable people to delude themselves that all that can be
done is being done to mitigate the misfortunes which the poor
bring upon themselves. It obscures the truth that modern
civilization has been perverted into a huge manufacturing of
decrepitude and disease, of poverty and prostitution. The
reason we talk so much and listen so eagerly when our
magnificent benevolences are the subject is that we do not wish
to be disturbed--and that we dearly love the tickling sensation
in our vanity of generosity.
Susan was compelled to the common lot--the lot that will be the
common lot as long as there are people to be made, by taking
advantage of human necessities, to force men and women and
children to degrade themselves into machines as wage-slaves.
At two dollars a week, double what her income justified--she
rented a room in a tenement flat in Bleecker street. It was a
closet of a room whose thin, dirt-adorned walls were no
protection against sound or vermin, not giving even privacy
from prying eyes. She might have done a little better had she
been willing to share room and bed with one or more girls, but
not enough better to compensate for what that would have meant.
The young Jew with the nose so impossible that it elevated his
countenance from commonplace ugliness to weird distinction had
taken a friendly fancy to her. He was Julius Bam, nephew of
the proprietor. In her third week he offered her the
forewoman's place. "You've got a few brains in your head,"
said he. "Miss Tuohy's a boob. Take the job and you'll push
up. We'll start you at five per."
Susan thanked him but declined. "What's the use of my taking
a job I couldn't keep more than a day or two?" explained she.
"I haven't it in me to boss people."
"Then you've got to get it, or you're done for," said he.
"Nobody ever gets anywhere until he's making others work for him."
It was the advice she had got from Matson, the paper box
manufacturer in Cincinnati. It was the lesson she found in all
prosperity on every hand. Make others work for you--and the
harder you made them work the more prosperous you
were--provided, of course, you kept all or nearly all the
profits of their harder toil. Obvious common sense. But how
could she goad these unfortunates, force their clumsy fingers
to move faster, make their long and weary day longer and
wearier--with nothing for them as the result but duller brain,
clumsier fingers, more wretched bodies? She realized why those
above lost all patience with them, treated them with contempt.
Only as one of them could any intelligent, energetic human
being have any sympathy for them, stupid and incompetent from
birth, made ever more and more stupid and incapable by the
degrading lives they led. She could scarcely conceal her
repulsion for their dirty bodies, their stained and rotting
clothing saturated with stale sweat, their coarse flesh reeking
coarse food smells. She could not listen to their
conversation, so vulgar, so inane. Yet she felt herself--for
the time--one of them, and her heart bled for them. And while
she knew that only their dullness of wit and ignorance kept
them from climbing up and stamping and trampling full as
savagely and cruelly as did those on top, still the fact
remained that they were not stamping and trampling.
As she was turning in some work, Miss Tuohy said abruptly:
"You don't belong here. You ought to go back."
Susan started, and her heart beat wildly. She was going to
lose her job!
The forelady saw, and instantly understood. "I don't mean
that," she said. "You can stay as long as you like--as long as
your health lasts. But isn't there somebody
somewhere--_anybody_--you can go to and ask them to help you out
of this?"
"No--there's no one," said she.
"That can't be true," insisted the forelady. "Everybody has
somebody--or can get somebody--that is, anyone who looks like
you. I wouldn't suggest such a thing to a fool. But _you_
could keep your head. There isn't any other way, and you might
as well make up your mind to it."
To confide is one of the all but universal longings--perhaps
needs--of human nature. Susan's honest, sympathetic eyes, her
look and her habit of reticence, were always attracting
confidences from such unexpected sources as hard, forbidding
Miss Tuohy. Susan was not much surprised when Miss Tuohy went
on to say:
"I was spoiled when I was still a kid--by getting to know well
a man who was above my class. I had tastes that way, and he
appealed to them. After him I couldn't marry the sort of man
that wanted me. Then my looks went--like a flash--it often
happens that way with us Irish girls. But I can get on. I
know how to deal with these people--and _you_ never could learn.
You'd treat 'em like ladies and they'd treat you as easy fruit.
Yes, I get along all right, and I'm happy--away from here."
Susan's sympathetic glance of inquiry gave the necessary
encouragement. "It's a baby," Miss Tuohy explained--and Susan
knew it was for the baby's sake that this good heart had
hardened itself to the dirty work of forelady. Her eyes
shifted as she said, "A child of my sister's--dead in Ireland.
How I do love that baby----"
They were interrupted and it so happened that the confidence
was never resumed and finished. But Miss Tuohy had made her
point with Susan--had set her to thinking less indefinitely.
"I _must_ take hold!" Susan kept saying to herself. The
phrase was always echoing in her brain. But how?--_how?_ And
to that question she could find no answer.
Every morning she bought a one-cent paper whose big circulation
was in large part due to its want ads--its daily section of
closely printed columns of advertisements of help wanted and
situations wanted. Susan read the columns diligently. At
first they acted upon her like an intoxicant, filling her not
merely with hope but with confident belief that soon she would
be in a situation where the pay was good and the work
agreeable, or at least not disagreeable. But after a few weeks
she ceased from reading.
Why? Because she answered the advertisements, scores of them,
more than a hundred, before she saw through the trick and gave
up. She found that throughout New York all the attractive or
even tolerable places were filled by girls helped by their
families or in other ways, girls working at less than living
wages because they did not have to rely upon their wages for
their support. And those help wanted advertisements were
simply appeals for more girls of that sort--for cheaper girls;
or they were inserted by employment agencies, masquerading in
the newspaper as employers and lying in wait to swindle working
girls by getting a fee in exchange for a false promise of good
work at high wages; or they were the nets flung out by crafty
employers who speeded and starved their slaves, and wished to
recruit fresh relays to replace those that had quit in
exhaustion or in despair.
"Why do you always read the want ads?" she said to Lany
Ricardo, who spent all her spare time at those advertisements
in two papers she bought and one she borrowed every day. "Did
you ever get anything good, or hear of anybody that did?"
"Oh, my, no," replied Lany with a laugh. "I read for the same
reason that all the rest do. It's a kind of dope. You read
and then you dream about the places--how grand they are and how
well off you'll be. But nobody'd be fool enough to answer one
of 'em unless she was out of a job and had to get another and
didn't care how rotten it was. No, it's just dope--like buyin'
policy numbers or lottery tickets. You know you won't git a
prize, but you have a lot of fun dreaming about it."
As Susan walked up and down at the lunch hour, she talked with
workers, both men and women, in all sorts of employment. Some
were doing a little better than she; others--the most--were
worse off chiefly because her education, her developed
intelligence, enabled her to ward off savage blows--such as
illness from rotten food--against which their ignorance made
them defenseless. Whenever she heard a story of someone's
getting on, how grotesquely different it was from the stories
she used to get out of the Sunday school library and dream
over! These almost actualities of getting on had nothing in
them about honesty and virtue. According to them it was always
some sort of meanness or trickery; and the particular meanness
or tricks were, in these practical schools of success in
session at each lunch hour, related in detail as lessons in how
to get on. If the success under discussion was a woman's, it
was always how her boss or employer had "got stuck on her" and
had given her an easier job with good pay so that she could
wear clothes more agreeable to his eyes and to his touch. Now
and then it was a wonderful dazzling success--some girl had got
her rich employer so "dead crazy" about her that he had taken
her away from work altogether and had set her up in a flat with
a servant and a "swell trap"; there was even talk of marriage.
Was it true? Were the Sunday school books through and through
lies--ridiculous, misleading lies, wicked lies--wicked because
they hid the shameful truth that ought to be proclaimed from
the housetops? Susan was not sure. Perhaps envy twisted
somewhat these tales of rare occasional successes told by the
workers to each other. But certain it was that, wherever she
had the opportunity to see for herself, success came only by
hardness of heart, by tricks and cheats. Certain it was also
that the general belief among the workers was that success
could be got in those ways only--and this belief made the
falsehood, if it was a falsehood, or the partial truth, if it
was a twisted truth, full as poisonous as if it had been true
throughout. Also, if the thing were not true, how came it that
everyone in practical life believed it to be so--how came it
that everyone who talked in praise of honesty and virtue
looked, as he talked, as if he were canting and half expected
to be laughed at?
All about her as badly off as she, or worse off. Yet none so
unhappy as she--not even the worse off. In fact, the worse off
as the better off were not so deeply wretched. Because they
had never in all their lives known the decencies of life clean
lodgings, clean clothing, food fit to eat, leisure and the
means of enjoying leisure. And Susan had known all these
things. When she realized why her companions in misery, so
feeble in self-restraint, were able to endure patiently and for
the most part even cheerfully, how careful she was never to say
or to suggest anything that might put ideas of what life might
be, of what it was for the comfortable few, into the minds of
these girls who never had known and could only be made wretched
by knowing! How fortunate for them, she thought, that they had
gone to schools where they met only their own kind! How
fortunate that the devouring monster of industry had snatched
them away from school before their minds had been awakened to
the realities of life! How fortunate that their imaginations
were too dull and too heavy to be touched by the sights of
luxury they saw in the streets or by what they read in the
newspapers and in the cheap novels! To them, as she soon
realized, their world seemed the only world, and the world that
lived in comfort seemed a vague unreality, as must seem
whatever does not come into our own experience.
One lunch hour an apostle of discontent preaching some kind of
politics or other held forth on the corner above the shop.
Susan paused to listen. She had heard only a few words when
she was incensed to the depths of her heart against him. He
ought to be stopped by the police, this scoundrel trying to
make these people unhappy by awakening them to the misery and
degradation of their lot! He looked like an honest, earnest
man. No doubt he fancied that he was in some way doing good.
These people who were always trying to do the poor good--they
ought all to be suppressed! If someone could tell them how to
cease to be poor, that would indeed be good. But such a thing
would be impossible. In Sutherland, where the best off hadn't
so painfully much more than the worst off, and where everybody
but the idle and the drunken, and even they most of the time,
had enough to eat, and a decent place to sleep, and some kind
of Sunday clothes--in Sutherland the poverty was less than in
Cincinnati, infinitely less than in this vast and incredibly
rich New York where in certain districts wealth, enormous
wealth, was piled up and up. So evidently the presence of
riches did not help poverty but seemed to increase it. No, the
disease was miserable, thought Susan. For most of the human
race, disease and bad food and vile beds in dingy holes and
days of fierce, poorly paid toil--that was the law of this hell
of a world. And to escape from that hideous tyranny, you must
be hard, you must trample, you must rob, you must cease to be human.
The apostle of discontent insisted that the law could be
changed, that the tyranny could be abolished. She listened,
but he did not convince her. He sounded vague and dreamy--as
fantastically false in his new way as she had found the Sunday
school books to be. She passed on.
She continued to pay out a cent each day for the newspaper.
She no longer bothered with the want ads. Pipe dreaming did
not attract her; she was too fiercely bent upon escape, actual
escape, to waste time in dreaming of ways of escape that she
never could realize. She read the paper because, if she could
not live in the world but was battered down in its dark and
foul and crowded cellar, she at least wished to know what was
going on up in the light and air. She found every day news of
great doings, of wonderful rises, of rich rewards for industry
and thrift, of abounding prosperity and of opportunity fairly
forcing itself into acceptance. But all this applied only to
the few so strangely and so luckily chosen, while the mass was
rejected. For that mass, from earliest childhood until death,
there was only toil in squalor--squalid food, squalid clothing,
squalid shelter. And when she read one day--in an obscure
paragraph in her newspaper--that the income of the average
American family was less than twelve dollars a week--less than
two dollars and a half a week for each individual--she realized
that what she was seeing and living was not New York and
Cincinnati, but was the common lot, country wide, no doubt
world wide.
"_Must_ take hold!" her mind cried incessantly to her shrinking
heart. "Somehow--anyhow--take hold!--must--must--_must!_"
Those tenement houses! Those tenement streets! Everywhere
wandering through the crowds the lonely old women--holding up
to the girls the mirror of time and saying: "Look at my
misery! Look at my disease-blasted body. Look at my toil-bent
form and toil-wrecked hands. Look at my masses of wrinkles, at
my rags, at my leaky and rotten shoes. Think of my
aloneness--not a friend--feared and cast off by my relatives
because they are afraid they will have to give me food and
lodgings. Look at me--think of my life--and know that I am
_you_ as you will be a few years from now whether you work as a
slave to the machine or as a slave to the passions of one or of
many men. I am _you_. Not one in a hundred thousand escape my
fate except by death."
"Somehow--anyhow--I must take hold," cried Susan to her
swooning heart.
When her capital had dwindled to three dollars Mrs. Tucker
appeared. Her face was so beaming bright that Susan, despite
her being clad in garments on which a pawnshop would advance
nothing, fancied she had come with good news.
"Now that I'm rid of that there house," said she, "I'll begin
to perk up. I ain't got nothing left to worry me. I'm ready
for whatever blessings the dear Master'll provide. My pastor
tells me I'm the finest example of Christian fortitude he ever
Saw. But"--and Mrs. Tucker spoke with genuine modesty--"I tell
him I don't deserve no credit for leaning on the Lord. If I
can trust Him in death, why not in life?"
"You've got a place? The church has----"
"Bless you, no," cried Mrs. Tucker. "Would I burden 'em with
myself, when there's so many that has to be looked after? No,
I go direct to the Lord."
"What are you going to do? What place have you got?"
"None as yet. But He'll provide something--something better'n
I deserve."
Susan had to turn away, to hide her pity--and her
disappointment. Not only was she not to be helped, but also
she must help another. "You might get a job at the hat
factory," said she.
Mrs. Tucker was delighted. "I knew it!" she cried. "Don't you
see how He looks after me?"
Susan persuaded Miss Tuohy to take Mrs. Tucker on. She could
truthfully recommend the old woman as a hard worker. They
moved into a room in a tenement in South Fifth Avenue. Susan
read in the paper about a model tenement and went to try for
what was described as real luxury in comfort and cleanliness.
She found that sort of tenements filled with middle-class
families on their way down in the world and making their last
stand against rising rents and rising prices. The model
tenement rents were far, far beyond her ability to pay. She
might as well think of moving to the Waldorf. She and Mrs.
Tucker had to be content with a dark room on the fifth floor,
opening on a damp air shaft whose odor was so foul that in
comparison the Clinton Place shaft was as the pure breath of
the open sky. For this shelter--more than one-half the free
and proud citizens of prosperous America dwelling in cities
occupy its like, or worse they paid three dollars a week--a
dollar and a half apiece. They washed their underclothing at
night, slept while it was drying. And Susan, who could not
bring herself to imitate the other girls and wear a blouse of
dark color that was not to be washed, rose at four to do the
necessary ironing. They did their own cooking. It was no
longer possible for Susan to buy quality and content herself
with small quantity. However small the quantity of food she
could get along on, it must be of poor quality--for good
quality was beyond her means.
It maddened her to see the better class of working girls.
Their fairly good clothing, their evidences of some comfort at
home, seemed to mock at her as a poor fool who was being beaten
down because she had not wit enough to get on. She knew these
girls were either supporting themselves in part by prostitution
or were held up by their families, by the pooling of the
earnings of several persons. Left to themselves, to their own
earnings at work, they would be no better off than she, or at
best so little better off that the difference was unimportant.
If to live decently in New York took an income of fifteen
dollars a week, what did it matter whether one got five or ten
or twelve? Any wages below fifteen meant a steady downward
drag--meant exposure to the dirt and poison of poverty
tenements--meant the steady decline of the power of resistance,
the steady oozing away of self-respect, of the courage and hope
that give the power to rise. To have less than the fifteen
dollars absolutely necessary for decent surroundings, decent
clothing, decent food--that meant one was drowning. What
matter whether the death of the soul was quick, or slow,
whether the waters of destruction were twenty feet deep or
twenty thousand?
Mrs. Reardon, the servant woman on the top floor, was evicted
and Susan and Mrs. Tucker took her in. She protested that she
could sleep on the floor, that she had done so a large part of
her life--that she preferred it to most beds. But Susan made
her up a kind of bed in the corner. They would not let her pay
anything. She had rheumatism horribly, some kind of lung
trouble, and the almost universal and repulsive catarrh that
preys upon working people. Her hair had dwindled to a meager
wisp. This she wound into a hard little knot and fastened with
an imitation tortoise-shell comb, huge, high, and broken, set
with large pieces of glass cut like diamonds. Her teeth were
all gone and her cheeks almost met in her mouth.
One day, when Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Reardon were exchanging
eulogies upon the goodness of God to them, Susan shocked them
by harshly ordering them to be silent. "If God hears you," she
said, "He'll think you're mocking Him. Anyhow, I can't stand
any more of it. Hereafter do your talking of that kind when
I'm not here."
Another day Mrs. Reardon told about her sister. The sister had
worked in a factory where some sort of poison that had a
rotting effect on the human body was used in the manufacture.
Like a series of others the sister caught the disease. But
instead of rotting out a spot, a few fingers, or part of the
face, it had eaten away the whole of her lower jaw so that she
had to prepare her food for swallowing by first pressing it
with her fingers against her upper teeth. Used as Susan was to
hearing horrors in this region where disease and accident
preyed upon every family, she fled from the room and walked
shuddering about the streets--the streets with their incessant
march past of blighted and blasted, of maimed and crippled and
worm-eaten. Until that day Susan had been about as unobservant
of the obvious things as is the rest of the race. On that day
she for the first time noticed the crowd in the street, with
mind alert to signs of the ravages of accident and disease.
Hardly a sound body, hardly one that was not piteously and
hideously marked.
When she returned--and she did not stay out long--Mrs. Tucker
was alone. Said she:
"Mrs. Reardon says the rotten jaw was sent on her sister as a
punishment for marrying a Protestant, she being a Catholic.
How ignorant some people is! Of course, the good Lord sent the
judgment on her for being a Catholic at all."
"Mrs. Tucker," said Susan, "did you ever hear of Nero?"
"He burned up Rome--and he burned up the Christian martyrs,"
said Mrs. Tucker. "I had a good schooling. Besides, sermons
is highly educating."
"Well," said Susan, "if I had a choice of living under Nero or
of living under that God you and Mrs. Reardon talk about, I'd
take Nero and be thankful and happy."
Mrs. Tucker would have fled if she could have afforded it. As
it was all she ventured was a sigh and lips moving in prayer.
On a Friday in late October, at the lunch hour, Susan was
walking up and down the sunny side of Broadway. It was the
first distinctly cool day of the autumn; there had been a heavy
downpour of rain all morning, but the New York sun that is ever
struggling to shine and is successful on all but an occasional
day was tearing up and scattering the clouds with the aid of a
sharp north wind blowing down the deep canyon. She was wearing
her summer dress still--old and dingy but clean. That look of
neatness about the feet--that charm of a well-shaped foot and
a well-turned ankle properly set off--had disappeared--with her
the surest sign of the extreme of desperate poverty. Her shoes
were much scuffed, were even slightly down at the heel; her
sailor hat would have looked only the worse had it had a fresh
ribbon on its crown. This first hint of winter had stung her
fast numbing faculties into unusual activity. She was
remembering the misery of the cold in Cincinnati--the misery
that had driven her into prostitution as a drunken driver's
lash makes the frenzied horse rush he cares not where in his
desire to escape. This wind of Broadway--this first warning of
winter--it was hissing in her ears: "Take hold! Winter is
coming! Take hold!"
Summer and winter--fiery heat and brutal cold. Like the devils
in the poem, the poor--the masses, all but a few of the human
race--were hurried from fire to ice, to vary their torment and
to make it always exquisite.
To shelter herself for a moment she paused at a spot that
happened to be protected to the south by a projecting sidewalk
sign. She was facing, with only a tantalizing sheet of glass
between, a display of winter underclothes on wax figures. To
show them off more effectively the sides and the back of the
window were mirrors. Susan's gaze traveled past the figures to
a person she saw standing at full length before her. "Who is
that pale, stooped girl?" she thought. "How dreary and sad she
looks! How hard she is fighting to make her clothes look
decent, when they aren't! She must be something like me--only
much worse off." And then she realized that she was gazing at
her own image, was pitying her own self. The room she and Mrs.
Tucker and the old scrubwoman occupied was so dark, even with
its one little gas jet lighted, that she was able to get only
a faint look at herself in the little cracked and water-marked
mirror over its filthy washstand--filthy because the dirt was so
ground in that only floods of water and bars of soap could have
cleaned down to its original surface. She was having a clear
look at herself for the first time in three months.
She shrank in horror, yet gazed on fascinated. Why, her
physical charm had gone gone, leaving hardly a trace! Those
dull, hollow eyes--that thin and almost ghastly face--the
emaciated form--the once attractive hair now looking poor and
stringy because it could not be washed properly--above all, the
sad, bitter expression about the mouth. Those pale lips! Her
lips had been from childhood one of her conspicuous and most
tempting beauties; and as the sex side of her nature had
developed they had bloomed into wonderful freshness and
vividness of form and color. Now----
Those pale, pale lips! They seemed to form a sort of climax of
tragedy to the melancholy of her face. She gazed on and on.
She noted every detail. How she had fallen! Indeed, a fallen
woman! These others had been born to the conditions that were
destroying her; they were no worse off, in many cases better
off. But she, born to comfort and custom of intelligent
educated associations and associates----
A fallen woman!
Honest work! Even if it were true that this honest work was a
sort of probation through which one rose to better things--even
if this were true, could it be denied that only a few at best
could rise, that the most--including all the sensitive, and
most of the children--must wallow on, must perish? Oh, the
lies, the lies about honest work!
Rosa Mohr, a girl of her own age who worked in the same room,
joined her. "Admiring yourself?" she said laughing. "Well, I
don't blame you. You _are_ pretty."
Susan at first thought Rosa was mocking her. But the tone and
expression were sincere.
"It won't last long," Rosa went on. "I wasn't so bad myself
when I quit the high school and took a job because father lost
his business and his health. He got in the way of one of those
trusts. So of course they handed it to him good and hard. But
he wasn't a squealer. He always said they'd done only what
he'd been doing himself if he'd had the chance. I always think
of what papa used to say when I hear people carrying on about
how wicked this or that somebody else is."
"Are you going to stay on--at this life?" asked Susan, still
looking at her own image.
"I guess so. What else is there? . . . I've got a steady.
We'll get married as soon as he has a raise to twelve per. But
I'll not be any better off. My beau's too stupid ever to make
much. If you see me ten years from now I'll probably be a fat,
sloppy old thing, warming a window sill or slouching about in
dirty rags."
"Isn't there any way to--to escape?"
"It does look as though there ought to be--doesn't it? But
I've thought and thought, and __I__ can't see it--and I'm pretty
near straight Jew. They say things are better than they used
to be, and I guess they are. But not enough better to help me
any. Perhaps my children--_if_ I'm fool enough to have
any--perhaps they'll get a chance. . . . But I wouldn't
gamble on it."
Susan was still looking at her rags--at her pale lips--was
avoiding meeting her own eyes. "Why not try the streets?"
"Nothing in it," said Rosa, practically. "I did try it for a
while and quit. Lots of the girls do, and only the fools stay
at it. Once in a while there's a girl who's lucky and gets a
lover that's kind to her or a husband that can make good. But
that's luck. For one that wins out, a thousand lose."
"Luck?" said Susan.
Rosa laughed. "You're right. It's something else besides
luck. The trouble is a girl loses her head--falls in
love--supports a man--takes to drink--don't look out for her
health--wastes her money. Still--where's the girl with head
enough to get on where there's so many temptations?"
"But there's no chance at all, keeping straight, you say."
"The other thing's worse. The street girls--of our class, I
mean--don't average as much as we do. And it's an awful
business in winter. And they spend so much time in station
houses and over on the Island. And, gosh! how the men do
treat them! You haven't any idea. You wouldn't believe the
horrible things the girls have to do to earn their money--a
quarter or half a dollar--and maybe the men don't pay them even
that. A girl tries to get her money in advance, but often she
doesn't. And as they have to dress better than we do, and live
where they can clean up a little, they 'most starve. Oh, that
life's hell."
Susan had turned away from her image, was looking at Rosa.
"As for the fast houses----" Rosa shuddered--"I was in one for
a week. I ran away--it was the only way I could escape. I'd
never tell any human being what I went through in that house. . . .
Never!" She watched Susan's fine sympathetic face, and
in a burst of confidence said: "One night the landlady sent me
up with seventeen men. And she kept the seventeen dollars I
made, and took away from me half a dollar one drunken
longshoreman gave me as a present. She said I owed it for
board and clothes. In those houses, high and low, the girls
always owes the madam. They haven't a stitch of their own to
their backs."
The two girls stood facing each other, each looking past the
other into the wind-swept canyon of Broadway--the majestic
vista of lofty buildings, symbols of wealth and luxury so
abundant that it flaunted itself, overflowed in gaudy
extravagance. Finally Susan said:
"Do you ever think of killing yourself?"
"I thought I would," replied the other girl. "But I guess I
wouldn't have. Everybody knows there's no hope, yet they keep
on hopin'. And I've got pretty good health yet, and once in a
while I have some fun. You ought to go to dances--and drink.
You wouldn't be blue _all_ the time, then."
"If it wasn't for the sun," said Susan.
"The sun?" inquired Rosa.
"Where I came from," explained Susan, "it rained a great deal,
and the sky was covered so much of the time. But here in New
York there is so much sun. I love the sun. I get
desperate--then out comes the sun, and I say to myself, `Well,
I guess I can go on a while longer, with the sun to help me.'"
"I hadn't thought of it," said Rosa, "but the sun is a help."
That indefatigable New York sun! It was like Susan's own
courage. It fought the clouds whenever clouds dared to appear
and contest its right to shine upon the City of the Sun, and
hardly a day was so stormy that for a moment at least the sun
did not burst through for a look at its beloved.
For weeks Susan had eaten almost nothing. During her previous
sojourn in the slums--the slums of Cincinnati, though they were
not classed as slums--the food had seemed revolting. But she
was less discriminating then. The only food she could afford
now--the food that is the best obtainable for a majority of the
inhabitants of any city--was simply impossible for her. She
ate only when she could endure no longer. This starvation no
doubt saved her from illness; but at the same time it drained
her strength. Her vitality had been going down, a little each
day--lower and lower. The poverty which had infuriated her at
first was now acting upon her like a soothing poison. The
reason she had not risen to revolt was this slow and subtle
poison that explains the inertia of the tenement poor from
babyhood. To be spirited one must have health or a nervous
system diseased in some of the ways that cause constant
irritation. The disease called poverty is not an irritant, but
an anesthetic. If Susan had been born to that life, her
naturally vivacious temperament would have made her gay in
unconscious wretchedness; as it was, she knew her own misery
and suffered from it keenly--at times hideously--yet was
rapidly losing the power to revolt.
Perhaps it was the wind--yes, it must have been the wind with
its threat of winter--that roused her sluggish blood, that
whipped thought into action. Anything--anything would be right,
if it promised escape. Right--wrong! Hypocritical words for
comfortable people!
That Friday night, after her supper of half-cooked corn meal
and tea, she went instantly to work at washing out clothes.
Mrs. Tucker spent the evening gossiping with the janitress,
came in about midnight. As usual she was full to the brim with
news of misery--of jobs lost, abandoned wives, of abused
children, of poisoning from rotten "fresh" food or from
"embalmed" stuff in cans, of sickness and yet more sickness, of
maiming accidents, of death--news that is the commonplace of
tenement life. She loved to tell these tales with all the
harrowing particulars and to find in each some evidence of the
goodness of God to herself. Often Susan could let her run on
and on without listening. But not that night. She resisted
the impulse to bid her be silent, left the room and stood at
the hall window. When she returned Mrs. Tucker was in bed, was
snoring in a tranquillity that was the reverse of contagious.
With her habitual cheerfulness she had adapted herself to her
changed condition without fretting. She had become as ragged
and as dirty as her neighbors; she so wrought upon Susan's
sensibilities, blunted though they were, that the girl would
have been unable to sleep in the same bed if she had not always
been tired to exhaustion when she lay down. But for that
matter only exhaustion could have kept her asleep in that
vermin-infested hole. Even the fiercest swarms of the insects
that flew or ran or crawled and bit, even the filthy mice
squeaking as they played upon the covers or ran over the faces
of the sleepers, did not often rouse her.
While Mrs. Tucker snored, Susan worked on, getting every piece
of at all fit clothing in her meager wardrobe into the best
possible condition. She did not once glance at the face of the
noisy sleeper--a face homely enough in Mrs. Tucker's waking
hours, hideous now with the mouth open and a few scattered
rotten teeth exposed, and the dark yellow-blue of the unhealthy
gums and tongue.
At dawn Mrs. Tucker awoke with a snort and a start. She rubbed
her eyes with her dirty and twisted and wrinkled fingers--the
nails were worn and broken, turned up as if warped at the
edges, blackened with dirt and bruisings. "Why, are you up
already?" she said to Susan.
"I've not been to bed," replied the girl.
The woman stretched herself, sat up, thrust her thick,
stockinged legs over the side of the bed. She slept in all her
clothing but her skirt, waist, and shoes. She kneeled down
upon the bare, sprung, and slanting floor, said a prayer, arose
with a beaming face. "It's nice and warm in the room. How I
do dread the winter, the cold weather--though no doubt we'll
make out all right! Everything always does turn out well for
me. The Lord takes care of me. I must make me a cup of tea."
"I've made it," said Susan.
The tea was frightful stuff--not tea at all, but cheap
adulterants colored poisonously. Everything they got was of
the same quality; yet the prices they paid for the tiny
quantities they were able to buy at any one time were at a rate
that would have bought the finest quality at the most expensive
grocery in New York.
"Wonder why Mrs. Reardon don't come?" said Mrs. Tucker. Mrs.
Reardon had as her only work a one night job at scrubbing.
"She ought to have come an hour ago."
"Her rheumatism was bad when she started," said Susan. "I
guess she worked slow."
When Mrs. Tucker had finished her second cup she put on her
shoes, overskirt and waist, made a few passes at her hair.
She was ready to go to work.
Susan looked at her, murmured: "An honest, God-fearing working woman!"
"Huh?" said Mrs. Tucker.
"Nothing," replied Susan who would not have permitted her to
hear. It would be cruel to put such ideas before one doomed
beyond hope.
Susan was utterly tired, but even the strong craving for a
stimulant could not draw that tea past her lips. She ate a
piece of dry bread, washed her face, neck, and hands. It was
time to start for the factory.
That day--Saturday--was a half-holiday. Susan drew her week's
earnings--four dollars and ten cents--and came home. Mrs.
Tucker, who had drawn--"thanks to the Lord"--three dollars and
a quarter, was with her. The janitress halted them as they
passed and told them that Mrs. Reardon was dead. She looked
like another scrubwoman, living down the street, who was known
always to carry a sum of money in her dress pocket, the banks
being untrustworthy. Mrs. Reardon, passing along in the dusk
of the early morning, had been hit on the head with a
blackjack. The one blow had killed her.
Violence, tragedy of all kinds, were too commonplace in that
neighborhood to cause more than a slight ripple. An old
scrubwoman would have had to die in some peculiarly awful way
to receive the flattery of agitating an agitated street. Mrs.
Reardon had died what was really almost a natural death. So
the faint disturbance of the terrors of life had long since
disappeared. The body was at the Morgue, of course.
"We'll go up, right away," said Mrs. Tucker.
"I've something to do that can't be put, off," replied Susan.
"I don't like for anyone as young as you to be so hard,"
reproached Mrs. Tucker.
"Is it hard," said Susan, "to see that death isn't nearly so
terrible as life? She's safe and at peace. I've got to _live_."
Mrs. Tucker, eager for an emotional and religious opportunity,
hastened away. Susan went at her wardrobe ironing, darning,
fixing buttonholes, hooks and eyes. She drew a bucket of water
from the tap in the hall and proceeded to wash her hair with
soap; she rinsed it, dried it as well as she could with their
one small, thin towel, left it hanging free for the air to
finish the job.
It had rained all the night before--the second heavy rain in
two months. But at dawn the rain had ceased, and the clouds
had fled before the sun that rules almost undisputed nine
months of the year and wars valiantly to rule the other three
months--not altogether in vain. A few golden strays found
their way into that cavelike room and had been helping her
wonderfully. She bathed herself and scrubbed herself from head
to foot. She manicured her nails, got her hands and feet into
fairly good condition. She put on her best underclothes, her
one remaining pair of undarned stockings, the pair of ties she
had been saving against an emergency. And once more she had
the charm upon which she most prided herself--the charm of an
attractive look about the feet and ankles. She then took up
the dark-blue hat frame--one of a lot of "seconds"--she had
bought for thirty-five cents at a bargain sale, trimmed it with
a broad dark-blue ribbon for which she had paid sixty cents.
She was well pleased--and justly so--with the result. The
trimmed hat might well have cost ten or fifteen dollars--for
the largest part of the price of a woman's hat is usually the
taste of the arrangement of the trimming.
By this time her hair was dry. She did it up with a care she
had not had time to give it in many a week. She put on the
dark-blue serge skirt of the between seasons dress she had
brought with her from Forty-fourth Street; she had not worn it
at all. With the feeble aid of the mirror that distorted her
image into grotesqueness, she put on her hat with the care that
important detail of a woman's toilet always deserves.
She completed her toilet with her one good and unworn
blouse--plain white, the yoke gracefully pointed--and with a
blue neck piece she had been saving. She made a bundle of all
her clothing that was fit for anything--including the unworn
batiste dress Jeffries and Jonas had given her. And into it
she put the pistol she had brought away from Forty-fourth
Street. She made a separate bundle of the Jeffries and Jonas
hat with its valuable plumes. With the two bundles she
descended and went to a pawnshop in Houston Street, to which
she had made several visits.
A dirty-looking man with a short beard fluffy and thick like a
yellow hen's tail lurked behind the counter in the dark little
shop. She put her bundles on the counter, opened them. "How
much can I get for these things?" she asked.
The man examined every piece minutely. "There's really nothing
here but the summer dress and the hat," said he. "And they're
out of style. I can't give you more than four dollars for the
lot--and one for the pistol which is good but old style now.
Five dollars. How'll you have it?"
Susan folded the things and tied up the bundles. "Sorry to
have troubled you," she said, taking one in either hand.
"How much did you expect to get, lady?" asked the pawnbroker.
"Twenty-five dollars."
He laughed, turned toward the back of the shop. As she reached
the door he called from his desk at which he seemed about to
seat himself, "I might squeeze you out ten dollars."
"The plumes on the hat will sell for thirty dollars," said
Susan. "You know as well as I do that ostrich feathers have
gone up."
The man slowly advanced. "I hate to see a customer go away
unsatisfied," said he. "I'll give you twenty dollars."
"Not a cent less than twenty-five. At the next place I'll ask
thirty--and get it."
"I never can stand out against a lady. Give me the stuff."
Susan put it on the counter again. Said she:
"I don't blame you for trying to do me. You're right to try to
buy your way out of hell."
The pawnbroker reflected, could not understand this subtlety,
went behind his counter. He produced a key from his pocket,
unlocked a drawer underneath and took out a large tin box.
With another key from another pocket he unlocked this, threw
back the lid revealing a disorder of papers. From the depths
he fished a paper bag. This contained a roll of bills. He
gave Susan a twenty and a five, both covered with dirt so
thickly that she could scarcely make out the denominations.
"You'll have to give me cleaner money than this," said she.
"You are a fine lady," grumbled he. But he found cleaner bills.
She turned to her room. At sight of her Mrs. Tucker burst out
laughing with delight. "My, but you do look like old times!"
cried she. "How neat and tasty you are! I suppose it's no
need to ask if you're going to church?"
"No," said Susan. "I've got nothing to give, and I don't beg."
"Well, I ain't going there myself, lately--somehow. They got
so they weren't very cordial--or maybe it was me thinking that
way because I wasn't dressed up like. Still I do wish you was
more religious. But you'll come to it, for you're naturally a
good girl. And when you do, the Lord'll give you a more
contented heart. Not that you complain. I never knew anybody,
especially a young person, that took things so quiet. . . .
It can't be you're going to a dance?"
"No," said Susan. "I'm going to leave--go back uptown."
Mrs. Tucker plumped down upon the bed. "Leave for good?" she gasped.
"I've got Nelly Lemayer to take my place here, if you want her,"
said Susan. "Here is my share of the rent for next week and
half a dollar for the extra gas I've burned last night and today."
"And Mrs. Reardon gone, too!" sobbed Mrs. Tucker, suddenly
remembering the old scrubwoman whom both had forgotten. "And
up to that there Morgue they wouldn't let me see her except
where the light was so poor that I couldn't rightly swear it
was her. How brutal everybody is to the poor! If they didn't
have the Lord, what would become of them! And you leaving me
all alone!"
The sobs rose into hysteria. Susan stood impassive. She had
seen again and again how faint the breeze that would throw
those shallow waters into commotion and how soon they were
tranquil again. It was by observing Mrs. Tucker that she first
learned an important unrecognized truth about human nature that
amiable, easily sympathetic and habitually good-humored people
are invariably hard of heart. In this parting she had no sense
of loss, none of the melancholy that often oppresses us when we
separate from someone to whom we are indifferent yet feel bound
by the tie of misfortunes borne together. Mrs. Tucker, fallen
into the habits of their surroundings, was for her simply part
of them. And she was glad she was leaving them--forever, she
hoped. _Christian_, fleeing the City of Destruction, had no
sterner mandate to flight than her instinct was suddenly urging
upon her.
When Mrs. Tucker saw that her tears were not appreciated, she
decided that they were unnecessary. She dried her eyes and said:
"Anyhow, I reckon Mrs. Reardon's taking-off was a mercy."
"She's better dead," said Susan. She had abhorred the old
woman, even as she pitied and sheltered her. She had a way of
fawning and cringing and flattering--no doubt in well meaning
attempt to show gratitude--but it was unendurable to Susan.
And now that she was dead and gone, there was no call for
further pretenses.
"You ain't going right away?" said Mrs. Tucker.
"Yes," said Susan.
"You ought to stay to supper."
Supper! That revolting food! "No, I must go right away,"
replied Susan.
"Well, you'll come to see me. And maybe you'll be back with
us. You might go farther and do worse. On my way from the
morgue I dropped in to see a lady friend on the East Side. I
guess the good Lord has abandoned the East Side, there being
nothing there but Catholics and Jews, and no true religion.
It's dreadful the way things is over there--the girls are
taking to the streets in droves. My lady friend was telling me
that some of the mothers is sending their little girls out
streetwalking, and some's even taking out them that's too young
to be trusted to go alone. And no money in it, at that. And
food and clothing prices going up and up. Meat and vegetables
two and three times what they was a few years ago. And rents!"
Mrs. Tucker threw up her hands.
"I must be going," said Susan. "Good-by."
She put out her hand, but Mrs. Tucker insisted on kissing her.
She crossed Washington Square, beautiful in the soft evening
light, and went up Fifth Avenue. She felt that she was
breathing the air of a different world as she walked along the
broad clean sidewalk with the handsome old houses on either
side, with carriages and automobiles speeding past, with clean,
happy-faced, well dressed human beings in sight everywhere. It
was like coming out of the dank darkness of Dismal Swamp into
smiling fields with a pure, star-spangled sky above. She was
free--free! It might be for but a moment; still it was freedom,
infinitely sweet because of past slavery and because of the
fear of slavery closing in again. She had abandoned the old
toilet articles. She had only the clothes she was wearing, the
thirty-one dollars divided between her stockings, and the
two-dollar bill stuffed into the palm of her left glove.
She had walked but a few hundred feet. She had advanced into
a region no more prosperous to the eye than that she had been
working in every day. Yet she had changed her world--because
she had changed her point of view. The strata that form
society lie in roughly parallel lines one above the other. The
flow of all forms of the currents of life is horizontally along
these strata, never vertically from one stratum to another.
These strata, lying apparently in contact, one upon another,
are in fact abysmally separated. There is not--and in the
nature of things never can be any genuine human sympathy
between any two strata. We _sympathize_ in our own stratum, or
class; toward other strata--other classes--our attitude is
necessarily a looking up or a looking down. Susan, a bit of
flotsam, ascending, descending, ascending across the social
layers--belonging nowhere having attachments, not sympathies,
a real settled lot nowhere--Susan was once more upward bound.
At the corner of Fourteenth Street there was a shop with large
mirrors in the show windows. She paused to examine herself.
She found she had no reason to be disturbed about her
appearance. Her dress and hat looked well; her hair was
satisfactory; the sharp air had brought some life to the pallor
of her cheeks, and the release from the slums had restored some
of the light to her eyes. "Why did I stay there so long?" she
demanded of herself. Then, "How have I suddenly got the
courage to leave?" She had no answer to either question. Nor
did she care for an answer. She was not even especially
interested in what was about to happen to her.
The moment she found herself above Twenty-third Street and in
the old familiar surroundings, she felt an irresistible longing
to hear about Rod Spenser. She was like one who has been on a
far journey, leaving behind him everything that has been life
to him; he dismisses it all because he must, until he finds
himself again in his own country, in his old surroundings.
She went into the Hoffman House and at the public telephone
got the _Herald_ office. "Is Mr. Drumley there?"
"No," was the reply. "He's gone to Europe."
"Did Mr. Spenser go with him?"
"Mr. Spenser isn't here--hasn't been for a long time.
He's abroad too. Who is this?"
"Thank you," said Susan, hanging up the receiver.
She drew a deep breath of relief.
She left the hotel by the women's entrance in Broadway. It was
six o'clock. The sky was clear--a typical New York sky with
air that intoxicated blowing from it--air of the sea--air of
the depths of heaven. A crescent moon glittered above the
Diana on the Garden tower. It was Saturday night and Broadway
was thronged--with men eager to spend in pleasure part of the
week's wages or salary they had just drawn; with women
sparkling-eyed and odorous of perfumes and eager to help the
men. The air was sharp--was the ocean air of New York at its
delicious best. And the slim, slightly stooped girl with the
earnest violet-gray eyes and the sad bitter mouth from whose
lips the once brilliant color had now fled was ready for
whatever might come. She paused at the corner, and gazed up
brilliantly lighted Broadway.
"Now!" she said half aloud and, like an expert swimmer
adventuring the rapids, she advanced into the swift-moving
crowd of the highway of New York's gayety.
V
AT the corner of Twenty-sixth Street a man put himself squarely
across her path. She was attracted by the twinkle in his
good-natured eyes. He was a youngish man, had the stoutness of
indulgence in a fondness for eating and drinking--but the
stoutness was still well within the bounds of decency. His
clothing bore out the suggestion of his self-assured way of
stopping her--the suggestion of a confidence-giving prosperity.
"You look as if you needed a drink, too," said he. "How about
it, lady with the lovely feet?"
For the first time in her life she was feeling on an equality
with man. She gave him the same candidly measuring glance that
man gives man. She saw good-nature, audacity without
impudence--at least not the common sort of impudence. She
smiled merrily, glad of the chance to show her delight that she
was once more back in civilization after the long sojourn in
the prison workshops where it is manufactured. She said:
"A drink? Thank you--yes."
"That's a superior quality of smile you've got there," said he.
"That, and those nice slim feet of yours ought to win for you
anywhere. Let's go to the Martin."
"Down University Place?"
The stout young man pointed his slender cane across the street.
"You must have been away."
"Yes," said the girl. "I've been--dead."
"I'd like to try that myself--if I could be sure of coming to
life in little old New York." And he looked round with
laughing eyes as if the lights, the crowds, the champagne-like
air intoxicated him.
At the first break in the thunderous torrent of traffic they
crossed Broadway and went in at the Twenty-sixth Street
entrance. The restaurant, to the left, was empty. Its little
tables were ready, however, for the throng of diners soon to
come. Susan had difficulty in restraining herself. She was
almost delirious with delight. She was agitated almost to
tears by the freshness, the sparkle in the glow of the
red-shaded candles, in the colors and odors of the flowers
decorating every table. While she had been down there all this
had been up here--waiting for her! Why had she stayed down
there? But then, why had she gone? What folly, what madness!
To suffer such horrors for no reason--beyond some vague,
clinging remnant of a superstition--or had it been just plain
insanity? "Yes, I've been crazy--out of my head. The break
with--Rod--upset my mind."
Her companion took her into the cafe to the right. He seated
her on one of the leather benches not far from the door, seated
himself in a chair opposite; there was a narrow marble-topped
table between them. On Susan's right sat a too conspicuously
dressed but somehow important looking actress; on her left, a
shopkeeper's fat wife. Opposite each woman sat the sort of man
one would expect to find with her. The face of the actress's
man interested her. It was a long pale face, the mouth weary,
in the eyes a strange hot fire of intense enthusiasm. He was
young--and old--and neither. Evidently he had lived every
minute of every year of his perhaps forty years. He was
wearing a quiet suit of blue and his necktie was of a darker
shade of the same color. His clothes were draped upon his good
figure with a certain fascinating distinction. He was smoking
an unusually long and thick cigarette. The slender strong
white hand he raised and lowered was the hand of an artist. He
might be a bad man, a very bad man--his face had an expression
of freedom, of experience, that made such an idea as
conventionality in connection with him ridiculous. But however
bad he might be, Susan felt sure it would be an artistic kind
of badness, without vulgarity. He might have reached the stage
at which morality ceases to be a conviction, a matter of
conscience, and becomes a matter of preference, of tastes--and
he surely had good taste in conduct no less than in dress and
manner. The woman with him evidently wished to convince him
that she loved him, to convince those about her that they were
lovers; the man evidently knew exactly what she had in
mind--for he was polite, attentive, indifferent, and--Susan
suspected--secretly amused.
Susan's escort leaned toward her and said in a low tone, "The
two at the next table--the woman's Mary Rigsdall, the actress,
and the man's Brent, the fellow who writes plays." Then in a
less cautious tone, "What are you drinking?"
"What are _you_ drinking?" asked Susan, still covertly watching Brent.
"You are going to dine with me?"
"I've no engagement."
"Then let's have Martinis--and I'll go get a table and order
dinner while the waiter's bringing them."
When Susan was alone, she gazed round the crowded cafe, at the
scores of interesting faces--thrillingly interesting to her
after her long sojourn among countenances merely expressing
crude elemental appetites if anything at all beyond toil,
anxiety, privation, and bad health. These were the faces of
the triumphant class--of those who had wealth or were getting
it, fame or were striving for it, of those born to or acquiring
position of some sort among the few thousands who lord it over
the millions. These were the people among whom she belonged.
Why was she having such a savage struggle to attain it? Then,
all in an instant the truth she had been so long groping for in
vain flung itself at her. None of these women, none of the
women of the prosperous classes would be there but for the
assistance and protection of the men. She marveled at her
stupidity in not having seen the obvious thing clearly long
ago. The successful women won their success by disposing of
their persons to advantage--by getting the favor of some man of
ability. Therefore, she, a woman, must adopt that same policy
if she was to have a chance at the things worth while in life.
She must make the best bargain--or series of bargains--she
could. And as her necessities were pressing she must lose no
time. She understood now the instinct that had forced her to
fly from South Fifth Avenue, that had overruled her hesitation
and had compelled her to accept the good-natured, prosperous
man's invitation. . . . There was no other way open to her.
She must not evade that fact; she must accept it. Other ways
there might be--for other women. But not for her, the outcast
without friends or family, the woman alone, with no one to lean
upon or to give her anything except in exchange for what she
had to offer that was marketable. She must make the bargain
she could, not waste time in the folly of awaiting a bargain to
her liking. Since she was living in the world and wished to
continue to live there, she must accept the world's terms. To
be sad or angry either one because the world did not offer her
as attractive terms as it apparently offered many other
women--the happy and respected wives and mothers of the
prosperous classes, for instance--to rail against that was
silly and stupid, was unworthy of her intelligence. She would
do as best she could, and move along, keeping her eyes open;
and perhaps some day a chance for much better terms might
offer--for the best--for such terms as that famous actress
there had got. She looked at Mary Rigsdall. An expression in
her interesting face--the latent rather than the surface
expression--set Susan to wondering whether, if she knew
Rigsdall's _whole_ story--or any woman's whole story--she might
not see that the world was not bargaining so hardly with her,
after all. Or any man's whole story. There her eyes shifted
to Rigsdall's companion, the famous playwright of whom she had
so often heard Rod and his friends talk.
She was startled to find that his gaze was upon her--an
all-seeing look that penetrated to the very core of her being.
He either did not note or cared nothing about her color of
embarrassment. He regarded her steadily until, so she felt, he
had seen precisely what she was, had become intimately
acquainted with her. Then he looked away. It chagrined her
that his eyes did not again turn in her direction; she felt
that he had catalogued her as not worth while. She listened to
the conversation of the two. The woman did the talking, and
her subject was herself--her ability as an actress, her
conception of some part she either was about to play or was
hoping to play. Susan, too young to have acquired more than
the rudiments of the difficult art of character study, even had
she had especial talent for it--which she had not--Susan
decided that the famous Rigsdall was as shallow and vain as Rod
had said all stage people were.
The waiter brought the cocktails and her stout young companion
came back, beaming at the thought of the dinner he had
painstakingly ordered. As he reached the table he jerked his
head in self-approval. "It'll be a good one," said he.
"Saturday night dinner--and after--means a lot to me. I work
hard all week. Saturday nights I cut loose. Sundays I sleep
and get ready to scramble again on Monday for the dollars." He
seated himself, leaned toward her with elevated glass. "What
name?" inquired he.
"Susan."
"That's a good old-fashioned name. Makes me see the
hollyhocks, and the hens scratching for worms. Mine's Howland.
Billy Howland. I came from Maryland . . . and I'm mighty
glad I did. I wouldn't be from anywhere else for worlds, and
I wouldn't be there for worlds. Where do you hail from?"
"The West," said Susan.
"Well, the men in your particular corner out yonder must be a
pretty poor lot to have let you leave. I spotted you for mine
the minute I saw you--Susan. I hope you're not as quiet as
your name. Another cocktail?"
"Thanks."
"Like to drink?"
"I'm going to do more of it hereafter."
"Been laying low for a while--eh?"
"Very low," said Susan. Her eyes were sparkling now; the
cocktail had begun to stir her long languid blood.
"Live with your family?"
"I haven't any. I'm free."
"On the stage?"
"I'm thinking of going on."
"And meanwhile?"
"Meanwhile--whatever comes."
Billy Howland's face was radiant. "I had a date tonight and
the lady threw me down. One of those drummer's wives that take
in washing to add to the family income while hubby's flirting
round the country. This hubby came home unexpectedly. I'm
glad he did."
He beamed with such whole-souled good-nature that Susan
laughed. "Thanks. Same to you," said she.
"Hope you're going to do a lot of that laughing," said he.
"It's the best I've heard--such a quiet, gay sound. I sure do
have the best luck. Until five years ago there was nothing
doing for Billy--hall bedroom--Wheeling stogies--one shirt and
two pairs of cuffs a week--not enough to buy a lady an
ice-cream soda. All at once--bang! The hoodoo busted, and
everything that arrived was for William C. Howland. Better
get aboard."
"Here I am."
"Hold on tight. I pay no attention to the speed laws, and
round the corners on two wheels. Do you like good things to eat?"
"I haven't eaten for six months."
"You must have been out home. Ah!--There's the man to tell us
dinner's ready."
They finished the second cocktail. Susan was pleased to note
that Brent was again looking at her; and she thought--though
she suspected it might be the cocktail--that there was a
question in his look--a question about her which he had been
unable to answer to his satisfaction. When she and Howland
were at one of the small tables against the wall in the
restaurant, she said to him:
"You know Mr. Brent?"
"The play man? Lord, no. I'm a plain business dub. He
wouldn't bother with me. You like that sort of man?"
"I want to get on the stage, if I can," was Susan's diplomatic reply.
"Well--let's have dinner first. I've ordered champagne, but if
you prefer something else----"
"Champagne is what I want. I hope it's very dry."
Howland's eyes gazed tenderly at her. "I do like a woman who
knows the difference between champagne and carbonated sirup.
I think you and I've got a lot of tastes in common. I like
eating--so do you. I like drinking--so do you. I like a good
time--so do you. You're a little bit thin for my taste, but
you'll fatten up. I wonder what makes your lips so pale."
"I'd hate to remind myself by telling you," said Susan.
The restaurant was filling. Most of the men and women were in
evening dress. Each arriving woman brought with her a new
exhibition of extravagance in costume, diffused a new variety
of powerful perfume. The orchestra in the balcony was playing
waltzes and the liveliest Hungarian music and the most sensuous
strains from Italy and France and Spain. And before her was
food!--food again!--not horrible stuff unfit for beasts, worse
than was fed to beasts, but human food--good things, well
cooked and well served. To have seen her, to have seen the
expression of her eyes, without knowing her history and without
having lived as she had lived, would have been to think her a
glutton. Her spirits giddied toward the ecstatic. She began
to talk--commenting on the people about her--the one subject she
could venture with her companion. As she talked and drank, he
ate and drank, stuffing and gorging himself, but with a
frankness of gluttony that delighted her. She found she could
not eat much, but she liked to see eating; she who had so long
been seeing only poverty, bolting wretched food and drinking
the vilest kinds of whiskey and beer, of alleged coffee and
tea--she reveled in Howland's exhibition. She must learn to
live altogether in her senses, never to think except about an
appetite. Where could she find a better teacher? . . .
They drank two quarts of champagne, and with the coffee she
took _creme de menthe_ and he brandy. And as the sensuous
temperament that springs from intense vitality reasserted
itself, the opportunity before her lost all its repellent
features, became the bright, vivid countenance of lusty youth,
irradiating the joy of living.
"I hear there's a lively ball up at Terrace Garden," said he.
"Want to go?"
"That'll be fine!" cried she.
She saw it would have taken nearly all the money she possessed
to have paid that bill. About four weeks' wages for one
dinner! Thousands of families living for two weeks on what she
and he had consumed in two hours! She reached for her half
empty champagne glass, emptied it. She must forget all those
things! "I've played the fool once. I've learned my lesson.
Surely I'll never do it again." As she drank, her eyes chanced
upon the clock. Half-past ten. Mrs. Tucker had probably just
fallen asleep. And Mrs. Reardon was going out to scrub--going
out limping and groaning with rheumatism. No, Mrs. Reardon was
lying up at the morgue dead, her one chance to live lost
forever. Dead! Yet better off than Mrs. Tucker lying alive.
Susan could see her--the seamed and broken and dirty old
remnant of a face--could see the vermin--and the mice could
hear the snoring--the angry grunt and turning over as the
insects----
"I want another drink--right away," she cried.
"Sure!" said Howland. "I need one more, too."
They drove in a taxi to Terrace Garden, he holding her in his
arms and kissing her with an intoxicated man's enthusiasm.
"You certainly are sweet," said he. "The wine on your breath
is like flowers. Gosh, but I'm glad that husband came home!
Like me a little?"
"I'm so happy, I feel like standing up and screaming," declared she.
"Good idea," cried he. Whereupon he released a war whoop and
they both went off into a fit of hysterical laughter. When it
subsided he said, "I sized you up as a live wire the minute I
saw you. But you're even better than I thought. What are you
in such a good humor about?"
"You couldn't understand if I told you," replied she. "You'd
have to go and live where I've been living--live there as long
as I have."
"Convent?"
"Worse. Worse than a jail."
The ball proved as lively as they hoped. A select company from
the Tenderloin was attending, and the regulars were all of the
gayest crowd among the sons and daughters of artisans and small
merchants up and down the East Side. Not a few of the women
were extremely pretty. All, or almost all, were young, and
those who on inspection proved to be older than eighteen or
twenty were acting younger than the youngest. Everyone had
been drinking freely, and continued to drink. The orchestra
played continuously. The air was giddy with laughter and song.
Couples hugged and kissed in corners, and finally openly on the
dancing floor. For a while Susan and Howland danced together.
But soon they made friends with the crowd and danced with
whoever was nearest. Toward three in the morning it flashed
upon her that she had not even seen him for many a dance. She
looked round--searched for him--got a blond-bearded man in
evening dress to assist her.
"The last seen of your stout friend," this man finally
reported, "he was driving away in a cab with a large lady from
Broadway. He was asleep, but I guess she wasn't."
A sober thought winked into her whirling brain--he had warned
her to hold on tight, and she had lost her head--and her
opportunity. A bad start--a foolishly bad start. But out
winked the glimpse of sobriety and Susan laughed. "That's the
last I'll ever see of _him_," said she.
This seemed to give Blond-Beard no regrets. Said he: "Let's
you and I have a little supper. I'd call it breakfast, only
then we couldn't have champagne."
And they had supper--six at the table, all uproarious, Susan
with difficulty restrained from a skirt dance on the table up
and down among the dishes and bottles. It was nearly five
o'clock when she and Blond-Beard helped each other toward a cab.
"What's your address?" said he.
"The same as yours," replied she drowsily.
Late that afternoon she established herself in a room with a
bath in West Twenty-ninth Street not far from Broadway. The
exterior of the house was dingy and down-at-the-heel. But the
interior was new and scrupulously clean. Several other young
women lived there alone also, none quite so well installed as
Susan, who had the only private bath and was paying twelve
dollars a week. The landlady, frizzled and peroxide,
explained--without adding anything to what she already
knew--that she could have "privileges," but cautioned her
against noise. "I can't stand for it," said she. "First
offense--out you go. This house is for ladies, and only
gentlemen that know how to conduct themselves as a gentleman
should with a lady are allowed to come here."
Susan paid a week in advance, reducing to thirty-one dollars
her capital which Blond-Beard had increased to forty-three.
The young lady who lived at the other end of the hall smiled at
her, when both happened to glance from their open doors at the
same time. Susan invited her to call and she immediately
advanced along the hall in the blue silk kimono she was wearing
over her nightgown.
"My name's Ida Driscoll," said she, showing a double row of
charming white teeth--her chief positive claim to beauty.
She was short, was plump about the shoulders but slender in the
hips. Her reddish brown hair was neatly done over a big rat,
and was so spread that its thinness was hidden well enough to
deceive masculine eyes. Nor would a man have observed that one
of her white round shoulders was full two inches higher than
the other. Her skin was good, her features small and
irregular, her eyes shrewd but kindly.
"My name's"--Susan hesitated--"Lorna Sackville."
"I guess Lorna and Ida'll be enough for us to bother to
remember," laughed Miss Driscoll. "The rest's liable to
change. You've just come, haven't you?"
"About an hour ago. I've got only a toothbrush, a comb, a
washrag and a cake of soap. I bought them on my way here."
"Baggage lost--eh?" said Ida, amused.
"No," admitted Susan. "I'm beginning an entire new deal."
"I'll lend you a nightgown. I'm too short for my other things
to fit you."
"Oh, I can get along. What's good for a headache? I'm nearly
crazy with it."
"Wine?"
"Yes."
"Wait a minute." Ida, with bedroom slippers clattering,
hurried back to her room, returned with a bottle of bromo
seltzer and in the bathroom fixed Susan a dose. "You'll feel
all right in half an hour or so. Gee, but you're swell--with
your own bathroom."
Susan shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
Ida shook her head gravely. "You ought to save your money. I do."
"Later--perhaps. Just now--I _must_ have a fling."
Ida seemed to understand. She went on to say: "I was in
millinery. But in this town there's nothing in anything unless
you have capital or a backer. I got tired of working for five
per, with ten or fifteen as the top notch. So I quit, kissed
my folks up in Harlem good-by and came down to look about. As
soon as I've saved enough I'm going to start a business. That'll
be about a couple of years--maybe sooner, if I find an angel."
"I'm thinking of the stage."
"Cut it out!" cried Ida. "It's on the bum. There's more money
and less worry in straight sporting--if you keep respectable.
Of course, there's nothing in out and out sporting."
"Oh, I haven't decided on anything. My head is better."
"Sure! If the dose I gave you don't knock it you can get one
at the drug store two blocks up Sixth Avenue that'll do the
trick. Got a dinner date?"
"No. I haven't anything on hand."
"I think you and I might work together," said Ida. "You're
thin and tallish. I'm short and fattish. We'd catch 'em
coming and going."
"That sounds good," said Susan.
"You're new to--to the business?"
"In a way--yes."
"I thought so. We all soon get a kind of a professional look.
You haven't got it. Still, so many dead respectable women
imitate nowadays, and paint and use loud perfumes, that
sporting women aren't nearly so noticeable. Seems to me the
men's tastes even for what they want at home are getting louder
and louder all the time. They hate anything that looks slow.
And in our business it's harder and harder to please them--except
the yaps from the little towns and the college boys. A woman
has to be up to snuff if she gets on. If she looks what she
is, men won't have her--nor if she is what she looks."
Susan had not lived where every form of viciousness is openly
discussed and practiced, without having learned the things
necessary to a full understanding of Ida's technical phrases
and references. The liveliness that had come with the
departure of the headache vanished. To change the subject she
invited Ida to dine with her.
"What's the use of your spending money in a restaurant?"
objected Ida. "You eat with me in my room. I always cook
myself something when I ain't asked out by some one of my
gentleman friends. I can cook you a chop and warm up a can of
French peas and some dandy tea biscuits I bought yesterday."
Susan accepted the invitation, promising that when she was
established she would reciprocate. As it was about six, they
arranged to have the dinner at seven, Susan to dress in the
meantime. The headache had now gone, even to that last
heaviness which seems to be an ominous threat of a return.
When she was alone, she threw off her clothes, filled the big
bathtub with water as hot as she could stand it. Into this she
gently lowered herself until she was able to relax and recline
without discomfort. Then she stood up and with the soap and
washrag gave herself the most thorough scrubbing of her life.
Time after time she soaped and rubbed and scrubbed, and dipped
herself in the hot water. When she felt that she had restored
her body to some where near her ideal of cleanness, she let the
water run out and refilled the tub with even hotter water. In
this she lay luxuriously, reveling in the magnificent
sensations of warmth and utter cleanliness. Her eyes closed;
a delicious languor stole over her and through her, soothing
every nerve. She slept.
She was awakened by Ida, who had entered after knocking and
calling at the outer door in vain. Susan slowly opened her
eyes, gazed at Ida with a soft dreamy smile. "You don't know
what this means. It seems to me I was never quite so
comfortable or so happy in my life."
"It's a shame to disturb you," said Ida. "But dinner's ready.
Don't stop to dress first. I'll bring you a kimono."
Susan turned on the cold water, and the bath rapidly changed
from warm to icy. When she had indulged in the sense of cold
as delightful in its way as the sense of warmth, she rubbed her
glowing skin with a rough towel until she was rose-red from
head to foot. Then she put on stockings, shoes and the pink
kimono Ida had brought, and ran along the hall to dinner. As
she entered Ida's room, Ida exclaimed, "How sweet and pretty
you do look! You sure ought to make a hit!"
"I feel like a human being for the first time in--it seems
years--ages--to me."
"You've got a swell color--except your lips. Have they always
been pale like that?"
"No."
"I thought not. It don't seem to fit in with your style. You
ought to touch 'em up. You look too serious and innocent,
anyhow. They make a rouge now that'll stick through
everything--eating, drinking--anything."
Susan regarded herself critically in the glass. "I'll see,"
she said.
The odor of the cooking chops thrilled Susan like music. She
drew a chair up to the table, sat in happy-go-lucky fashion,
and attacked the chop, the hot biscuit, and the peas, with an
enthusiasm that inspired Ida to imitation. "You know how to
cook a chop," she said to Ida. "And anybody who can cook a
chop right can cook. Cooking's like playing the piano. If you
can do the simple things perfectly, you're ready to do anything."
"Wait till I have a flat of my own," said Ida. "I'll show you
what eating means. And I'll have it, too, before very long.
Maybe we'll live together. I was to a fortune teller's
yesterday. That's the only way I waste money. I go to fortune
tellers nearly every day. But then all the girls do. You get
your money's worth in excitement and hope, whether there's
anything in it or not. Well, the fortune teller she said I was
to meet a dark, slender person who was to change the whole
course of my life--that all my troubles would roll away--and
that if any more came, they'd roll away, too. My, but she did
give me a swell fortune, and only fifty cents! I'll take you
to her."
Ida made black coffee and the two girls, profoundly contented,
drank it and talked with that buoyant cheerfulness which
bubbles up in youth on the slightest pretext. In this case the
pretext was anything but slight, for both girls had health as
well as youth, had that freedom from harassing responsibility
which is the chief charm of every form of unconventional life.
And Susan was still in the first flush of the joy of escape
from the noisome prison whose poisons had been corroding her,
soul and body. No, poison is not a just comparison; what
poison in civilization parallels, or even approaches, in
squalor, in vileness of food and air, in wretchedness of
shelter and clothing, the tenement life that is really the
typical life of the city? From time to time Susan, suffused
with the happiness that is too deep for laughter, too deep for
tears even, gazed round like a dreamer at those cheerful
comfortable surroundings and drew a long breath--stealthily, as
if she feared she would awaken and be again in South Fifth
Avenue, of rags and filth, of hideous toil without hope.
"You'd better save your money to put in the millinery business
with me," Ida advised. "I can show you how to make a lot.
Sometimes I clear as high as a hundred a week, and I don't
often fall below seventy-five. So many girls go about this
business in a no account way, instead of being regular and
businesslike."
Susan strove to hide the feelings aroused by this practical
statement of what lay before her. Those feelings filled her
with misgiving. Was the lesson still unlearned? Obviously Ida
was right; there must be plan, calculation, a definite line
laid out and held to, or there could not but be failure and
disaster. And yet--Susan's flesh quivered and shrank away.
She struggled against it, but she could not conquer it.
Experience had apparently been in vain; her character had
remained unchanged. . . . She must compel herself. She
must do what she had to do; she must not ruin everything by
imitating the people of the tenements with their fatal habit of
living from day to day only, and taking no thought for the
morrow except fatuously to hope and dream that all would be well.
While she was fighting with herself, Ida had been talking
on--the same subject. When Susan heard again, Ida was saying:
"Now, take me, for instance. I don't smoke or drink. There's
nothing in either one--especially drink. Of course sometimes
a girl's got to drink. A man watches her too close for her to
dodge out. But usually you can make him think you're as full
as he is, when you really are cold sober."
"Do the men always drink when they--come with--with--us?" asked Susan.
"Most always. They come because they want to turn themselves
loose. That's why a girl's got to be careful not to make a man
feel nervous or shy. A respectable woman's game is to be
modest and innocent. With us, the opposite. They're both
games; one's just as good as the other."
"I don't think I could get along at all--at this," confessed
Susan with an effort, "unless I drank too much--so that I was
reckless and didn't care what happened."
Ida looked directly into her eyes; Susan's glance fell and a
flush mounted. After a pause Ida went on:
"A girl does feel that way at first. A girl that marries as
most of them do--because the old ones are pushing her out of
the nest and she's got no place else to go--she feels the same
way till she hardens to it. Of course, you've got to get broke
into any business."
"Go on," said Susan eagerly. "You are so sensible. You must
teach me."
"Common sense is a thing you don't often hear--especially about
getting on in the world. But, as I was saying--one of my
gentlemen friends is a lawyer--such a nice fellow--so liberal.
Gives me a present of twenty or twenty-five extra, you
understand--every time he makes a killing downtown. He asked
me once how I felt when I started in; and when I told him, he
said, `That's exactly the way I felt the first time I won a
case for a client I knew was a dirty rascal and in the wrong.
But now--I take that sort of thing as easy as you do.' He says
the thing is to get on, no matter how, and that one way's as
good as another. And he's mighty right. You soon learn that
in little old New York, where you've got to have the mon. or
you get the laugh and the foot--the swift, hard kick. Clean up
after you've arrived, he says--and don't try to keep clean
while you're working--and don't stop for baths and things while
you're at the job."
Susan was listening with every faculty she possessed.
"He says he talks the other sort of thing--the dope--the fake
stuff--just as the rest of the hustlers do. He says it's
necessary in order to keep the people fooled--that if they got
wise to the real way to succeed, then there'd be nobody to rob
and get rich off of. Oh, he's got it right. He's a smart one."
The sad, bitter expression was strong in Susan's face.
After a pause, Ida went on: "If a girl's an ignorant fool or
squeamish, she don't get up in this business any more than in
any other. But if she keeps a cool head, and don't take lovers
unless they pay their way, and don't drink, why she can keep
her self-respect and not have to take to the streets."
Susan lifted her head eagerly. "Don't have to take to the
streets?" she echoed.
"Certainly not," declared Ida. "I very seldom let a man pick
me up after dark--unless he looks mighty good. I go out in the
daytime. I pretend I'm an actress out of a job for the time
being, or a forelady in a big shop who's taking a day or so
off, or a respectable girl living with her parents. I put a
lot of money into clothes--quiet, ladylike clothes. Mighty
good investment. If you ain't got clothes in New York you
can't do any kind of business. I go where a nice class of men
hangs out, and I never act bold, but just flirt timidly, as so
many respectable girls or semi-respectables do. But when a
girl plays that game, she has to be careful not to make a man
think he ain't expected to pay. The town's choked full of men
on the lookout for what they call love--which means, for
something cheap or, better still, free. Men are just crazy
about themselves. Nothing easier than to fool 'em--and
nothing's harder than to make 'em think you ain't stuck on 'em.
I tell you, a girl in our life has a chance to learn men. They
turn themselves inside out to us."
Susan, silent, her thoughts flowing like a mill race, helped
Ida with the dishes. Then they dressed and went together for
a walk. It being Sunday evening, the streets were quiet. They
sauntered up Fifth Avenue as far as Fifty-ninth Street and
back. Ida's calm and sensible demeanor gave Susan much needed
courage every time a man spoke to them. None of these men
happened to be up to Ida's standard, which was high.
"No use wasting time on snide people," explained she. "We
don't want drinks and a gush of loose talk, and I saw at a
glance that was all those chappies were good for."
They returned home at half-past nine without adventure. Toward
midnight one of Ida's regulars called and Susan was free to go
to bed. She slept hardly at all. Ever before her mind hovered
a nameless, shapeless horror. And when she slept she dreamed
of her wedding night, woke herself screaming, "Please, Mr.
Ferguson--please!"
Ida had three chief sources of revenue.
The best was five men--her "regular gentleman friends"--who
called by appointment from time to time. These paid her ten
dollars apiece, and occasionally gave her presents of money or
jewelry--nothing that amounted to much. From them she averaged
about thirty-five dollars a week. Her second source was a Mrs.
Thurston who kept in West Fifty-sixth Street near Ninth Avenue
a furnished-room house of the sort that is on the official--and
also the "revenue"--lists of the police and the anti-vice
societies. This lady had a list of girls and married women
upon whom she could call. Gentlemen using her house for
rendezvous were sometimes disappointed by the ladies with whom
they were intriguing. Again a gentleman grew a little weary of
his perhaps too respectable or too sincerely loving ladylove
and appealed to Mrs. Thurston. She kept her list of availables
most select and passed them off as women of good position
willing to supplement a small income, or to punish stingy
husbands or fathers and at the same time get the money they
needed for dress and bridge, for matinees and lunches. Mrs.
Thurston insisted--and Ida was inclined to believe--that there
were genuine cases of this kind on the list.
"It's mighty hard for women with expensive tastes and small
means to keep straight in New York," said she to Susan. "It
costs so much to live, and there are so many ways to spend
money. And they always have rich lady friends who set an
extravagant pace. They've got to dress--and to kind of keep up
their end. So--" Ida laughed, went on: "Besides the city
women are getting so they like a little sporty novelty as much
as their brothers and husbands and fathers do. Oh, I'm not
ashamed of my business any more. We're as good as the others,
and we're not hypocrites. As my lawyer friend says,
everybody's got to make a _good_ living, and good livings can't
be made on the ways that used to be called on the
level--they're called damfool ways now."
Ida's third source of income was to her the most attractive
because it had such a large gambling element in it. This was
her flirtations as a respectable woman in search of lively
amusement and having to take care not to be caught. There are
women of all kinds who delight in deceiving men because it
gives them a sweet stealthy sense of superiority to the
condescending sex. In women of the Ida class this pleasure
becomes as much a passion as it is in the respectable woman
whom her husband tries to enslave. With Susan, another woman
and one in need of education, Ida was simple and scrupulously
truthful. But it would have been impossible for a man to get
truth as to anything from her. She amused herself inventing
plausible romantic stories about herself that she might enjoy
the gullibility of the boastfully superior and patronizing
male. She was devoid of sentiment, even of passion. Yet at
times she affected both in the most extreme fashion. And
afterward, with peals of laughter, she would describe to Susan
how the man had acted, what an ass she had made of him.
"Men despise us," she said. "But it's nothing to the way I
despise them. The best of them are rotten beasts when they
show themselves as they are. And they haven't any mercy on us.
It's too ridiculous. Men despise a man who is virtuous and a
woman who isn't. What rot!"
She deceived the "regulars" without taking the trouble to
remember her deceptions. They caught her lying so often that
she knew they thought her untruthful through and through. But
this only gave her an opportunity for additional pleasure--the
pleasure of inventing lies that they would believe in spite of
their distrust of her. "Anyhow," said she, "haven't you
noticed the liars everybody's on to are always believed and
truthful people are doubted?"
Upon the men with whom she flirted, she practiced the highly
colored romances it would have been useless to try upon the
regulars. Her greatest triumph at this game was a hard luck
story she had told so effectively that the man had given her
two hundred dollars. Most of her romances turned about her own
ruin. As a matter of fact, she had told Susan the exact truth
when she said she had taken up her mode of life deliberately;
she had grown weary and impatient of the increasing
poverty of a family which, like so many of the artisan and
small merchant and professional classes in this day of
concentrating wealth and spreading tastes for comfort and
luxury, was on its way down from comfort toward or through the
tenements. She was a type of the recruits that are swelling
the prostitute class in ever larger numbers and are driving the
prostitutes of the tenement class toward starvation--where they
once dominated the profession even to its highest ranks, even
to the fashionable _cocotes_ who prey upon the second generation
of the rich. But Ida never told her lovers her plain and
commonplace tale of yielding to the irresistible pressure of
economic forces. She had made men weep at her recital of her
wrongs. It had even brought her offers of marriage--none,
however, worth accepting.
"I'd be a boob to marry a man with less than fifteen or twenty
thousand a year, wouldn't I?" said she. "Why, two of the
married men who come to see me regularly give me more than they
give their wives for pin money. And in a few years I'll be
having my own respectable business, with ten thousand
income--maybe more--and as well thought of as the next woman."
Ida's dream was a house in the country, a fine flat in town, a
husband in some "refined" profession and children at high-class
schools. "And I'll get there, don't you doubt it!" exclaimed
she. "Others have--of course, you don't know about
them--they've looked out for that. Yes, lots of others
have--but--well, just you watch your sister Ida."
And Susan felt that she would indeed arrive. Already she had
seen that there was no difficulty such as she had once imagined
about recrossing the line to respectability. The only real
problem in that matter was how to get together enough to make
the crossing worth while--for what was there in respectability
without money, in a day when respectability had ceased to mean
anything but money?
Ida wished to take her to Mrs. Thurston and get her a favored
place on the list. Susan thanked her, but said, "Not yet--not
quite yet." Ida suggested that they go out together as two
young married women whose husbands had gone on the road. Susan
put her off from day to day. Ida finally offered to introduce
her to one of the regulars: "He's a nice fellow--knows how to
treat a lady in a gentlemanly way. Not a bit coarse or
familiar." Susan would not permit this generosity. And all
this time her funds were sinking. She had paid a second week's
rent, had bought cooking apparatus, some food supplies, some
necessary clothing. She was down to a five-dollar bill and a
little change.
"Look here, Lorna," said Ida, between remonstrance and
exasperation, "when _are_ you going to start in?"
Susan looked fixedly at her, said with a slow smile, "When I
can't hold out another minute."
Ida tossed her head angrily. "You've got brains--more than I
have," she cried. "You've got every advantage for catching
rich men--even a rich husband. You're educated. You speak and
act and look refined. Why you could pretend to be a howling
fashionable swell. You've got all the points. But what have
you got 'em for? Not to use that's certain."
"You can't be as disgusted with me as I am."
"If you're going to do a thing, why, _do_ it!"
"That's what I tell myself. But--I can't make a move."
Ida gave a gesture of despair. "I don't see what's to become
of you. And you could do _so_ well! . . . Let me phone Mr.
Sterling. I told him about you. He's anxious to meet you.
He's fond of books--like you. You'd like him. He'd give up a
lot to you, because you're classier than I am."
Susan threw her arms round Ida and kissed her. "Don't bother
about me," she said. "I've got to act in my own foolish,
stupid way. I'm like a child going to school. I've got to
learn a certain amount before I'm ready to do whatever it is
I'm going to do. And until I learn it, I can't do much of
anything. I thought I had learned in the last few months. I
see I haven't."
"Do listen to sense, Lorna," pleaded Ida. "If you wait till
the last minute, you'll get left. The time to get the money's
when you have money. And I've a feeling that you're not
particularly flush."
"I'll do the best I can. And I can't move till I'm ready."
Meanwhile she continued to search for work--work that would
enable her to live _decently_, wages less degrading than the
wages of shame. In a newspaper she read an advertisement of a
theatrical agency. Advertisements of all kinds read well;
those of theatrical agencies read--like the fairy tales that
they were. However, she found in this particular offering of
dazzling careers and salaries a peculiar phrasing that decided
her to break the rule she had made after having investigated
scores of this sort of offers.
Rod was abroad; anyhow, enough time had elapsed. One of the
most impressive features of the effect of New York--meaning by
"New York" only that small but significant portion of the four
millions that thinks--at least, after a fashion, and acts,
instead of being mere passive tools of whatever happens to turn
up--the most familiar notable effect of this New York is the
speedy distinction in the newcomer of those illusions and
delusions about life and about human nature, about good and
evil, that are for so many people the most precious and the
only endurable and beautiful thing in the world. New York,
destroyer of delusions and cherished hypocrisies and pretenses,
therefore makes the broadly intelligent of its citizens hardy,
makes the others hard--and between the hardy and hard, between
sense and cynicism, yawns a gulf like that between Absalom and
Dives. Susan, a New Yorker now, had got the habit--in thought,
at least--of seeing things with somewhat less distortion from
the actual. She no longer exaggerated the importance of the
Rod-Susan episode. She saw that in New York, where life is
crowded with events, everything in one's life, except death,
becomes incident, becomes episode, where in regions offering
less to think about each rare happening took on an aspect of
vast importance. The Rod-Susan love adventure, she now saw,
was not what it would have seemed--therefore, would have
been--in Sutherland, but was mere episode of a New York life,
giving its light and shade to a certain small part of the long,
variedly patterned fabric of her life, and of his, not
determining the whole. She saw that it was simply like a bend
in the river, giving a new turn to current and course but not
changing the river itself, and soon left far behind and
succeeded by other bends giving each its equal or greater turn
to the stream.
Rod had passed from her life, and she from his life. Thus she
was free to begin her real career--the stage--if she could. She
went to the suite of offices tenanted by Mr. Josiah Ransome.
She was ushered in to Ransome himself, instead of halting with
underlings. She owed this favor to advantages which her lack
of vanity and of self-consciousness prevented her from
surmising. Ransome--smooth, curly, comfortable
looking--received her with a delicate blending of the paternal
and the gallant. After he had inspected her exterior with
flattering attentiveness and had investigated her
qualifications with a thoroughness that was convincing of
sincerity he said:
"Most satisfactory! I can make you an exceptional assurance.
If you register with me, I can guarantee you not less than
twenty-five a week."
Susan hesitated long and asked many questions before she
finally--with reluctance paid the five dollars. She felt
ashamed of her distrust, but might perhaps have persisted in it
had not Mr. Ransome said:
"I don't blame you for hesitating, my dear young lady. And if
I could I'd put you on my list without payment. But you can
see how unbusinesslike that would be. I am a substantial,
old-established concern. You--no doubt you are perfectly
reliable. But I have been fooled so many times. I must not
let myself forget that after all I know nothing about you."
As soon as Susan had paid he gave her a list of vaudeville and
musical comedy houses where girls were wanted. "You can't fail
to suit one of them," said he. "If not, come back here and get
your money."
After two weary days of canvassing she went back to Ransome.
He was just leaving. But he smiled genially, opened his desk
and seated himself. "At your service," said he. "What luck?"
"None," replied Susan. "I couldn't live on the wages they
offered at the musical comedy places, even if I could get placed."
"And the vaudeville people?"
"When I said I could only sing and not dance, they looked
discouraged. When I said I had no costumes they turned me down."
"Excellent!" cried Ransome. "You mustn't be so easily beaten.
You must take dancing lessons--perhaps a few singing lessons,
too. And you must get some costumes."
"But that means several hundred dollars."
"Three or four hundred," said Ransome airily. "A matter of a
few weeks."
"But I haven't anything like that," said Susan. "I haven't so
much as----"
"I comprehend perfectly," interrupted Ransome. She interested
him, this unusual looking girl, with her attractive mingling of
youth and experience. Her charm that tempted people to give
her at once the frankest confidences, moved him to go out of
his way to help her. "You haven't the money," he went on.
"You must have it. So--I promised to place you, and I will.
I don't usually go so far in assisting my clients. It's not
often necessary--and where it's necessary it's usually
imprudent. However--I'll give you the address of a flat where
there is a lady--a trustworthy, square sort, despite her--her
profession. She will put you in the way of getting on a sound
financial basis."
Ransome spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, like a man stating a
simple business proposition. Susan understood. She rose. Her
expression was neither shock nor indignation; but it was none
the less a negative.
"It's the regular thing, my dear," urged Ransome. "To make a
start, to get in right, you can't afford to be squeamish. The
way I suggest is the simplest and most direct of several that
all involve the same thing. And the surest. You look
steady-headed--self-reliant. You look sensible----"
Susan smiled rather forlornly. "But I'm not," said she. "Not yet."
Ransome regarded her with a sympathy which she felt was
genuine. "I'm sorry, my dear. I've done the best I can for
you. You may think it a very poor best--and it is. But"--he
shrugged his shoulders--"I didn't make this world and its
conditions for living. I may say also that I'm not the
responsible party--the party in charge. However----"
To her amazement he held out a five-dollar bill. "Here's your
fee back." He laughed at her expression. "Oh, I'm not a
robber," said he. "I only wish I could serve you. I didn't
think you were so--" his eyes twinkled--"so unreasonable, let
us say. Among those who don't know anything about life there's
an impression that my sort of people are in the business of
dragging women down. Perhaps one of us occasionally does as
bad--about a millionth part as bad--as the average employer of
labor who skims his profits from the lifeblood of his
employees. But as a rule we folks merely take those that are
falling and help them to light easy--or even to get up again."
Susan felt ashamed to take her money. But he pressed it on
her. "You'll need it," said he. "I know how it is with a girl
alone and trying to get a start. Perhaps later on you'll be
more in the mood where I can help you."
"Perhaps," said Susan.
"But I hope not. It'll take uncommon luck to pull you
through--and I hope you'll have it."
"Thank you," said Susan. He took her hand, pressed it
friendlily--and she felt that he was a man with real good in
him, more good than many who would have shrunk from him in horror.
She was waiting for a thrust from fate. But fate,
disappointing as usual, would not thrust. It seemed bent on
the malicious pleasure of compelling her to degrade herself
deliberately and with calculation, like a woman marrying for
support a man who refuses to permit her to decorate with any
artificial floral concealments of faked-up sentiment the sordid
truth as to what she is about. She searched within herself in
vain for the scruple or sentiment or timidity or whatever it
was that held her back from the course that was plainly
inevitable. She had got down to the naked fundamentals of
decency and indecency that are deep hidden by, and for most of
us under, hypocrisies of conventionality. She had found out
that a decent woman was one who respected her body and her
soul, that an indecent woman was one who did not, and that
marriage rites or the absence of them, the absence of financial
or equivalent consideration, or its presence, or its extent or
its form, were all irrelevant non-essentials. Yet--she
hesitated, knowing the while that she was risking a greater
degradation, and a stupid and fatal folly to boot, by shrinking
from the best course open to her--unless it were better to take
a dose of poison and end it all. She probably would have done
that had she not been so utterly healthy, therefore overflowing
with passionate love of life. Except in fiction suicide and
health do not go together, however superhumanly sensitive the
sore beset hero or heroine. Susan was sensitive enough;
whenever she did things incompatible with our false and
hypocritical and unscientific notions of sensitiveness,
allowances should be made for her because of her superb and
dauntless health. If her physical condition had been morbid,
her conduct might have been, would have been, very different.
She was still hesitating when Saturday night came round
again--swiftly despite long disheartening days, and wakeful
awful nights. In the morning her rent would be due. She had
a dollar and forty-five cents.
After dinner alone a pretense at dinner--she wandered the
streets of the old Tenderloin until midnight. An icy rain was
falling. Rains such as this--any rains except showers--were
rare in the City of the Sun. That rain by itself was enough to
make her downhearted. She walked with head down and umbrella
close to her shoulders. No one spoke to her. She returned
dripping; she had all but ruined her one dress. She went to
bed, but not to sleep. About nine--early for that house she
rose, drank a cup of coffee and ate part of a roll. Her little
stove and such other things as could not be taken along she
rolled into a bundle, marked it, "For Ida." On a scrap of
paper she wrote this note:
Don't think I'm ungrateful, please. I'm going without saying
good-by because I'm afraid if I saw you, you'd be generous
enough to put up for me, and I'd be weak enough to accept. And
if I did that, I'd never be able to get strong or even to hold
my head up. So--good-by. I'll learn sooner or later--learn
how to live. I hope it won't be too long--and that the teacher
won't be too hard on me.
Yes, I'll learn, and I'll buy fine hats at your grand millinery
store yet. Don't forget me altogether.
She tucked this note into the bundle and laid it against the
door behind which Ida and one of her regulars were sleeping
peacefully. The odor of Ida's powerful perfume came through
the cracks in the door; Susan drew it eagerly into her
nostrils, sobbed softly, turned away, It was one of the
perfumes classed as immoral; to Susan it was the aroma of a
friendship as noble, as disinterested, as generous, as human
sympathy had ever breathed upon human woe. With her few
personal possessions in a package she descended the stairs
unnoticed, went out into the rain. At the corner of Sixth
Avenue she paused, looked up and down the street. It was
almost deserted. Now and then a streetwalker, roused early by
a lover with perhaps a family waiting for him, hurried by,
looking piteous in the daylight which showed up false and dyed
hair, the layers of paint, the sad tawdriness of battered
finery from the cheapest bargain troughs.
Susan went slowly up Sixth Avenue. Two blocks, and she saw a
girl enter the side door of a saloon across the way. She
crossed the street, pushed in at the same door, went on to a
small sitting-room with blinds drawn, with round tables, on
every table a match stand. It was one of those places where
streetwalkers rest their weary legs between strolls, and sit
for company on rainy or snowy nights, and take shy men for
sociability-breeding drinks and for the preliminary bargaining.
The air of the room was strong with stale liquor and tobacco,
the lingering aroma of the night's vanished revels. In the far
corner sat the girl she had followed; a glass of raw whiskey
and another of water stood on the table before her. Susan
seated herself near the door and when the swollen-faced, surly
bartender came, ordered whiskey. She poured herself a
drink--filled the glass to the brim. She drank it in two
gulps, set the empty glass down. She shivered like an animal
as it is hit in the head with a poleax. The mechanism of life
staggered, hesitated, went on with a sudden leaping
acceleration of pace. Susan tapped her glass against the
matchstand. The bartender came.
"Another," said she.
The man stared at her. "The--hell!" he ejaculated. "You must be
afraid o' catchin' cold. Or maybe you're looking for the menagerie?"
Susan laughed and so did the girl in the corner. "Won't you
have a drink with me?" asked Susan.
"That's very kind of you," replied the girl, in the manner of
one eager to show that she, too, is a perfect lady in every
respect, used to the ways of the best society. She moved to a
chair at Susan's table.
She and Susan inventoried each other. Susan saw a mere
child--hardly eighteen--possibly not seventeen--but much worn
by drink and irregular living--evidently one of those who rush
into the fast woman's life with the idea that it is a career of
gayety--and do not find out their error until looks and health
are gone. Susan drank her second drink in three gulps, several
minutes apart. The girl was explaining in a thin, common
voice, childish yet cracked, that she had come there seeking a
certain lady friend because she had an extra man and needed a
side partner.
"Suppose you come with me," she suggested. "It's good money,
I think. Want to get next?"
"When I've had another drink," said Susan. Her eyes were
gorgeously brilliant. She had felt almost as reckless several
times before; but never had she felt this devil-may-care
eagerness to see what the turn of the next card would bring.
"You'll take one?"
"Sure. I feel like the devil. Been bumming round all night.
My lady friend that I had with me--a regular lady friend--she
was suddenly took ill. Appendicitis complicated with d.t.'s
the ambulance guy said. The boys are waiting for me to come
back, so's we can go on. They've got some swell rooms in a
hotel up in Forty-second Street. Let's get a move on."
The bartender served the third drink and Susan paid for them,
the other girl insisting on paying for the one she was having
when Susan came. Susan's head was whirling. Her spirits were
spiraling up and up. Her pale lips were wreathed in a reckless
smile. She felt courageous for adventure--any adventure. Her
capital had now sunk to three quarters and a five-cent piece.
They issued forth, talking without saying anything, laughing
without knowing or caring why. Life was a joke--a coarse, broad
joke--but amusing if one drank enough to blunt any refinement of
sensibility. And what was sensibility but a kind of snobbishness?
And what more absurd than snobbishness in an outcast?
"That's good whiskey they had, back there," said Susan.
"Good? Yes--if you don't care what you say."
"If you don't want to care what you say or do," explained Susan.
"Oh, all booze is good for that," said the girl.
VI
THEY went through to Broadway and there stood waiting for a
car, each under her own umbrella. "Holy Gee!" cried Susan's
new acquaintance. "Ain't this rain a soaker?"
It was coming in sheets, bent and torn and driven horizontally
by the wind. The umbrella, sheltering the head somewhat, gave
a wholly false impression of protection. Both girls were soon
sopping wet. But they were more than cheerful about it; the
whiskey made them indifferent to external ills as they warmed
themselves by its bright fire. At that time a famous and much
envied, admired and respected "captain of industry," having
looted the street-car systems, was preparing to loot them over
again by the familiar trickery of the receivership and the
reorganization. The masses of the people were too ignorant to
know what was going on; the classes were too busy, each man of
each of them, about his own personal schemes for graft of one
kind and another. Thus, the street-car service was a joke and
a disgrace. However, after four or five minutes a north-bound
car appeared.
"But it won't stop," cried Susan. "It's jammed."
"That's why it will stop," replied her new acquaintance. "You
don't suppose a New York conductor'd miss a chance to put his
passengers more on the bum than ever?"
She was right, at least as to the main point; and the conductor
with much free handling of their waists and shoulders added
them to the dripping, straining press of passengers, enduring
the discomforts the captain of industry put upon them with more
patience than cattle would have exhibited in like
circumstances. All the way up Broadway the new acquaintance
enlivened herself and Susan and the men they were squeezed in
among by her loud gay sallies which her young prettiness made
seem witty. And certainly she did have an amazing and amusing
acquaintance with the slang at the moment current. The worn
look had vanished, her rounded girlhood freshness had returned.
As for Susan, you would hardly have recognized her as the same
person who had issued from the house in Twenty-ninth Street
less than an hour before. Indeed, it was not the same person.
Drink nervifies every character; here it transformed,
suppressing the characteristics that seemed, perhaps were,
essential in her normal state, and causing to bloom in sudden
audacity of color and form the passions and gayeties at other
times subdued by her intelligence and her sensitiveness. Her
brilliant glance moved about the car full as boldly as her
companion's. But there was this difference: Her companion
gazed straight into the eyes of the men; Susan's glance shot
past above or just below their eyes.
As they left the car at Forty-second Street the other girl gave
her short skirt a dexterous upward flirt that exhibited her
legs almost to the hips. Susan saw that they were well shaped
legs, surprisingly plump from the calves upward, considering
the slightness of her figure above the waist.
"I always do that when I leave a car," said the girl.
"Sometimes it starts something on the trail. You forgot your
package--back in the saloon!"
"Then I didn't forget much," laughed Susan. It appealed to
her, the idea of entering the new life empty-handed.
The hotel was one that must have been of the first class in its
day--not a distant day, for the expansion of New York in
craving for showy luxury has been as sudden as the miraculous
upward thrust of a steel skyscraper. It had now sunk to
relying upon the trade of those who came in off Broadway for a
few minutes. It was dingy and dirty; the walls and plastering
were peeling; the servants were slovenly and fresh. The girl
nodded to the evil-looking man behind the desk, who said:
"Hello, Miss Maud. Just in time. The boys were sending out
for some others."
"They've got a nerve!" laughed Maud. And she led Susan down a
rather long corridor to a door with the letter B upon it. Maud
explained: "This is the swellest suite in the house parlor,
bedroom, bath." She flung open the door, disclosing a
sitting-room in disorder with two young men partly dressed,
seated at a small table on which were bottles, siphons,
matches, remains of sandwiches, boxes of cigarettes--a chaotic
jumble of implements to dissipation giving forth a powerful,
stale odor. Maud burst into a stream of picturesque profanity
which set the two men to laughing. Susan had paused on the
threshold. The shock of this scene had for the moment arrested the
triumphant march of the alcohol through blood and nerve and brain.
"Oh, bite it off!" cried the darker of the two men to Maud,
"and have a drink. Ain't you ashamed to speak so free before
your innocent young lady friend?" He grinned at Susan. "What
Sunday school do you hail from?" inquired he.
The other young man was also looking at Susan; and it was an
arresting and somewhat compelling gaze. She saw that he was
tall and well set up. As he was dressed only in trousers and
a pale blue silk undershirt, the strength of his shoulders,
back and arms was in full evidence. His figure was like that
of the wonderful young prize-fighters she had admired at moving
picture shows to which Drumley had taken her. He had a
singularly handsome face, blond yet remotely suggesting
Italian. He smiled at Susan and she thought she had never seen
teeth more beautiful--pearl-white, regular, even. His eyes
were large and sensuous; smiling though they were, Susan was
ill at ease--for in them there shone the same untamed,
uncontrolled ferocity that one sees in the eyes of a wild
beast. His youth, his good looks, his charm made the sinister
savagery hinted in the smile the more disconcerting. He poured
whiskey from a bottle into each of the two tall glasses, filled
them up with seltzer, extended one toward Susan.
"Shut the door, Queenie," he said to her in a pleasant tone that
subtly mingled mockery and admiration. "And let's drink to love."
"Didn't I do well for you, Freddie?" cried Maud.
"She's my long-sought affinity," declared Freddie with the same
attractive mingling of jest and flattery.
Susan closed the door, accepted the glass, laughed into his
eyes. The whiskey was once more asserting its power. She took
about half the drink before she set the glass down.
The young man said, "Your name's Queenie, mine's Freddie." He
came to her, holding her gaze fast by the piercing look from
his handsome eyes. He put his arms round her and kissed her
full upon the pale, laughing lips. His eyes were still smiling
in pleasant mockery; yet his kiss burned and stung, and the
grip of his arm round her shoulders made her vaguely afraid.
Her smile died away. The grave, searching, wondering
expression reappeared in the violet-gray eyes for a moment.
"You're all right," said he. "Except those pale lips. You're
going to be my girl. That means, if you ever try to get away
from me unless I let you go--I'll kill you--or worse." And he
laughed as if he had made the best joke in the world. But she
saw in his eyes a sparkle that seemed to her to have something
of the malignance of the angry serpent's.
She hastily finished her drink.
Maud was jerking off her clothes, crying, "I want to get out of
these nasty wet rags." The steam heat was full on; the
sitting-room, the whole suite, was intensely warm. Maud hung
her skirt over the back of a chair close to the radiator, took
off her shoes and stockings and put them to dry also. In her
chemise she curled herself on a chair, lit a cigarette and
poured a drink. Her feet were not bad, but neither were they
notably good; she tucked them out of sight. She looked at
Susan. "Get off those wet things," urged she, "or you'll take
your death."
"In a minute," said Susan, but not convincingly.
Freddie forced another drink and a cigarette upon her. As a
girl at home in Sutherland, she had several times--she and
Ruth--smoked cigarettes in secrecy, to try the new London and
New York fashion, announced in the newspapers and the novels.
So the cigarette did not make her uncomfortable. "Look at the
way she's holding it?" cried Maud, and she and the men burst
out laughing. Susan laughed also and, Freddie helping,
practiced a less inexpert manner. Jim, the dark young man with
the sullen heavy countenance, rang for more sandwiches and another
bottle of whiskey. Susan continued to drink but ate nothing.
"Have a sandwich," said Freddie.
"I'm not hungry."
"Well, they say that to eat and drink means to die of paresis,
while to only drink means dying of delirium tremens. I guess
you're right. I'd prefer the d.t.'s. It's quicker and livelier."
Jim sang a ribald song with some amusing comedy business. Maud
told several stories whose only claim to point lay in their
frankness about things not usually spoken. "Don't you tell any
more, Maudie," advised Freddie. "Why is it that a woman never
takes up a story until every man on earth has heard it at least
twice?" The sandwiches disappeared, the second bottle of
whiskey ran low. Maud told story after story of how she had
played this man and that for a sucker--was as full of such tales
and as joyous and self-pleased over them as an honest salesman
telling his delighted, respectable, pew-holding employer how he
has "stuck" this customer and that for a "fancy" price.
Presently Maud again noticed that Susan was in her wet clothes
and cried out about it. Susan pretended to start to undress.
Freddie and Jim suddenly seized her. She struggled, half
laughing; the whiskey was sending into her brain dizzying
clouds. She struggled more fiercely. But it was in vain.
"Gee, you _have_ got a prize, Freddie!" exclaimed Jim at last,
angry. "A regular tartar!"
"A damn handsome one," retorted Freddie. "She's even got feet."
Susan, amid the laughter of the others, darted for the bedroom.
Cowering in a corner, trying to cover herself, she ordered
Freddie to leave her. He laughed, seized her in his iron grip.
She struck at him, bit him in the shoulder. He gave a cry of
pain and drove a savage blow into her cheek. Then he buried
his fingers in her throat and the gleam of his eyes made her
soul quail.
"Don't kill me!" she cried, in the clutch of cowardice for the
first time. It was not death that she feared but the phantom
of things worse than death that can be conjured to the
imagination by the fury of a personality which is utterly
reckless and utterly cruel. "Don't kill me!" she shrieked.
"What the hell are you doing?" shouted Jim from the other room.
"Shut that door," replied Freddie. "I'm going to attend to my
lady friend."
As the door slammed, he dragged Susan by the throat and one arm
to the bed, flung her down. "I saw you were a high stepper the
minute I looked at you," said he, in a pleasant, cooing voice
that sent the chills up and down her spine. "I knew you'd have
to be broke. Well, the sooner it's done, the sooner we'll get
along nicely." His blue eyes were laughing into hers. With
the utmost deliberation he gripped her throat with one hand and
with the other began to slap her, each blow at his full
strength. Her attempts to scream were only gasps. Quickly the
agony of his brutality drove her into unconsciousness. Long
after she had ceased to feel pain, she continued to feel the
impact of those blows, and dully heard her own deep groans.
When she came to her senses, she was lying sprawled upon the
far side of the bed. Her head was aching wildly; her body was
stiff and sore; her face felt as if it were swollen to many
times its normal size. In misery she dragged herself up and
stood on the floor. She went to the bureau and stared at
herself in the glass. Her face was indeed swollen, but not to
actual disfigurement. Under her left eye there was a small cut
from which the blood had oozed to smear and dry upon her left
cheek. Upon her throat were faint bluish finger marks. The
damage was not nearly so great as her throbbing nerves
reported--the damage to her body. But--her soul--it was a
crushed, trampled, degraded thing, lying prone and bleeding to
death. "Shall I kill myself?" she thought. And the answer
came in a fierce protest and refusal from every nerve of her
intensely vital youth. She looked straight into her own
eyes--without horror, without shame, without fear. "You are as
low as the lowest," she said to her image--not to herself but
to her image; for herself seemed spectator merely of that body
and soul aching and bleeding and degraded.
It was the beginning of self-consciousness with her--a curious
kind of self-consciousness--her real self, aloof and far
removed, observing calmly, critically, impersonally the
adventures of her body and the rest of her surface self.
She turned round to look again at the man who had outraged
them. His eyes were open and he was gazing dreamily at her, as
smiling and innocent as a child. When their eyes met, his
smile broadened until he was showing his beautiful teeth. "You
_are_ a beauty!" said he. "Go into the other room and get me a
cigarette."
She continued to look fixedly at him.
Without change of expression he said gently, "Do you want
another lesson in manners?"
She went to the door, opened it, entered the sitting-room. The
other two had pulled open a folding bed and were lying in it,
Jim's head on Maud's bosom, her arms round his neck. Both were
asleep. His black beard had grown out enough to give his face
a dirty and devilish expression. Maud looked far more youthful
and much prettier than when she was awake. Susan put a
cigarette between her lips, lit it, carried a box of cigarettes
and a stand of matches in to Freddie.
"Light one for me," said he.
She obeyed, held it to his lips.
"Kiss me, first."
Her pale lips compressed.
"Kiss me," he repeated, far down in his eyes the vicious gleam
of that boundlessly ferocious cruelty which is mothered not by
rage but by pleasure.
She kissed him on the cheek.
"On the lips," he commanded.
Their lips met, and it was to her as if a hot flame, terrible
yet thrilling, swept round and embraced her whole body.
"Do you love me?" he asked tenderly.
She was silent.
"You love me?" he asked commandingly.
"You can call it that if you like."
"I knew you would. I understand women. The way to make a
woman love is to make her afraid."
She gazed at him. "I am not afraid," she said.
He laughed. "Oh, yes. That's why you do what I say--and
always will."
"No," replied she. "I don't do it because I am afraid, but
because I want to live."
"I should think! . . . You'll be all right in a day or so,"
said he, after inspecting her bruises. "Now, I'll explain to
you what good friends we're going to be."
He propped himself in an attitude of lazy grace, puffed at his
cigarette in silence for a moment, as if arranging what he had
to say. At last he began:
"I haven't any regular business. I wasn't born to work. Only
damn fools work--and the clever man waits till they've got
something, then he takes it away from 'em. You don't want to
work, either."
"I haven't been able to make a living at it," said the girl.
She was sitting cross-legged, a cover draped around her.
"You're too pretty and too clever. Besides, as you say, you
couldn't make a living at it--not what's a living for a woman
brought up as you've been. No, you can't work. So we're going
to be partners."
"No," said Susan. "I'm going to dress now and go away."
Freddie laughed. "Don't be a fool. Didn't I say we were to be
partners? . . . You want to keep on at the sporting business,
don't you?"
Hers was the silence of assent.
"Well--a woman--especially a young one like you--is no good unless
she has someone--some man--behind her. Married or single,
respectable or lively, working or sporting--N. G. without a
man. A woman alone doesn't amount to any more than a rich
man's son."
There had been nothing in Susan's experience to enable her to
dispute this.
"Now, I'm going to stand behind you. I'll see that you don't
get pinched, and get you out if you do. I'll see that you get
the best the city's got if you're sick--and so on. I've got a
pull with the organization. I'm one of Finnegan's lieutenants.
Some day--when I'm older and have served my apprenticeship--I'll
pull off something good. Meanwhile--I manage to live. I always
have managed it--and I never did a stroke of real work since I
was a kid--and never shall. God was mighty good to me when he
put a few brains in this nut of mine."
He settled his head comfortably in the pillow and smiled at his
own thoughts. In spite of herself Susan had been not only
interested but attracted. It is impossible for any human being
to contemplate mystery in any form without being fascinated.
And here was the profoundest mystery she had ever seen. He
talked well, and his mode of talking was that of education, of
refinement even. An extraordinary man, certainly--and in what
a strange way!
"Yes," said he presently, looking at her with his gentle,
friendly smile. "We'll be partners. I'll protect you and
we'll divide what you make."
What a strange creature! Had he--this kindly handsome
youth--done that frightful thing? No--no. It was another
instance of the unreality of the outward life. _He_ had not
done it, any more than she--her real self--had suffered it. Her
reply to his restatement of the partnership was:
"No, thank you. I want nothing to do with it."
"You're dead slow," said he, with mild and patient persuasion.
"How would you get along at your business in this town if you
didn't have a backer? Why, you'd be taking turns at the Island
and the gutter within six months. You'd be giving all your
money to some rotten cop or fly cop who couldn't protect you,
at that. Or you'd work the street for some cheap cadet who'd
beat you up oftener than he'd beat up the men who welched on you."
"I'll look out for myself," persisted she.
"Bless the baby!" exclaimed he, immensely amused. "How lucky
that you found me! I'm going to take care of you in spite of
yourself. Not for nothing, of course. You wouldn't value me
if you got me for nothing. I'm going to help you, and you're
going to help me. You need me, and I need you. Why do you
suppose I took the trouble to tame you? What _you_ want doesn't
go. It's what __I__ want."
He let her reflect on this a while. Then he went on:
"You don't understand about fellows like Jim and me--though
Jim's a small potato beside me, as you'll soon find out.
Suppose you didn't obey orders--just as I do what Finnegan
tells me--just as Finnegan does what the big shout down below
says? Suppose you didn't obey--what then?"
"I don't know," confessed Susan.
"Well, it's time you learned. We'll say, you act stubborn.
You dress and say good-by to me and start out. Do you think
I'm wicked enough to let you make a fool of yourself? Well,
I'm not. You won't get outside the door before your good angel
here will get busy. I'll be telephoning to a fly cop of this
district. And what'll he do? Why, about the time you are
halfway down the block, he'll pinch you. He'll take you to the
station house. And in Police Court tomorrow the Judge'll give
you a week on the Island for being a streetwalker."
Susan shivered. She instinctively glanced toward the window.
The rain was still falling, changing the City of the Sun into
a city of desolation. It looked as though it would never see
the sun again--and her life looked that way, also.
Freddie was smiling pleasantly. He went on:
"You do your little stretch on the Island. When your time's up
I send you word where to report to me. We'll say you don't
come. The minute you set foot on the streets again alone, back
to the Island you go. . . . Now, do you understand,
Queenie?" And he laughed and pulled her over and kissed her and
smoothed her hair. "You're a very superior article--you are,"
he murmured. "I'm stuck on you."
Susan did not resist. She did not care what happened to her.
The more intelligent a trapped animal is, the less resistance
it offers, once it realizes. Helpless--absolutely helpless.
No money--no friends. No escape but death. The sun was
shining. Outside lay the vast world; across the street on a
flagpole fluttered the banner of freedom. Freedom! Was there
any such thing anywhere? Perhaps if one had plenty of
money--or powerful friends. But not for her, any more than for
the masses whose fate of squalid and stupid slavery she was
trying to escape. Not for her; so long as she was helpless she
would simply move from one land of slavery to another. Helpless!
To struggle would not be courageous, but merely absurd.
"If you don't believe me, ask Maud," said Freddie. "I don't
want you to get into trouble. As I told you, I'm stuck on
you." With his cigarette gracefully loose between those almost
too beautifully formed lips of his and with one of his strong
smooth white arms about his head, he looked at her, an
expression of content with himself, of admiration for her in
his handsome eyes. "You don't realize your good luck. But
you will when you find how many girls are crazy to get on the
good side of me. This is a great old town, and nobody amounts
to anything in it unless he's got a pull or is next to somebody
else that has."
Susan's slow reflective nod showed that this statement
explained, or seemed to explain, certain mysteries of life that
had been puzzling her.
"You've got a lot in you," continued he. "That's my opinion,
and I'm a fair judge of yearlings. You're liable to land
somewhere some day when you've struck your gait. . . . If
I had the mon I'd be tempted to set you up in a flat and keep
you all to myself. But I can't afford it. It takes a lot of
cash to keep me going. . . . You'll do well. You won't
have to bother with any but classy gents. I'll see that the
cops put you wise when there's anyone round throwing his money
away. And I can help you, myself. I've got quite a line of
friends among the rich chappies from Fifth Avenue. And I
always let my girls get the benefit of it."
My girls! Susan's mind, recovering now from its daze, seized
upon this phrase. And soon she had fathomed how these two
young men came to be so luxuriously dressed, so well supplied
with money. She had heard of this system under which the girls
in the streets were exploited as thoroughly as the girls in the
houses. In all the earth was there anyone who was suffered to
do for himself or herself without there being a powerful idle
someone else to take away all the proceeds but a bare living?
Helpless! Helpless!
"How many girls have you?" she asked.
"Jealous already!" And he laughed and blew a cloud of smoke
into her face.
She took the quarters he directed--a plain clean room two
flights up at seven dollars a week, in a furnished room house
on West Forty-third Street near Eighth Avenue. She was but a
few blocks from where she and Rod had lived. New York--to a
degree unrivaled among the cities of the world--illustrates in
the isolated lives of its never isolated inhabitants how little
relationship there is between space and actualities of
distance. Wherever on earth there are as many as two human
beings, one may see an instance of the truth. That an infinity
of spiritual solitude can stretch uncrossable even between two
locked in each other's loving arms! But New York's solitudes,
its separations, extend to the surface things. Susan had no
sense of the apparent nearness of her former abode. Her life
again lay in the same streets; but there again came the sense
of strangeness which only one who has lived in New York could
appreciate. The streets were the same; but to her they seemed
as the streets of another city, because she was now seeing in
them none of the things she used to see, was seeing instead
kinds of people, aspects of human beings, modes of feeling and
acting and existing of which she used to have not the faintest
knowledge. There were as many worlds as kinds of people.
Thus, though we all talk to each other as if about the same
world, each of us is thinking of his own kind of world, the
only one he sees. And that is why there can never be sympathy
and understanding among the children of men until there is some
approach to resemblance in their various lots; for the lot
determines the man.
The house was filled with women of her own kind. They were
allowed all privileges. There was neither bath nor stationary
washstand, but the landlady supplied tin tubs on request. "Oh,
Mr. Palmer's recommendation," said she; "I'll give you two days
to pay. My terms are in advance. But Mr. Palmer's a dear
friend of mine."
She was a short woman with a monstrous bust and almost no hips.
Her thin hair was dyed and frizzled, and her voice sounded as
if it found its way out of her fat lips after a long struggle
to pass through the fat of her throat and chest. Her second
chin lay upon her bosom in a soft swollen bag that seemed to be
suspended from her ears. Her eyes were hard and evil, of a
brownish gray. She affected suavity and elaborate politeness;
but if the least thing disturbed her, she became red and coarse
of voice and vile of language. The vile language and the
nature of her business and her private life aside, she would
have compared favorably with anyone in the class of those who
deal--as merchants, as landlords, as boarding-house
keepers--with the desperately different classes of uncertain
income. She was reputed rich. They said she stayed on in
business to avoid lonesomeness and to keep in touch with all
that was going on in the life that had been hers from girlhood.
"And she's a mixer," said Maud to Susan. In response to
Susan's look of inquiry, she went on to explain, "A mixer's a
white woman that keeps a colored man." Maud laughed at Susan's
expression of horror. "You are a greenie," she mocked. "Why,
it's all the rage. Nearly all the girls do--from the
headliners that are kept by the young Fifth Avenue millionaires
down to nine out of ten of the girls of our set that you see in
Broadway. No, I'm not lying. It's the truth. __I__ don't do
it--at least, not yet. I may get round to it."
After the talk with Maud about the realities of life as it is
lived by several hundred thousand of the inhabitants of
Manhattan Island Susan had not the least disposition to test by
defiance the truth of Freddie Palmer's plain statement as to
his powers and her duties. He had told her to go to work that
very Sunday evening, and Jim had ordered Maud to call for her
and to initiate her. And at half-past seven Maud came. At
once she inspected Susan's swollen face.
"Might be a bit worse," she said. "With a veil on, no one'd
notice it."
"But I haven't a veil," said Susan.
"I've got mine with me--pinned to my garter. I haven't been
home since this afternoon." And Maud produced it.
"But I can't wear a veil at night," objected Susan.
"Why not?" said Maud. "Lots of the girls do. A veil's a dandy
hider. Besides, even where a girl's got nothing to hide and
has a face that's all to the good, still it's not a bad idea to
wear a veil. Men like what they can't see. One of the ugliest
girls I know makes a lot of money--all with her veil. She
fixes up her figure something grand. Then she puts on that
veil--one of the kind you think you can see a face through but
you really can't. And she never lifts it till the `come on'
has given up his cash. Then----" Maud laughed. "Gee, but she
has had some hot run-ins after she hoists her curtain!"
"Why don't you wear a veil all the time?" asked Susan.
Maud tossed her head. "What do you take me for? I've got too
good an opinion of my looks for that."
Susan put on the veil. It was not of the kind that is a
disguise. Still, diaphanous though it seemed, it concealed
astonishingly the swelling in Susan's face. Obviously, then,
it must at least haze the features, would do something toward
blurring the marks that go to make identity.
"I shall always wear a veil," said Susan.
"Oh, I don't know," deprecated Maud. "I think you're quite
pretty--though a little too proper and serious looking to suit
some tastes."
Susan had removed veil and hat, was letting down her hair.
"What are you doing that for?" cried Maud impatiently. "We're
late now and----"
"I don't like the way my hair's done," cried Susan.
"Why, it was all right--real swell--good as a hairdresser could
have done."
But Susan went on at her task. Ever since she came East she
had worn it in a braid looped at the back of her head. She
proceeded to change this radically. With Maud forgetting to be
impatient in admiration of her swift fingers she made a
coiffure much more elaborate--wide waves out from her temples
and a big round loose knot behind. She was well content with
the result--especially when she got the veil on again and it
was assisting in the change.
"What do you think?" she said to Maud when she was ready.
"My, but you look different!" exclaimed Maud. "A lot
dressier--and sportier. More--more Broadway."
"That's it--Broadway," said Susan. She had always avoided
looking like Broadway. Now, she would take the opposite tack.
Not loud toilets--for they would defeat her purpose. Not loud
but--just common.
"But," added Maud, "you do look swell about the feet. Where
_do_ you get your shoes? No, I guess it's the feet."
As they sallied forth Maud said, "First, I'll show you our
hotel." And they went to a Raines Law hotel in Forty-second
Street near Eighth Avenue. "The proprietor's a heeler of
Finnegan's. I guess Freddie comes in for some rake-off. He
gives us twenty-five cents of every dollar the man spends,"
explained she. "And if the man opens wine we get two dollars
on every bottle. The best way is to stay behind when the man
goes and collect right away. That avoids rows--though they'd
hardly dare cheat you, being as you're on Freddie's staff.
Freddie's got a big pull. He's way up at the top. I wish to
God I had him instead of Jim. Freddie's giving up fast. They
say he's got some things a lot better'n this now, and that he's
likely to quit this and turn respectable. You ought to treat
me mighty white, seeing what I done for you. I've put you in
right--and that's everything in this here life."
Susan looked all round--looked along the streets stretching
away with their morning suggestion of freedom to fly, freedom
to escape--helpless! "Can't I get a drink?" asked she. There
was a strained look in her eyes, a significant nervousness of
the lips and hands. "I must have a drink."
"Of course. Max has been on a vacation, but I hear he's back.
When I introduce you, he'll probably set 'em up. But I
wouldn't drink if I were you till I went off duty."
"I must have a drink," replied Susan.
"It'll get you down. It got me down. I used to have a fine
sucker--gave me a hundred a week and paid my flat rent. But I
had nothing else to do, so I took to drinking, and I got so
reckless that I let him catch me with my lover that time. But
I had to have somebOdy to spend the money on. Anyhow, it's no
fun having a John."
"A John?" said Susan. "What's that?"
"You are an innocent----!" laughed Maud. "A John's a sucker--a
fellow that keeps a girl. Well, it'd be no fun to have a John
unless you fooled him--would it?"
They now entered the side door of the hotel and ascended the
stairs. A dyspeptic looking man with a red nose that stood out
the more strongly for the sallowness of his skin and the
smallness of his sunken brown eyes had his hands spread upon
the office desk and was leaning on his stiff arms. "Hello,
Max," said Maud in a fresh, condescending way. "How's business?"
"Slow. Always slack on Sundays. How goes it with you, Maudie?"
"So--so. I manage to pick up a living in spite of the damn
chippies. I don't see why the hell they don't go into the
business regular and make something out of it, instead of
loving free. I'm down on a girl that's neither the one thing
nor the other. This is my lady friend, Miss Queenie." She
turned laughingly to Susan. "I never asked your last name."
"Brown."
"My, what a strange name!" cried Maud. Then, as the proprietor
laughed with the heartiness of tradesman at good customer's
jest, she said, "Going to set 'em up, Max?"
He pressed a button and rang a bell loudly. The responding
waiter departed with orders for a whiskey and two lithias.
Maud explained to Susan:
"Max used to be a prize-fighter. He was middleweight champion."
"I've been a lot of things in my days," said Max with pride.
"So I've heard," joked Maud. "They say they've got your
picture at headquarters."
"That's neither here nor there," said Max surlily. "Don't get
too flip." Susan drank her whiskey as soon as it came, and the
glow rushed to her ghastly face. Said Max with great politeness:
"You're having a little neuralgia, ain't you? I see your face
is swhole some."
"Yes," said Susan. "Neuralgia." Maud laughed hilariously.
Susan herself had ceased to brood over the incident. In
conventional lives, visited but rarely by perilous storms, by
disaster, such an event would be what is called concise. But
in life as it is lived by the masses of the people--life in
which awful disease, death, maiming, eviction, fire, violent
event of any and every kind, is part of the daily routine in
that life of the masses there is no time for lingering upon the
weathered storm or for bothering about and repairing its
ravages. Those who live the comparatively languid, the
sheltered life should not use their own standards of what is
delicate and refined, what is conspicuous and strong, when they
judge their fellow beings as differently situated.
Nevertheless, they do--with the result that we find the puny mud
lark criticizing the eagle battling with the hurricane.
When Susan and Maud were in the street again, Susan declared
that she must have another drink. "I can't offer to pay for
one for you," said she to Maud. "I've almost no money. And I
must spend what I've got for whiskey before I--can--can--start in."
Maud began to laugh, looked at Susan, and was almost crying
instead. "I can lend you a fiver," she said. "Life's
hell--ain't it? My father used to have a good
business--tobacco. The trust took it away from him--and then
he drank--and mother, she drank, too. And one day he beat her
so she died--and he ran away. Oh, it's all awful! But I've
stopped caring. I'm stuck on Jim--and another little fellow he
don't know about. For God's sake don't tell him or he'd have
me pinched for doing business free. I get full every night and
raise old Nick. Sometimes I hate Jim. I've tried to kill him
twice when I was loaded. But a girl's got to have a backer
with a pull. And Jim lets me keep a bigger share of what I
make than some fellows. Freddie's pretty good too, they
say--except when he's losing on the races or gets stuck on some
actress that's too classy to be shanghaied--like you was--and
that makes him cough up."
Maud went on to disclose that Jim usually let her have all she
made above thirty dollars a week, and in hard weeks had
sometimes let her beg off with fifteen. Said she:
"I can generally count on about fifteen or twenty for myself.
Us girls that has backers make a lot more money than the girls
that hasn't. They're always getting pinched too--though
they're careful never to speak first to a man. _We_ can go
right up and brace men with the cops looking on. A cop that'd
touch us would get broke--unless we got too gay or robbed
somebody with a pull. But none of our class of girls do any
robbing. There's nothing in it. You get caught sooner or
later, and then you're down and out."
While Susan was having two more drinks Maud talked about
Freddie. She seemed to know little about him, though he was
evidently one of the conspicuous figures. He had started in
the lower East Side--had been leader of one of those gangs that
infest tenement districts--the young men who refuse to submit
to the common lot of stupid and badly paid toil and try to
fight their way out by the quick methods of violence instead of
the slower but surer methods of robbing the poor through a
store of some kind. These gangs were thieves, blackmailers,
kidnapers of young girls for houses of prostitution, repeaters.
Most of them graduated into habitual jailbirds, a few--the
cleverest--became saloon-keepers and politicians and high-class
professional gamblers and race track men.
Freddie, Maud explained, was not much over twenty-five, yet was
already well up toward the place where successful gang leaders
crossed over into the respectable class--that is, grafted in
"big figures." He was a great reader, said Maud, and had taken
courses at some college. "They say he and his gang used to
kill somebody nearly every night. Then he got a lot of money
out of one of his jobs--some say it was a bank robbery and some
say they killed a miner who was drunk with a big roll on him.
Anyhow, Freddie got next to Finnegan--he's worth several
millions that he made out of policy shops and poolrooms, and
contracts and such political things. So he's in right--and he's
got the brains. He's a good one for working out schemes for
making people work hard and bring him their money. And
everybody's afraid of him because he won't stop at nothing and
is too slick to get caught."
Maud broke off abruptly and rose, warned by the glazed look in
Susan's eyes. Susan was so far gone that she had difficulty in
not staggering and did not dare speak lest her uncertain tongue
should betray her. Maud walked her up and down the block
several times to give the fresh air a chance, then led her up
to a man who had looked at them in passing and had paused to
look back. "Want to go have a good time, sweetheart?" said
Maud to the man. He was well dressed, middle-aged, with a full
beard and spectacles, looked as if he might be a banker, or
perhaps a professor in some college.
"How much?" asked he.
"Five for a little while. Come along, sporty. Take me or my
lady friend."
"How much for both of you?"
"Ten. We don't cut rates. Take us both, dearie. I know a
hotel where it'd be all right."
"No. I guess I'll take your lady friend." He had been peering
at Susan through his glasses. "And if she treats me well, I'll
take her again. You're sure you're all right? I'm a married man."
"We've both been home visiting for a month, and walking the
chalk. My, but ma's strict! We got back tonight," said Maud
glibly. "Go ahead, Queenie. I'll be chasing up and down here,
waiting." In a lower tone: "Get through with him quick. Strike
him for five more after you get the first five. He's a blob."
When Susan came slinking through the office of the hotel in the
wake of the man two hours later, Maud sprang from the little
parlor. "How much did you get?" she asked in an undertone.
Susan looked nervously at the back of the man who was descending
the stairway to the street. "He said he'd pay me next time,"
she said. "I didn't know what to do. He was polite and----"
Maud seized her by the arm. "Come along!" she cried. As she
passed the desk she said to the clerk, "A dirty bilker! Tryin'
to kiss his way out!"
"Give him hell," said the clerk.
Maud, still gripping Susan, overtook the man at the sidewalk.
"What do you mean by not paying my lady friend?" she shouted.
"Get out!" said the man in a low tone, with an uneasy glance
round. "If you annoy me I'll call the police."
"If you don't cough up mighty damn quick," cried Maud so loudly
that several passers-by stopped, "I'll do the calling myself,
you bum, and have you pinched for insulting two respectable
working girls." And she planted herself squarely before him.
Susan drew back into the shadow of the wall.
Up stepped Max, who happened to be standing outside his place.
"What's the row about?" he demanded.
"These women are trying to blackmail me," said the man, sidling away.
Maud seized him by the arm. "Will you cough up or shall I
scream?" she cried.
"Stand out of the way, girls," said Max savagely, "and let me
take a crack at the----."
The man dived into his pocket, produced a bill, thrust it
toward Susan. Maud saw that it was a five. "That's only
five," she cried. "Where's the other five?"
"Five was the bargain," whined the man.
"Do you want me to push in your blinkers, you damned old bilk,
you?" cried Max, seizing him violently by the arm. The man
visited his pocket again, found another five, extended the two.
Maud seized them. "Now, clear out!" said Max. "I hate to let
you go without a swift kick in the pants."
Maud pressed the money on Susan and thanked Max. Said Max,
"Don't forget to tell Freddie what I done for his girl."
"She'll tell him, all right," Maud assured him.
As the girls went east through Forty-second Street, Susan said,
"I'm afraid that man'll lay for us."
"Lay for us," laughed Maud. "He'll run like a cat afire if he
ever sights us again."
"I feel queer and faint," said Susan. "I must have a drink."
"Well--I'll go with you. But I've got to get busy. I want a
couple of days off this week for my little fellow, so I must
hustle. You let that dirty dog keep you too long. Half an
hour's plenty enough. Always make 'em cough up in advance,
then hustle 'em through. And don't listen to their guff about
wanting to see you again if you treat 'em right. There's
nothing in it."
They went into a restaurant bar near Broadway. Susan took two
drinks of whiskey raw in rapid succession; Maud took one
drink--a green mint with ice. "While you was fooling away time
with that thief," said she, "I had two men--got five from one,
three from the other. The five-dollar man took a three-dollar
room--that was seventy-five for me. The three-dollar man
wouldn't stand for more than a dollar room--so I got only a
quarter there. But he set 'em up to two rounds of drinks--a
quarter more for me. So I cleared nine twenty-five. And you'd
'a' got only your twenty-five cents commission on the room if
it hadn't been for me. You forgot to collect your commission.
Well, you can get it next time. Only I wouldn't _ask_ for it,
Max was so nice in helping out. He'll give you the quarter."
When Susan had taken her second stiff drink, her eyes were
sparkling and she was laughing recklessly. "I want a
cigarette," she said.
"You feel bully, don't you?"
"I'm ready for anything," declared she giddily. "I don't give
a damn. I'm over the line. I--_don't_--give--a--damn!"
"I used to hate the men I went up with," said Maud, "but now
I hardly look at their faces. You'll soon be that way. Then
you'll only drink for fun. Drink--and dope--they are about the
only fun we have--them and caring about some fellow."
"How many girls has Freddie got?"
"Search me. Not many that he'd speak to himself. Jim's his
wardman--does his collecting for him. Freddie's above most of
the men in this business. The others are about like Jim--tough
straight through, but Freddie's a kind of a pullman. The other
men-even Jim--hate him for being such a snare and being able to
hide it that he's in such a low business. They'd have done him
up long ago, if they could. But he's to wise for them. That's
why they have to do what he says. I tell you, you're in
right, for sure. You'll have Freddie eating out of your hand,
if you play a cool hand."
Susan ordered another drink and a package of Egyptian
cigarettes. "They don't allow ladies to smoke in here," said
Maud. "We'll go to the washroom."
And in the washroom they took a few hasty puffs before sallying
forth again. Usually Sunday night was dull, all the men having
spent their spare money the night before, and it being a bad
night for married men to make excuses for getting away from
home. Maud explained that, except "out-of-towners," the
married men were the chief support of their profession--"and
most of the cornhuskers are married men, too." But Susan had
the novice's luck. When she and Maud met Maud's "little
gentleman friend" Harry Tucker at midnight and went to
Considine's for supper, Susan had taken in "presents" and
commissions twenty-nine dollars and a half. Maud had not done
so badly, herself; her net receipts were twenty-two fifty.
She would not let Susan pay any part of the supper bill, but
gave Harry the necessary money. "Here's a five," said she,
pressing the bill into his hand, "and keep the change."
And she looked at him with loving eyes of longing. He was a
pretty, common-looking fellow, a mere boy, who clerked in a
haberdashery in the neighborhood. As he got only six dollars
a week and had to give five to his mother who sewed, he could
not afford to spend money on Maud, and she neither expected nor
wished it. When she picked him up, he like most of his
fellow-clerks had no decent clothing but the suit he had to
have to "make a front" at the store. Maud had outfitted him
from the skin with the cheap but showy stuff exhibited for just
such purposes in the Broadway windows. She explained
confidentially to Susan:
"It makes me sort of feel that I own him. Then, too, in love
there oughtn't to be any money. If he paid, I'd be as cold to
him as I am to the rest. The only reason I like Jim at all is
I like a good beating once in a while. It's exciting. Jim--he
treats me like the dirt under his feet. And that's what we
are--dirt under the men's feet. Every woman knows it, when it
comes to a showdown between her and a man. As my pop used to
say, the world was made for men, not for women. Still, our
graft ain't so bum, at that--if we work it right."
Freddie called on Susan about noon the next day. She was still
in bed. He was dressed in the extreme of fashion, was wearing
a chinchilla-lined coat. He looked the idle, sportively
inclined son of some rich man in the Fifth Avenue district. He
was having an affair with a much admired young actress--was
engaged in it rather as a matter of vanity and for the
fashionable half-world associations into which it introduced
him rather than from any present interest in the lady. He
stood watching Susan with a peculiar expression--one he might
perhaps have found it hard to define himself. He bent over her
and carelessly brushed her ear with his lips. "How did your
royal highness make out?" inquired he.
"The money's in the top bureau drawer," replied she, the covers
up to her eyes and her eyes closed.
He went to the bureau, opened the drawer, with his gloved hands
counted the money. As he counted his eyes had a look in them
that was strangely like jealous rage. He kept his back toward
her for some time after he had crossed to look at the money.
When he spoke it was to say:
"Not bad. And when you get dressed up a bit and lose your
stage fright, you'll do a smashing business. I'll not take my
share of this. I had a good run with the cards last night.
Anyhow, you've got to pay your rent and buy some clothes. I've
got to invest something in my new property. It's badly run
down. You'll get busy again tonight, of course. Never lay
off, lady, unless the weather's bad. You'll find you won't
average more than twenty good business days a month in summer
and fall, and only about ten in winter and spring, when it's
cold and often lots of bad weather in the afternoons and
evenings. That means hustle."
No sign from Susan. He sat on the bed and pulled the covers
away from her face. "What are you so grouchy about, pet?" he
inquired, chucking her under the chin.
"Nothing."
"Too much booze, I'll bet. Well, sleep your grouch off. I've
got a date with Finnegan. The election's coming on, and I have
to work--lining up the vote and getting the repeaters ready.
It all means good money for me. Look out about the booze,
lady. It'll float you into trouble--trouble with me, I mean."
And he patted her bare shoulders, laughed gently, went to the door.
He paused there, struggled with an impulse to turn--departed.
VII
BUT she did not "look out about the booze." Each morning she
awoke in a state of depression so horrible that she wondered
why she could not bring herself to plan suicide. Why was it?
Her marriage? Yes--and she paid it its customary tribute of a
shudder. Yes, her marriage had made all things thereafter
possible. But what else? Lack of courage? Lack of
self-respect? Was it not always assumed that a woman in her
position, if she had a grain of decent instinct, would rush
eagerly upon death? Was she so much worse than others? Or was
what everybody said about these things--everybody who had
experience--was it false, like nearly everything else she had
been taught? She did not understand; she only knew that hope
was as strong within her as health itself--and that she did not
want to die--and that at present she was helpless.
One evening the man she was with--a good-looking and unusually
interesting young chap--suddenly said:
"What a heart action you have got! Let me listen to that again."
"Is it all wrong?" asked Susan, as he pressed his ear against
her chest.
"You ask that as if you rather hoped it was."
"I do--and I don't."
"Well," said he, after listening for a third time, "you'll
never die of heart trouble. I never heard a heart with such a
grand action--like a big, powerful pump, built to last forever.
You're never ill, are you?"
"Not thus far."
"And you'll have a hard time making yourself ill.
Health? Why, your health must be perfect. Let me see." And
he proceeded to thump and press upon her chest with an
expertness that proclaimed the student of medicine. He was all
interest and enthusiasm, took a pencil and, spreading a sheet upon
her chest over her heart, drew its outlines. "There!" he cried.
"What is it?" asked Susan. "I don't understand."
The young man drew a second and much smaller heart within the
outline of hers. "This," he explained, "is about the size of
an ordinary heart. You can see for yourself that yours is
fully one-fourth bigger than the normal."
"What of it?" said Susan.
"Why, health and strength--and vitality--courage--hope--all
one-fourth above the ordinary allowance. Yes, more than a
fourth. I envy you. You ought to live long, stay young until
you're very old--and get pretty much anything you please. You
don't belong to this life. Some accident, I guess. Every once
in a while I run across a case something like yours. You'll go
back where you belong. This is a dip, not a drop."
"You sound like a fortune-teller." She was smiling mockingly.
But in truth she had never in all her life heard words that
thrilled her so, that heartened her so.
"I am. A scientific fortune-teller. And what that kind says
comes true, barring accidents. As you're not ignorant and
careless this life of yours isn't physiologically bad. On the
contrary, you're out in the open air much of the time and get
the splended exercise of walking--a much more healthful life,
in the essential ways, than respectable women lead. They're
always stuffing, and rumping it. They never move if they can
help. No, nothing can stop you but death--unless you're far less
intelligent than you look. Oh, yes--death and one other thing."
"Drink." And he looked shrewdly at her.
But drink she must. And each day, as soon as she dressed and
was out in the street, she began to drink, and kept it up until
she had driven off the depression and had got herself into the
mood of recklessness in which she found a certain sardonic
pleasure in outraging her own sensibilities. There is a stage
in a drinking career when the man or the woman becomes depraved
and ugly as soon as the liquor takes effect. But she was far
from this advanced stage. Her disposition was, if anything,
more sweet and generous when she was under the influence of
liquor. The whiskey--she almost always drank whiskey--seemed
to act directly and only upon the nerves that ached and
throbbed when she was sober, the nerves that made the life she
was leading seem loathsome beyond the power of habit to
accustom. With these nerves stupefied, her natural gayety
asserted itself, and a fondness for quiet and subtle
mockery--her indulgence in it did not make her popular with
vain men sufficiently acute to catch her meaning.
By observation and practice she was soon able to measure the
exact amount of liquor that was necessary to produce the proper
state of intoxication at the hour for going "on duty." That
gayety of hers was of the surface only. Behind it her real
self remained indifferent or somber or sardonic, according to
her mood of the day. And she had the sense of being in the
grasp of a hideous, fascinating nightmare, of being dragged
through some dreadful probation from which she would presently
emerge to ascend to the position she would have earned by her
desperate fortitude. The past--unreal. The present--a waking
dream. But the future--ah, the future!
He has not candidly explored far beneath the surface of things
who does not know the strange allure, charm even, that many
loathsome things possess. And drink is peculiarly fitted to
bring out this perverse quality--drink that blurs all the
conventionalities, even those built up into moral ideas by
centuries and ages of unbroken custom. The human animal, for
all its pretenses of inflexibility, is almost infinitely
adaptable--that is why it has risen in several million years of
evolution from about the humblest rank in the mammalian family
to overlordship of the universe. Still, it is doubtful if,
without drink to help her, a girl of Susan's intelligence and
temperament would have been apt to endure. She would probably
have chosen the alternative--death. Hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of girls, at least her equals in sensibility, are
caught in the same calamity every year, tens of thousands, ever
more and more as our civilization transforms under the pressure
of industrialism, are caught in the similar calamities of
soul-destroying toil. And only the few survive who have
perfect health and abounding vitality. Susan's iron strength
enabled her to live; but it was drink that enabled her to
endure. Beyond question one of the greatest blessings that
could now be conferred upon the race would be to cure it of the
drink evil. But at the same time, if drink were taken away
before the causes of drink were removed, there would be an
appalling increase in suicide--in insanity, in the general
total of human misery. For while drink retards the growth of
intelligent effort to end the stupidities in the social system,
does it not also help men and women to bear the consequences of
those stupidities? Our crude and undeveloped new civilization,
strapping men and women and children to the machines and
squeezing all the energy out of them, all the capacity for
vital life, casts them aside as soon as they are useless but
long before they are dead. How unutterably wretched they would
be without drink to give them illusions!
Susan grew fond of cigarettes, fond of whiskey; to the rest
she after a few weeks became numb--no new or strange phenomenon
in a world where people with a cancer or other hideous running
sore or some gross and frightful deformity of fat or
excrescence are seen laughing, joining freely and comfortably
in the company of the unafflicted. In her affliction Susan at
least saw only those affected like herself--and that helped not
a little, helped the whiskey to confuse and distort her outlook
upon life.
The old Cartesian formula--"I think, therefore I am"--would
come nearer to expressing a truth, were it reversed--"I am,
therefore I think." Our characters are compressed, and our
thoughts bent by our environment. And most of us are
unconscious of our slavery because our environment remains
unchanged from birth until death, and so seems the whole
universe to us.
In spite of her life, in spite of all she did to disguise
herself, there persisted in her face--even when she was dazed or
giddied or stupefied with drink--the expression of the woman on
the right side of the line. Whether it was something in her
character, whether it was not rather due to superiority of
breeding and intelligence, would be difficult to say. However,
there was the _different_ look that irritated many of the other
girls, interfered with her business and made her feel a
hypocrite. She heard so much about the paleness of her lips
that she decided to end that comment by using paint--the
durable kind Ida had recommended. When her lips flamed
carmine, a strange and striking effect resulted. The sad sweet
pensiveness of her eyes--the pallor of her clear skin--then,
that splash of bright red, artificial, bold, defiant--the
contrast of the combination seemed somehow to tell the story of
her life her past no less than her present. And when her
beauty began to come back--for, hard though her life was, it
was a life of good food, of plenty of sleep, of much open air;
so it put no such strain upon her as had the life of the
factory and the tenement--when her beauty came back, the effect
of that contrast of scarlet splash against the sad purity of
pallid cheeks and violet-gray eyes became a mark of
individuality, of distinction. It was not long before Susan
would have as soon thought of issuing forth with her body
uncovered as with her lips unrouged.
She turned away from men who sought her a second time. She was
difficult to find, she went on "duty" only enough days each
week to earn a low average of what was expected from the girls
by their protectors. Yet she got many unexpected presents--and
so had money to lend to the other girls, who soon learned how
"easy" she was.
Maud, sometimes at her own prompting, sometimes prompted by
Jim, who was prompted by Freddie--warned her every few days that
she was skating on the thinnest of ice. But she went her way.
Not until she accompanied a girl to an opium joint to discover
whether dope had the merits claimed for it as a deadener of
pain and a producer of happiness--not until then did Freddie
come in person.
"I hear," said he and she wondered whether he had heard from
Max or from loose-tongued Maud--"that you come into the hotel
so drunk that men sometimes leave you right away again--go
without paying you."
"I must drink," said Susan.
"You must _stop_ drink," retorted he, amiable in his terrible
way. "If you don't, I'll have you pinched and sent up.
That'll bring you to your senses."
"I must drink," said Susan.
"Then I must have you pinched," said he with his mocking laugh.
"Don't be a fool," he went on. "You can make money enough to
soon buy the right sort of clothes so that I can afford to be
seen with you. I'd like to take you out once in a while and
give you a swell time. But what'd we look like together--with
you in those cheap things out of bargain troughs? Not that you
don't look well--for you do. But the rest of you isn't up to
your feet and to the look in your face. The whole thing's got to
be right before a lady can sit opposite _me_ in Murray's or Rector's."
"All I ask is to be let alone," said Susan.
"That isn't playing square--and you've got to play square. What
I want is to set you up in a nice parlor trade--chaps from the
college and the swell clubs and hotels. But I can't do
anything for you as long as you drink this way. You'll have to
stay on the streets."
"That's where I want to stay."
"Well, there's something to be said for the streets," Freddie
admitted. "If a woman don't intend to make sporting her life
business, she don't want to get up among the swells of the
profession, where she'd become known and find it hard to
sidestep. Still, even in the street you ought to make a
hundred, easy--and not go with any man that doesn't suit you."
"Any man that doesn't suit me," said Susan. And, after a
pause, she said it again: "Any man that doesn't suit me."
The young man, with his shrewdness of the street-graduate and
his sensitiveness of the Italian, gave her an understanding
glance. "You look as if you couldn't decide whether to laugh
or cry. I'd try to laugh if I was you."
She had laughed as he spoke.
Freddie nodded approval. "That sounded good to me. You're
getting broken in. Don't take yourself so seriously. After
all, what are you doing? Why, learning to live like a man."
She found this new point of view interesting--and true, too.
Like a man--like all men, except possibly a few--not enough
exceptions to change the rule. Like a man; getting herself
hardened up to the point where she could take part in the cruel
struggle on equal terms with the men. It wasn't their
difference of body any more than it was their difference of
dress that handicapped women; it was the idea behind skirt and
sex--and she was getting rid of that. . . .
The theory was admirable; but it helped her not at all in
practice. She continued to keep to the darkness, to wait in
the deep doorways, so far as she could in her "business hours,"
and to repulse advances in the day time or in public
places--and to drink. She did not go again to the opium joint,
and she resisted the nightly offers of girls and their
"gentlemen friends" to try cocaine in its various forms.
"Dope," she saw, was the medicine of despair. And she was far
from despair. Had she not youth? Had she not health and
intelligence and good looks? Some day she would have finished
her apprenticeship. Then--the career!
Freddie let her alone for nearly a month, though she was
earning less than fifty dollars a week--which meant only thirty
for him. He had never "collected" from her directly, but
always through Jim; and she had now learned enough of the
methods of the system of which she was one of the thousands of
slaves to appreciate that she was treated by Jim with unique
consideration. Not only by the surly and brutal Jim, but also
by the police who oppressed in petty ways wherever they dared
because they hated Freddie's system which took away from them
a part of the graft they regarded as rightfully theirs.
Yes, rightfully theirs. And anyone disposed to be critical of
police morality--or of Freddie Palmer morality--in this matter
of graft would do well to pause and consider the source of his
own income before he waxes too eloquent and too virtuous.
Graft is one of those general words that mean everything and
nothing. What is graft and what is honest income? Just where
shall we draw the line between rightful exploitation of our
fellow-beings through their necessities and their ignorance of
their helplessness, and wrongful exploitation? Do attempts to
draw that line resolve down to making virtuous whatever I may
appropriate and vicious whatever is appropriated in ways other
than mine? And if so are not the police and the Palmers
entitled to their day in the moral court no less than the
tariff-baron and market-cornerer, the herder and driver of wage
slaves, the retail artists in cold storage filth, short weight
and shoddy goods? However, "we must draw the line somewhere"
or there will be no such thing as morality under our social
system. So why not draw it at anything the other fellow does
to make money. In adopting this simple rule, we not only
preserve the moralities from destruction but also establish our
own virtue and the other fellow's villainy. Truly, never is
the human race so delightfully, so unconsciously, amusing as
when it discusses right and wrong.
When she saw Freddie again, he was far from sober. He showed
it by his way of beginning. Said he:
"I've got to hand you a line of rough talk, Queenie. I took on
this jag for your especial benefit," said he. "I'm a fool
about you and you take advantage of it. That's bad for both of
us. . . . You're drinking as much as ever?"
"More," replied she. "It takes more and more."
"How can you expect to get on?" cried he, exasperated.
"As I told you, I couldn't make a cent if I didn't drink."
Freddie stared moodily at her, then at the floor--they were in
her room. Finally he said:
"You get the best class of men. I put my swell friends on to
where you go slipping by, up and down in the shadow--and it's
all they can do to find you. The best class of men--men all
the swell respectable girls in town are crazy to hook up
with--those of 'em that ain't married already. If you're good
enough for those chaps they ought to be good enough for you.
Yet some of 'em complain to me that they get thrown down--and
others kick because you were too full--and, damn it, you act so
queer that you scare 'em away. What am I to do about it?"
She was silent.
"I want you to promise me you'll take a brace."
No answer.
"You won't promise?"
"No--because I don't intend to. I'm doing the best I can."
"You think I'm a good thing. You think I'll take anything off
you, because I'm stuck on you--and appreciate that you ain't on
the same level with the rest of these heifers. Well--I'll not
let any woman con me. I never have. I never will. And I'll
make you realize that you're not square with me. I'll let you
get a taste of life as it is when a girl hasn't got a friend
with a pull."
"As you please," said Susan indifferently. "I don't in the
least care what happens to me."
"We'll see about that," cried he, enraged. "I'll give you a
week to brace up in."
The look he shot at her by way of finish to his sentence was
menacing enough. But she was not disturbed; these signs of
anger tended to confirm her in her sense of security from him.
For it was wholly unlike the Freddie Palmer the rest of the
world knew, to act in this irresolute and stormy way. She knew
that Palmer, in his fashion, cared for her--better still, liked
her--liked to talk with her, liked to show--and to develop--the
aspiring side of his interesting, unusual nature for her benefit.
A week passed, during which she did not see him. But she heard
that he was losing on both the cards and the horses and was
drinking wildly. A week--ten days--then----
One night, as she came out of a saloon a block or so down Seventh
Avenue from Forty-second, a fly cop seized her by the arm.
"Come along," said he roughly. "You're drinking and
soliciting. I've got to clear the streets of some of these
tarts. It's got so decent people can't move without falling
over 'em."
Susan had not lived in the tenement districts where the
ignorance and the helplessness and the lack of a voice that can
make itself heard among the ruling classes make the sway of the
police absolute and therefore tyrannical--she had not lived
there without getting something of that dread and horror of the
police which to people of the upper classes seems childish or
evidence of secret criminal hankerings. And this nervousness
had latterly been increased to terror by what she had learned
from her fellow-outcasts--the hideous tales of oppression, of
robbery, of bodily and moral degradation. But all this terror
had been purely fanciful, as any emotion not of experience
proves to be when experience evokes the reality. At that
touch, at the sound of those rough words--at that _reality_ of
the terror she had imagined from the days when she went to work
at Matson's and to live with the Brashears, she straightway
lost consciousness. When her senses returned she was in a
cell, lying on a wooden bench.
There must have been some sort of wild struggle; for her
clothes were muddy, her hat was crushed into shapelessness, her
veil was so torn that she had difficulty in arranging it to act
as any sort of concealment. Though she had no mirror at which
to discover the consolation, she need have had no fear of being
recognized, so distorted were all her features by the frightful
paroxysms of grief that swept and ravaged her body that night.
She fainted again when they led her out to put her in the wagon.
She fainted a third time when she heard her name--"Queenie
Brown"--bellowed out by the court officer. They shook her into
consciousness, led her to the court-room. She was conscious of
a stifling heat, of a curious crowd staring at her with eyes
which seemed to bore red hot holes into her flesh. As she
stood before the judge, with head limp upon her bosom, she
heard in her ear a rough voice bawling, "You're discharged.
The judge says don't come here again." And she was pushed
through an iron gate. She walked unsteadily up the aisle,
between two masses of those burning-eyed human monsters. She
felt the cold outside air like a vast drench of icy water flung
upon her. If it had been raining, she might have gone toward
the river. But than{sic} that day New York had never been more
radiantly the City of the Sun. How she got home she never
knew, but late in the afternoon she realized that she was in
her own room.
Hour after hour she lay upon the bed, body and mind inert.
Helpless--no escape--no courage to live--yet no wish to die.
How much longer would it last? Surely the waking from this
dream must come soon.
About noon the next day Freddie came. "I let you off easy,"
said he, sitting on the bed upon which she was lying dressed as
when she came in the day before. "Have you been drinking again?"
"No," she muttered.
"Well--don't. Next time, a week on the Island. . . . Did you hear?"
"Yes."
"Don't turn me against you. I'd hate to have to make an awful
example of you."
"I must drink," she repeated in the same stolid way.
He abruptly but without shock lifted her to a sitting position.
His arm held her body up; her head was thrown back and her face
was looking calmly at him. She realized that he had been
drinking--drinking hard. Her eyes met his terrible eyes
without flinching. He kissed her full upon the lips. With her
open palm she struck him across the cheek, bringing the red
fierily to its smooth fair surface. The devil leaped into his
eyes, the devil of cruelty and lust. He smiled softly and
wickedly. "I see you've forgotten the lesson I gave you three
months ago. You've got to be taught to be afraid all over again."
"I _am_ not afraid," said she. "I _was_ not afraid. You can't
make me afraid."
"We'll see," murmured he. And his fingers began to caress her
round smooth throat.
"If you ever strike me again," she said quietly, "I'll kill you."
His eyes flinched for an instant--long enough to let her know
his innermost secret. "I want you--I want _you_--damn you," he
said, between his clinched teeth. "You're the first one I
couldn't get. There's something in you I can't get!"
"That's _me_," she replied.
"You hate me, don't you?"
"No."
"Then you love me?"
"No. I care nothing about you."
He let her drop back to the bed, went to the window, stood
looking out moodily. After a while he said without turning:
"My mother kept a book shop--on the lower East Side. She
brought me up at home. At home!" And he laughed sardonically.
"She hated me because I looked like my father."
Silence, then he spoke again:
"You've never been to my flat. I've got a swell place. I want
to cut out this part of the game. I can get along without it.
You're going to move in with me, and stop this street business.
I make good money. You can have everything you want."
"I prefer to keep on as I am."
"What's the difference? Aren't you mine whenever I want you?"
"I prefer to be free."
"_Free!_ Why, you're not free. Can't I send you to the Island
any time I feel like it--just as I can the other girls?"
"Yes--you can do that. But I'm free, all the same."
"No more than the other girls."
"Yes."
"What do you mean?"
"Unless you understand, I couldn't make you see it," she said.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, doing up her hair,
which had partly fallen down. "I think you do understand."
"What in the hell do you want, anyhow?" he demanded.
"If I knew--do you suppose I'd be here?"
He watched her with baffled, longing eyes. "What is it," he
muttered, "that's so damn peculiar about you?"
It was the question every shrewd observant person who saw her
put to himself in one way or another; and there was excellent
reason why this should have been.
Life has a certain set of molds--lawyer, financier, gambler,
preacher, fashionable woman, prostitute, domestic woman,
laborer, clerk, and so on through a not extensive list of
familiar types with which we all soon become acquainted. And
to one or another of these patterns life fits each of us as we
grow up. Not one in ten thousand glances into human faces is
arrested because it has lit upon a personality that cannot be
immediately located, measured, accounted for. The reason for
this sterility of variety which soon makes the world rather
monotonous to the seeing eye is that few of us are born with
any considerable amount of personality, and what little we have
is speedily suppressed by a system of training which is
throughout based upon an abhorrence of originality. We obey
the law of nature--and nature so abhors variety that, whenever
a variation from a type happens, she tries to kill it, and,
that failing, reproduces it a myriad times to make it a type.
When an original man or woman appears and all the strenuous
effort to suppress him or her fails, straightway spring up a
thousand imitators and copiers, and the individuality is lost
in the school, the fashion, the craze. We have not the courage
to be ourselves, even where there is anything in us that might
be developed into something distinctive enough to win us the
rank of real identity. Individuality--distinction--where it
does exist, almost never shows until experience brings it
out--just as up to a certain stage the embryo of any animal is
like that of every other animal, though there is latent in it
the most positive assertion of race and sex, of family, type,
and so on.
Susan had from childhood possessed certain qualities of
physical beauty, of spiritedness, of facility in mind and
body--the not uncommon characteristic of the child that is the
flower of passionate love. But now there was beginning to show
in her a radical difference from the rest of the crowd pouring
through the streets of the city. It made the quicker observers
in the passing throng turn the head for a second and wondering
glance. Most of them assumed they had been stirred by her
superiority of face and figure. But striking faces and figures
of the various comely types are frequent in the streets of New
York and of several other American cities. The truth was that
they were interested by her expression--an elusive expression
telling of a soul that was being moved to its depths by
experience which usually finds and molds mere passive material.
This expression was as evident in her mouth as in her eyes, in
her profile as in her full face. And as she sat there on the
edge of the bed twisting up her thick dark hair, it was this
expression that disconcerted Freddie Palmer, for the first time
in all his contemptuous dealings with the female sex. In his
eyes was a ferocious desire to seize her and again try to
conquer and to possess.
She had become almost unconscious of his presence. He startled
her by suddenly crying, "Oh, you go to hell!" and flinging from
the room, crashing the door shut behind him.
Maud had grown tired of the haberdasher's clerk and his
presumptions upon her frank fondness which he wholly
misunderstood. She had dropped him for a rough looking
waiter-singer in a basement drinking place. He was beating her
and taking all the money she had for herself, and was spending
it on another woman, much older than Maud and homely--and Maud
knew, and complained of him bitterly to everyone but himself.
She was no longer hanging round Susan persistently, having been
discouraged by the failure of her attempts at intimacy with a
girl who spent nearly all her spare time at reading or at plays
and concerts. Maud was now chumming with a woman who preyed
upon the patrons of a big Broadway hotel--she picked them up
near the entrance, robbed them, and when they asked the hotel
detectives to help them get back their stolen money, the
detectives, who divided with her, frightened them off by saying
she was a mulatto and would compel them to make a public
appearance against her in open court. This woman, older and
harder than most of the girls, though of quiet and refined
appearance and manner, was rapidly dragging Maud down. Also,
Maud's looks were going because she ate irregularly all kinds
of trash, and late every night ate herself full to bursting and
drank herself drunk to stupefaction.
Susan's first horror of the men she met--men of all
classes--was rapidly modified into an inconsistent, therefore
characteristically human, mingling of horror and tolerance.
Nobody, nothing, was either good or bad, but all veered like
weathercocks in the shifting wind. She decided that people
were steadily good only where their lot happened to be cast in
a place in which the good wind held steadily, and that those
who were usually bad simply had the misfortune to have to live
where the prevailing winds were bad.
For instance, there was the handsome, well educated, well
mannered young prize-fighter, Ned Ballou, who was Estelle's
"friend." Ballou, big and gentle and as incapable of bad humor
as of constancy or of honesty about money matters, fought under
the name of Joe Geary and was known as Upper Cut Joe because
usually, in the third round, never later than the fifth, he
gave the knockout to his opponent by a cruelly swift and savage
uppercut. He had educated himself marvelously well. But he
had been brought up among thieves and had by some curious freak
never learned to know what a moral sense was, which is one--and
a not unattractive--step deeper down than those who know what
a moral sense is but never use it. At supper in Gaffney's he
related to Susan and Estelle how he had won his greatest
victory--the victory of Terry the Cyclone, that had lifted him
up into the class of secure money-makers. He told how he
always tried to "rattle" his opponent by talking to him, by
pouring out in an undertone a stream of gibes, jeers, insults.
The afternoon of the fight Terry's first-born had died, but the
money for the funeral expenses and to save the wife from the
horrors and dangers of the free wards had to be earned. Joe
Geary knew that he must win this fight or drop into the working
or the criminal class. Terry was a "hard one"; so
circumstances compelled, those desperate measures which great
men, from financiers and generals down to prize-fighters, do
not shrink from else they would not be great, but small.
As soon as he was facing Terry in the ring--Joe so he related
with pride in his cleverness--began to "guy"--"Well, you Irish
fake--so the kid's dead--eh? Who was its pa, say?--the dirty
little bastard--or does the wife know which one it was----" and
so on. And Terry, insane with grief and fury, fought wild--and
Joe became a champion.
As she listened Susan grew cold with horror and with hate.
Estelle said:
"Tell the rest of it, Joe."
"Oh, that was nothing," replied he.
When he strolled away to talk with some friends Estelle told
"the rest" that was "nothing." The championship secure, Joe
had paid all Terry's bills, had supported Terry and his wife
for a year, had relapsed into old habits and "pulled off a job"
of safe-cracking because, the prize-fighting happening to pay
poorly, he would have had a default on the payments for a month
or so. He was caught, did a year on the Island before his
"pull" could get him out. And all the time he was in the "pen"
he so arranged it with his friends that the invalid Terry and
his invalid wife did not suffer. And all this he had done not
because he had a sense of owing Terry, but because he was of
the "set" in which it is the custom to help anybody who happens
to need it, and aid begun becomes an obligation to "see it through."
It was an extreme case of the moral chaos about her--the chaos
she had begun to discover when she caught her aunt and Ruth
conspiring to take Sam away from her.
What a world! If only these shifting, usually evil winds of
circumstance could be made to blow good!
A few evenings after the arrest Maud came for Susan, persuaded
her to go out. They dined at about the only good restaurant
where unescorted women were served after nightfall. Afterward
they went "on duty." It was fine overhead and the air was
cold and bracing--one of those marvelous New York winter nights
which have the tonic of both sea and mountains and an
exhilaration, in addition, from the intense bright-burning life
of the mighty city. For more than a week there had been a
steady downpour of snow, sleet and finally rain. Thus, the
women of the streets had been doing almost no business. There
was not much money in sitting in drinking halls and the back
rooms of saloons and picking up occasional men; the best trade
was the men who would not venture to show themselves in such
frankly disreputable places, but picked out women in the
crowded streets and followed them to quiet dark places to make
the arrangements--men stimulated by good dinners, or, later on,
in the evening, those who left parties of elegant
respectability after theater or opera. On this first night of
business weather in nearly two weeks the streets were crowded
with women and girls. They were desperately hard up and they
made open dashes for every man they could get at. All classes
were made equally bold--the shop and factory and office and
theater girls with wages too small for what they regarded as a
decent living; the women with young children to support and
educate; the protected professional regulars; the miserable
creatures who had to get along as best they could without
protection, and were prey to every blackmailing officer of an
anti-vice society and to every policeman and fly-cop not above
levying upon women who were "too low to be allowed to live,
anyhow." Out from all kinds of shelters swarmed the women who
were demonstrating how prostitution flourishes and tends to
spread to every class of society whenever education develops
tastes beyond the earning power of their possessors. And with
clothes and food to buy, rent to pay, dependents to support,
these women, so many days hampered in the one way that was open
to them to get money, made the most piteous appeals to the men.
Not tearful appeals, not appeals to sympathy or even to
charity, but to passion. They sought in every way to excite.
They exhibited their carefully gotten-up legs; they made
indecent gestures; they said the vilest things; they offered
the vilest inducements; they lowered their prices down and
down. And such men as did not order them off with disdain,
listened with laughter, made jokes at which the wretched
creatures laughed as gayly as if they were not mad with anxiety
and were not hating these men who were holding on to that which
they must have to live.
"Too many out tonight," said Maud as they walked their
beat--Forty-second between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. "I knew
it would be this way. Let's go in here and get warm."
They went into the back room of a saloon where perhaps half a
dozen women were already seated, some of them gray with the
cold against which their thin showy garments were no
protection. Susan and Maud sat at a table in a corner; Maud
broke her rule and drank whiskey with Susan. After they had
taken perhaps half a dozen drinks, Maud grew really
confidential. She always, even in her soberest moments, seemed
to be telling everything she knew; but Susan had learned that
there were in her many deep secrets, some of which not even
liquor could unlock.
"I'm going to tell you something," she now said to Susan. "You
must promise not to give me away."
"Don't tell me," replied Susan. She was used to being
flattered--or victimized, according to the point of view--with
confidences. She assumed Maud was about to confess some secret
about her own self, as she had the almost universal habit of
never thinking of anyone else. "Don't tell me," said she.
"I'm tired of being used to air awful secrets. It makes me
feel like a tenement wash line."
"This is about you," said Maud. "If it's ever found out that
I put you wise, Jim'll have me killed. Yes--killed."
Susan, reckless by this time, laughed. "Oh, trash!" she said.
"No trash at all," insisted Maud. "When you know this town
through and through you'll know that murder's something that
can be arranged as easy as buying a drink. What risk is there
in making one of _us_ `disappear'? None in the world. I always
feel that Jim'll have me killed some day--unless I go crazy
sometime and kill him. He's stuck on me--or, at least, he's
jealous of me--and if he ever found out I had a
lover--somebody--anybody that didn't pay--why, it'd be all up
with me. Little Maud would go on the grill."
She ordered and slowly drank another whiskey before she
recalled what she had set out to confide. By way of a fresh
start she said, "What do you think of Freddie?"
"I don't know," replied Susan. And it was the truth. Her
instinctive belief in a modified kind of fatalism made her
judgments of people--even of those who caused her to
suffer--singularly free from personal bitterness. Freddie, a
mere instrument of destiny, had his good side, his human side,
she knew. At his worst he was no worse than the others, And
aside from his queer magnetism, there was a certain force in
him that compelled her admiration; at least he was not one of
the petty instruments of destiny. He had in him the same
quality she felt gestating within herself. "I don't know what
to think," she repeated.
Maud had been reflecting while Susan was casting about, as she
had many a time before, for her real opinion of her master who
was in turn the slave of Finnegan, who was in his turn the
slave of somebody higher up, she didn't exactly know who--or
why--or the why of any of it--or the why of the grotesque
savage purposeless doings of destiny in general. Maud now
burst out:
"I don't care. I'm going to put you wise if I die for it."
"Don't," said Susan. "I don't want to know."
"But I've _got_ to tell you. Do you know what Freddie's going to do?"
Susan smiled disdainfully. "I don't care. You mustn't tell
me--when you've been drinking this way "
"Finnegan's police judge is a man named Bennett. As soon as
Bennett comes back to Jefferson Market Police Court, Freddie's
going to have you sent up for three months."
Susan's glass was on the way to her lips. She set it down
again. The drunken old wreck of an entertainer at the piano in
the corner was bellowing out his favorite song--"I Am the King
of the Vikings." Susan began to hum the air.
"It's gospel," cried Maud, thinking Susan did not believe her.
"He's a queer one, is Freddie. They're all afraid of him.
You'd think he was a coward, the way he bullies women and that.
But somehow he ain't--not a bit. He'll be a big man in the
organization some day, they all say. He never lets up till he
gets square. And he thinks you're not square--after all he's
done for you."
"Perhaps not--as he looks at it," said Susan.
"And Jim says he's crazy in love with you, and that he wants to
put you where other men can't see you and where maybe he can
get over caring about you. That's the real reason. He's a
queer devil. But then all men are though none quite like Freddie."
"So I'm to go to the Island for three months," said Susan reflectively.
"You don't seem to care. It's plain you never was there. . . .
And you've got to go. There's no way out of it--unless you
skip to another city. And if you did you never could come back
here. Freddie'd see that you got yours as soon as you landed."
Susan sat looking at her glass. Maud watched her in
astonishment. "You're as queer as Freddie," said she at
length. "I never feel as if I was acquainted with you--not
really. I never had a lady friend like that before. You don't
seem to be a bit excited about what Freddie's going to do. Are
you in love with him?"
Susan lifted strange, smiling eyes to Maud's curious gaze.
"I--in _love_--with a _man_," she said slowly. And then she laughed.
"Don't laugh that way," cried Maud. "It gives me the creeps.
What are you going to do?"
"What can I do?"
"Nothing."
"Then if there's nothing to do, I'll no nothing."
"Go to the Island for three months?"
Susan shrugged her shoulders. "I haven't gone yet." She rose.
"It's too stuffy and smelly in here," said she. "Let's move out."
"No. I'll wait. I promised to meet a gentleman friend here.
You'll not tell that I tipped you off?"
"You'd not have told me if you hadn't known I wouldn't."
"That's so. But--why don't you make it up with Freddie?"
"I couldn't do that."
"He's dead in love. I'm sure you could."
Again Susan's eyes became strange. "I'm sure I couldn't. Good
night." She got as far as the door, came back. "Thank you for
telling me."
"Oh, that's all right," murmured the girl. She was embarrassed
by Susan's manner. She was frightened by Susan's eyes. "You
ain't going to----" There she halted.
"What?"
"To jump off? Kill yourself?"
"Hardly," said Susan. "I've got a lot to do before I die."
She went directly home. Palmer was lying on the bed, a
cigarette between his lips, a newspaper under his feet to
prevent his boots from spoiling the spread--one of the many
small indications of the prudence, thrift and calculation that
underlay the almost insane recklessness of his surface
character, and that would save him from living as the fool
lives and dying as the fool dies.
"I thought you wouldn't slop round in these streets long," said
he, as she paused upon the threshold. "So I waited."
She went to the bureau, unlocked the top drawer, took the
ten-dollar bill she had under some undershirts there, put it in
her right stocking where there were already a five and a two.
She locked the drawer, tossed the key into an open box of
hairpins. She moved toward the door.
"Where are you going?" asked he, still staring at the ceiling.
"Out. I've made almost nothing this week."
"Sit down. I want to talk to you."
She hesitated, seated herself on a chair near the bed.
He frowned at her. "You've been drinking?"
"Yes."
"I've been drinking myself, but I've got a nose like a hunting
dog. What do you do it for?"
"What's the use of explaining? You'd not understand."
"Perhaps I would. I'm one-fourth Italian--and they understand
everything. . . . You're fond of reading, aren't you?"
"It passes the time."
"While I was waiting for you I glanced at your new
books--Emerson--Dickens--Zola." He was looking toward the row of
paper backs that filled almost the whole length of the mantel.
"I must read them. I always like your books. You spend nearly
as much time reading as I do--and you don't need it, for you've
got a good education. What do you read for? To amuse yourself?"
"No."
"To get away from yourself?"
"No."
"Then why?" persisted he.
"To find out about myself."
He thought a moment, turned his face toward her. "You _are_
clever!" he said admiringly. "What's your game?"
"My game?"
"What are you aiming for? You've got too much sense not to be
aiming for something."
She looked at him; the expression that marked her as a person
peculiar and apart was glowing in her eyes like a bed of
red-hot coals covered with ashes.
"What?" he repeated.
"To get strong," replied she. "Women are born weak and bred
weaker. I've got to get over being a woman. For there isn't
any place in this world for a woman except under the shelter of
some man. And I don't want that." The underlying strength of
her features abruptly came into view. "And I won't have it,"
she added.
He laughed. "But the men'll never let _you_ be anything but a woman."
"We'll see," said she, smiling. The strong look had vanished
into the soft contour of her beautiful youth.
"Personally, I like you better when you've been drinking," he
went on. "You're sad when you're sober. As you drink you
liven up."
"When I get over being sad if I'm sober, when I learn to take
things as they come, just like a man--a strong man, then I'll
be----" She stopped.
"Be what?"
"Ready."
"Ready for what?"
"How do I know?"
He swung himself to a sitting position. "Meanwhile, you're
coming to live with me. I've been fighting against it, but I
give up. I need you. You're the one I've been looking for.
Pack your traps. I'll call a cab and we'll go over to my flat.
Then we'll go to Rector's and celebrate."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't."
"Why not?"
"I told you. There's something in me that won't let me."
He rose, walked to her very deliberately. He took one of her
hands from her lap, drew her to her feet, put his hands
strongly on her shoulders. "You belong to me," he said, his
lips smiling charmingly, but the devil in the gleam of his eyes
and in the glistening of his beautiful, cruel teeth. "Pack up."
"You know that I won't."
He slowly crushed her in his arms, slowly pressed his lips upon
hers. A low scream issued from her lips and she seized him by
the throat with both hands, one hand over the other, and thrust
him backward. He reeled, fell upon his back on the bed; she
fell with him, clung to him--like a bull dog--not as if she
would not, but as if she could not, let go. He clutched at her
fingers; failing to dislodge them, he tried to thrust his
thumbs into her eyes. But she seized his right thumb between
her teeth and bit into it until they almost met. And at the
same time her knees ground into his abdomen. He choked,
gurgled, grew dark red, then gray, then a faint blackish blue,
lay limp under her. But she did not relax until the blue of
his face had deepened to black and his eyes began to bulge from
their sockets. At those signs that he was beyond doubt
unconscious, she cautiously relaxed her fingers. She
unclenched her teeth; his arm, which had been held up by the
thumb she was biting, dropped heavily. She stood over him, her
eyes blazing insanely at him. She snatched out her hatpin,
flung his coat and waistcoat from over his chest, felt for his
heart. With the murderous eight inches of that slender steel
poniard poised for the drive, she began to sob, flung the
weapon away, took his face between her hands and kissed him.
"You fiend! You fiend!" she sobbed.
She changed to her plainest dress. Leaving the blood-stained
blouse on the bed beside him where she had flung it down after
tearing it off, she turned out the light, darted down stairs
and into the street. At Times Square she took the Subway for
the Bowery. To change one's world, one need not travel far in
New York; the ocean is not so wide as is the gap between the
Tenderloin and the lower East Side.
VIII
SHE had thought of escape daily, hourly almost, for nearly five
months. She had advanced not an inch toward it; but she never
for an instant lost hope. She believed in her destiny, felt
with all the strength of her health and vitality that she had
not yet found her place in the world, that she would find it,
and that it would be high. Now--she was compelled to escape,
and this with only seventeen dollars and in the little time
that would elapse before Palmer returned to consciousness and
started in pursuit, bent upon cruel and complete revenge.
She changed to an express train at the Grand Central Subway
station, left the express on impulse at Fourteenth Street, took
a local to Astor Place, there ascended to the street.
She was far indeed from the Tenderloin, in a region not visited
by the people she knew. As for Freddie, he never went below
Fourtenth Street, hated the lower East Side, avoided anyone
from that region of his early days, now shrouded in a mystery
that would not be dispelled with his consent. Freddie would
not think of searching for her there; and soon he would believe
she was dead--drowned, and at the bottom of river or bay. As
she stepped from the exit of the underground, she saw in the
square before her, under the Sunset Cox statue, a Salvation
Army corps holding a meeting. She heard a cry from the center
of the crowd:
"The wages of sin is death!"
She drifted into the fringe of the crowd and glanced at the
little group of exhorters and musicians. The woman who was
preaching had taken the life of the streets as her text. Well
fed and well clad and certain of a clean room to sleep
in--certain of a good living, she was painting the moral
horrors of the street life.
"The wages of sin is death!" she shouted.
She caught Susan's eye, saw the cynical-bitter smile round her
lips. For Susan had the feeling that, unsuspected by the upper
classes, animates the masses as to clergy and charity workers
of all kinds--much the same feeling one would have toward the
robber's messenger who came bringing from his master as a
loving gift some worthless trifle from the stolen goods. Not
from clergy, not from charity worker, not from the life of the
poor as they take what is given them with hypocritical cringe
and tear of thanks, will the upper classes get the truth as to
what is thought of them by the masses in this day of awakening
intelligence and slow heaving of crusts so long firm that they
have come to be regarded as bed-rock of social foundation.
Cried the woman, in response to Susan's satirical look:
"You mock at that, my lovely young sister. Your lips are
painted, and they sneer. But you know I'm right--yes, you show
in your eyes that you know it in your aching heart! The wages
of sin is _death!_ Isn't that so, sister?"
Susan shook her head.
"Speak the truth, sister! God is watching you. The wages of
sin is _death!_"
"The wages of weakness is death," retorted Susan. "But--the
wages of sin--well, it's sometimes a house in Fifth Avenue."
And then she shrank away before the approving laughter of the
little crowd and hurried across into Eighth Street. In the
deep shadow of the front of Cooper Union she paused, as the
meaning of her own impulsive words came to her. The wages of
sin! And what was sin, the supreme sin, but weakness? It was
exactly as Burlingham had explained. He had said that, whether
for good or for evil, really to live one must be strong. Strong!
What a good teacher he had been--one of the rare kind that not
only said things interestingly but also said them so that you
never forgot. How badly she had learned!
She strolled on through Eighth Street, across Third Avenue and
into Second Avenue. It was ten o'clock. The effects of the
liquor she had drunk had worn away. In so much wandering she
had acquired the habit of closing up an episode of life as a
traveler puts behind him the railway journey at its end. She
was less than half an hour from her life in the Tenderloin; it
was as completely in her past as it would ever be. The cards
had once more been shuffled; a new deal was on.
A new deal. What? To fly to another city--that meant another
Palmer, or the miseries of the unprotected woman of the
streets, or slavery to the madman of what the French with cruel
irony call a _maison de joie_. To return to work----
What was open to her, educated as the comfortable classes
educate their women? Work meant the tenements. She loathed
the fast life, but not as she loathed vermin-infected
tenements. To toil all day at a monotonous task, the same task
every day and all day long! To sleep at night with Tucker and
the vermin! To her notion the sights and sounds and smells and
personal contacts of the tenements were no less vicious;
were--for her at least--far more degrading than anything in the
Tenderloin and its like. And there she got money to buy
whiskey that whirled her almost endurably, sometimes even
gayly, over the worst things--money to buy hours, whole days of
respite that could be spent in books, in dreams and plannings,
in the freedom of a clean and comfortable room, or at the
theater or concert. There were degrees in horror; she was
paying a hateful price, but not so hateful as she had paid when
she worked. The wages of shame were not so hard earned as the
wages of toil, were larger, brought her many of the things she
craved. The wages of toil brought her nothing but the right to
bare existence in filth and depravity and darkness. Also, she
felt that if she were tied down to some dull and exhausting
employment, she would be settled and done for. In a few years
she would be an old woman, with less wages or flung out
diseased or maimed--to live on and on like hundreds of wretched
old creatures adrift everywhere in the tenement streets. No,
work had nothing to offer her except "respectability." And
what a mocking was "respectability," in rags and filth!
Besides, what had _she_, the outcast born, to do with this
respectability?
No--not work--never again. So long as she was roving about,
there was hope and chance somehow to break through into the
triumphant class that ruled the world, that did the things
worth while--wore the good clothes, lived in the good houses,
ate the good food, basked in the sunshine of art.
Either she would soar above respectability, or she would remain
beneath it. Respectability might be an excellent thing; surely
there must be some merit in a thing about which there was so
much talk, after which there was so much hankering, and to
which there was such desperate clinging. But as a sole
possession, as a sole ambition, it seemed thin and poor and
even pitiful. She had emancipated herself from its tyranny;
she would not resume the yoke. Among so many lacks of the good
things of life its good would not be missed. Perhaps, when she
had got a few other of the good things she might try to add it
to them--or might find herself able to get comfortably along
without it, as had George Eliot and Aspasia, George Sand and
Duse and Bernhardt and so many of the world's company of
self-elected women members of the triumphant class.
A new deal! And a new deal meant at least even chance for good luck.
As she drifted down the west side of Second Avenue, her
thoughts so absorbed her that she was oblivious of the slushy
sidewalk, even of the crossings where one had to pick one's way
as through a shallow creek with stepping stones here and there.
There were many women alone, as in every other avenue and every
frequented cross street throughout the city--women made eager
to desperation by the long stretch of impossible weather.
Every passing man was hailed, sometimes boldly, sometimes
softly. Again and again that grotesque phrase "Let's go have
a good time" fell upon the ears. After several blocks, when
her absent-mindedness had got her legs wet to the knees in the
shallow shiny slush, she was roused by the sound of music--an
orchestra playing and playing well a lively Hungarian dance.
She was standing before the winter garden from which the sounds
came. As she opened the door she was greeted by a rush of warm
air pleasantly scented with fresh tobacco smoke, the odors of
spiced drinks and of food, pastry predominating. Some of the
tables were covered ready for those who would wish to eat; but
many of them were for the drinkers. The large, low-ceilinged
room was comfortably filled. There were but a few women and
they seemed to be wives or sweethearts. Susan was about to
retreat when a waiter--one of those Austrians whose heads end
abruptly an inch or so above the eyebrows and whose chins soon
shade off into neck--advanced smilingly with a polite, "We
serve ladies without escorts."
She chose a table that had several other vacant tables round
it. On the recommendation of the waiter she ordered a "burning
devil"; he assured her she would find it delicious and the
very thing for a cold slushy night. At the far end of the room
on a low platform sat the orchestra. A man in an evening suit
many sizes too large for him sang in a strong, not disagreeable
tenor a German song that drew loud applause at the end of each
stanza. The "burning devil" came--an almost black mixture in
a large heavy glass. The waiter touched a match to it, and it
was at once wreathed in pale flickering flames that hovered
like butterflies, now rising as if to float away, now lightly
descending to flit over the surface of the liquid or to dance
along the edge of the glass.
"What shall I do with it?" said Susan.
"Wait till it goes out," said the waiter. "Then drink, as you
would anything else." And he was off to attend to the wants of
a group of card players a few feet away.
Susan touched her finger to the glass, when the flame suddenly
vanished. She found it was not too hot to drink, touched her
lips to it. The taste, sweetish, suggestive of coffee and of
brandy and of burnt sugar, was agreeable. She slowly sipped
it, delighting in the sensation of warmth, of comfort, of well
being that speedily diffused through her. The waiter came to
receive her thanks for his advice. She said to him:
"Do you have women sing, too?"
"Oh, yes--when we can find a good-looker with a voice. Our
customers know music."
"I wonder if I could get a trial?"
The waiter was interested at once. "Perhaps. You sing?"
"I have sung on the stage."
"I'll ask the boss."
He went to the counter near the door where stood a short
thick-set Jew of the East European snub-nosed type in earnest
conversation with a seated blonde woman. She showed that skill
at clinging to youth which among the lower middle and lower
classes pretty clearly indicates at least some experience at
the fast life. For only in the upper and upper middle class
does a respectable woman venture thus to advertise so
suspicious a guest within as a desire to be agreeable in the
sight of men. Susan watched the waiter as he spoke to the
proprietor, saw the proprietor's impatient shake of the head,
sent out a wave of gratitude from her heart when her waiter
friend persisted, compelled the proprietor to look toward her.
She affected an air of unconsciousness; in fact, she was posing
as if before a camera. Her heart leaped when out of the corner
of her eye she saw the proprietor coming with the waiter. The
two paused at her table, and the proprietor said in a sharp,
impatient voice:
"Well, lady--what is it?"
"I want a trial as a singer."
The proprietor was scanning her features and her figure which
was well displayed by the tight-fitting jacket. The result
seemed satisfactory, for in a voice oily with the softening
influence of feminine charm upon male, he said:
"You've had experience?"
"Yes--a lot of it. But I haven't sung in about two years."
"Sing German?"
"Only ballads in English. But I can learn anything."
"English'll do--_if_ you can _sing_. What costume do you wear?"
And the proprietor seated himself and motioned the waiter away.
"I have no costume. As I told you, I've not been singing lately."
"We've got one that might fit--a short blue silk skirt--low
neck and blue stockings. Slippers too, but they might be
tight--I forget the number."
"I did wear threes. But I've done a great deal of walking. I
wear a five now." Susan thrust out a foot and ankle, for she
knew that despite the overshoe they were good to look at.
The proprietor nodded approvingly and there was the note of
personal interest in his voice as he said: "They can try your
voice tomorrow morning. Come at ten o'clock."
"If you decide to try me, what pay will I get?"
The proprietor smiled slyly. "Oh, we don't pay anything to the
singers. That man who sang--he gets his board here. He works
in a factory as a bookkeeper in the daytime. Lots of
theatrical and musical people come here. If a man or a girl
can do any stunt worth while, there's a chance."
"I'd have to have something more than board," said Susan.
The proprietor frowned down at his stubby fingers whose black
and cracked nails were drumming on the table. "Well--I might
give you a bed. There's a place I could put one in my
daughter's room. She sings and dances over at Louis Blanc's
garden in Third Avenue. Yes, I could put you there. But--no
privileges, you understand."
"Certainly. . . . I'll decide tomorrow. Maybe you'll not
want me."
"Oh, yes--if you can sing at all. Your looks'd please my
customers." Seeing the dubious expression in Susan's face, he
went on, "When I say `no privilege' I mean only about the room.
Of course, it's none of my business what you do outside. Lots
of well fixed gents comes here. My girls have all had good
luck. I've been open two years, and in that time one of my
singers got an elegant delicatessen owner to keep her."
"Really," said Susan, in the tone that was plainly expected of her.
"Yes--an _elegant_ gentleman. I'd not be surprised if he
married her. And another married an electrician that cops out
forty a week. You'll find it a splendid chance to make nice
friends--good spenders. And I'm a practical man."
"I suppose there isn't any work I could do in the daytime?"
"Not here."
"Perhaps----"
"Not nowhere, so far as I know. That is, work you'd care to
do. The factories and stores is hard on a woman, and she don't
get much. And besides they ain't very classy to my notion. Of
course, if a woman ain't got looks or sense or any tone to her,
if she's satisfied to live in a bum tenement and marry some dub
that can't make nothing, why, that's different. But you look
like a woman that had been used to something and wanted to get
somewhere. I wouldn't have let _my_ daughter go into no such
low, foolish life."
She had intended to ask about a place to stop for the night.
She now decided that the suggestion that she was homeless might
possibly impair her chances. After some further
conversation--the proprietor repeating what he had already
said, and repeating it in about the same language--she paid the
waiter fifteen cents for the drink and a tip of five cents out
of the change she had in her purse, and departed. It had
clouded over, and a misty, dismal rain was trickling through
the saturated air to add to the messiness of the churn of cold
slush. Susan went on down Second Avenue. On a corner near its
lower end she saw a Raines Law hotel with awnings, indicating
that it was not merely a blind to give a saloon a hotel license
but was actually open for business. She went into the
"family" entrance of the saloon, was alone in a small clean
sitting-room with a sliding window between it and the bar. A
tough but not unpleasant young face appeared at the window. It
was the bartender.
"Evening, cutie," said he. "What'll you have?"
"Some rye whiskey," replied Susan. "May I smoke a cigarette here?"
"Sure, go as far as you like. Ten-cent whiskey--or fifteen?"
"Fifteen--unless it's out of the same bottle as the ten."
"Call it ten--seeing as you are a lady. I've got a soft heart
for you ladies. I've got a wife in the business, myself."
When he came in at the door with the drink, a young man
followed him--a good-looking, darkish youth, well dressed in a
ready made suit of the best sort. At second glance Susan saw
that he was at least partly of Jewish blood, enough to elevate
his face above the rather dull type which predominates among
clerks and merchants of the Christian races. He had small,
shifty eyes, an attractive smile, a manner of assurance
bordering on insolence. He dropped into a chair at Susan's
table with a, "You don't mind having a drink on me."
As Susan had no money to spare, she acquiesced. She said to the
bartender, "I want to get a room here--a plain room. How much?"
"Maybe this gent'll help you out," said the bartender with a
grin and a wink. "He's got money to burn--and burns it."
The bartender withdrew. The young man struck a match and held
it for her to light the cigarette she took from her purse.
Then he lit one himself. "Next time try one of mine," said he.
"I get 'em of a fellow that makes for the swellest uptown
houses. But I get 'em ten cents a package instead of forty.
I haven't seen you down here before. What a good skin you've
got! It's been a long time since I've seen a skin as fine as
that, except on a baby now and then. And that shape of yours
is all right, too. I suppose it's the real goods?"
With that he leaned across the table and put his hand upon her
bosom. She drew back indifferently.
"You don't give anything for nothing--eh?" laughed he. "Been
in the business long?"
"It seems long."
"It ain't what it used to be. The competition's getting to be
something fierce. Looks as if all the respectable girls and
most of the married women were coming out to look for a little
extra money. Well--why not?"
Susan shrugged her shoulders. "Why not?" echoed she carelessly.
She did not look forward with pleasure to being alone. The man
was clean and well dressed, and had an unusual amount of
personal charm that softened his impertinence of manner.
Evidently he has the habit of success with women. She much
preferred him sitting with her to her own depressing society.
So she accepted his invitation. She took one of his
cigarettes, and it was as good as he had said. He rattled on,
mingling frank coarse compliments with talk about "the
business" from a standpoint so practical that she began to
suspect he was somehow in it himself. He clearly belonged to
those more intelligent children of the upper class tenement
people, the children who are too bright and too well educated
to become working men and working women like their parents; they
refuse to do any kind of manual labor, as it could never in the
most favorable circumstances pay well enough to give them the
higher comforts they crave, the expensive comforts which every
merchant is insistently and temptingly thrusting at a public
for the most part too poor to buy; so these cleverer children
of the working class develop into shyster lawyers, politicians,
sports, prostitutes, unless chance throws into their way some
respectable means of getting money. Vaguely she
wondered--without caring to question or guess what particular
form of activity this young man had taken in avoiding
monotonous work at small pay.
After her second drink came she found that she did not want it.
She felt tired and sleepy and wished to get her wet stockings
off and to dry her skirt which, for all her careful holding up,
had not escaped the fate of whatever was exposed to that
abominable night. "I'm going along with you," said the young
man as she rose. "Here's to our better acquaintance."
"Thanks, but I want to be alone," replied she affably. And,
not to seem unappreciative of his courtesy, she took a small
drink from her glass. It tasted very queer. She glanced
suspiciously at the young man. Her legs grew suddenly and
strangely heavy. her heart began to beat violently, and a
black fog seemed to be closing in upon her eyes. Through it
she saw the youth grinning sardonically. And instantly she
knew. "What a fool I am!" she thought.
She had been trapped by another form of the slave system. This
man was a recruiting sergeant for houses of prostitution--was
one of the "cadets." They search the tenement districts for
good-looking girls and young women. They hang about the street
corners, flirting. They attend the balls where go the young
people of the lower middle class and upper lower class. They
learn to make love seductively; they understand how to tempt a
girl's longing for finery, for an easier life, her dream of a
husband above her class in looks and in earning power. And for
each recruit "broken in" and hardened to the point of
willingness to go into a sporting house, they get from the
proprietor ten to twenty-five dollars according to her youth
and beauty. Susan knew all about the system, had heard stories
of it from the lips of girls who had been embarked through
it--embarked a little sooner than they would have embarked
under the lash of want, or of that other and almost equally
compelling brute, desire for the comforts and luxuries that
mean decent living. Susan knew; yet here she was, because of
an unguarded moment, and because of a sense of security through
experience--here she was, succumbing to knockout drops as easily
as the most innocent child lured away from its mother's door to
get a saucer of ice cream! She tried to rise, to scream,
though she knew any such effort was futile.
With a gasp and a sigh her head fell forward and she was unconscious.
She awakened in a small, rather dingy room. She was lying on
her back with only stockings on. Beyond the foot of the bed
was a little bureau at which a man, back full to her, stood in
trousers and shirt sleeves tying his necktie. She saw that he
was a rough looking man, coarsely dressed--an artisan or small
shop-keeper. Used as she was to the profound indifference of
men of all classes and degrees of education and intelligence to
what the woman thought--used as she was to this sensual
selfishness which men at least in part conceal from their
respectable wives, Susan felt a horror of this man who had not
minded her unconsciousness. Her head was aching so fiercely
that she had not the courage to move. Presently the man turned
toward her a kindly, bearded face. But she was used to the man
of general good character who with little shame and no
hesitation became beast before her, the free woman.
"Hello, pretty!" cried he, genially. "Slept off your jag, have you?"
He was putting on his coat and waistcoat. He took from the
waistcoat pocket a dollar bill. "You're a peach," said he.
"I'll come again, next time my old lady goes off guard." He
made the bill into a pellet, dropped it on her breast. "A
little present for you. Put it in your stocking and don't let
the madam grab it."
With a groan Susan lifted herself to a sitting position, drew
the spread about her--a gesture of instinct rather than of
conscious modesty. "They drugged me and brought me here," said
she. "I want you to help me get out."
"Good Lord!" cried the man, instantly all a-quiver with
nervousness. "I'm a married man. I don't want to get mixed up
in this." And out of the room he bolted, closing the door
behind him.
Susan smiled at herself satirically. After all her experience,
to make this silly appeal--she who knew men! "I must be
getting feeble-minded," thought she. Then----
Her clothes! With a glance she swept the little room. No
closet! Her own clothes gone! On the chair beside the bed
a fast-house parlor dress of pink cotton silk, and a kind of
abbreviated chemise. The stockings on her legs were not her
own, but were of pink cotton, silk finished. A pair of pink
satin slippers stood on the floor beside the two galvanized
iron wash basins.
The door opened and a burly man, dressed in cheap ready-made
clothes but with an air of authority and prosperity, was
smiling at her. "The madam told me to walk right in and make
myself at home," said he. "Yes, you're up to her account of
you. Only she said you were dead drunk and would probably be
asleep. Now, honey, you treat me right and I'll treat you right."
"Get out of here!" cried Susan. "I'm going to leave this
house. They drugged me and brought me here."
"Oh, come now. I've got nothing to do with your quarrels with
the landlady. Cut those fairy tales out. You treat me right
and----"
A few minutes later in came the madam. Susan, exhausted, sick,
lay inert in the middle of the bed. She fixed her gaze upon
the eyes looking through the hideous mask of paint and powder
partially concealing the madam's face.
"Well, are you going to be a good girl now?" said the madam.
"I want to sleep," said Susan.
"All right, my dear." She saw and snatched the five-dollar
bill from the pillow. "It'll go toward paying your board and
for the parlor dress. God, but you was drunk when they brought
you up from the bar!"
"When was that?" asked Susan.
"About midnight. It's nearly four now. We've shut the house
for the night. You're in a first-rate house, my dear, and if
you behave yourself, you'll make money--a lot more than you
ever could at a dive like Zeist's. If you don't behave well,
we'll teach you how. This building belongs to one of the big
men in politics, and he looks after my interests--and he ought
to, considering the rent I pay--five hundred a month--for the
three upper floors. The bar's let separate. Would you like a
nice drink?"
"No," said Susan. Trapped! Hopelessly trapped! And she would
never escape until, diseased, her looks gone, ruined in body
and soul, she was cast out into the hospital and the gutter.
"As I was saying," ventured the madam, "you might as well
settle down quietly."
"I'm very well satisfied," said Susan. "I suppose you'll give
me a square deal on what I make." She laughed quietly as if
secretly amused at something. "In fact, I know you will," she
added in a tone of amused confidence.
"As soon as you've paid up your twenty-five a week for room and
board and the fifty for the parlor dress----"
Susan interrupted her with a laugh. "Oh, come off," said she.
"I'll not stand for that. I'll go back to Jim Finnegan."
The old woman's eyes pounced for her face instantly. "Do you
know Finnegan?"
"I'm his girl," said Susan carelessly. She stretched herself
and yawned. "I got mad at him and started out for some fun.
He's a regular damn fool about me. But I'm sick of him.
Anything but a jealous man! And spied on everywhere I go. How
much can I make here?"
"Ain't you from Zeist's?" demanded the madam. Her voice was
quivering with fright. She did not dare believe the girl; she
did not dare disbelieve her.
"Zeist's? What's that?" said Susan indifferently.
"The joint two blocks down. Hasn't Joe Bishop had you in there
for a couple of months?"
Susan yawned. "Lord, how my head does ache! Who's Joe Bishop?
I'm dead to the world. I must have had an awful jag!" She
turned on her side, drew the spread over her. "I want to
sleep. So long!"
"Didn't you run away from home with Joe Bishop?" demanded the
madam shrilly. "And didn't he put you to work for Zeist?"
"Who's Joe Bishop? Where's Zeist's?" Susan said, cross and yawning.
"I've been with Jim about a year. He took me off the street.
I was broke in five years ago."
The madam gave a kind of howl. "And that Joe Bishop got
twenty-five off me!" she screamed. "And you're Finnegan's
girl, and he'll make trouble for me."
"He's got a nasty streak in him," said Susan, drowsily. "He
put me on the Island once for a little side trip I made." She
laughed, yawned. "But he sent and got me out in two days--and
gave me a present of a hundred. It's funny how a man'll make
a fool of himself about a woman. Put out the light."
"No, I won't put out the light," shrieked the madam. "You
can't work here. I'm going to telephone Jim Finnegan to come
and get you."
Susan started up angrily, as if she were half-crazed by drink.
"If you do, you old hag," she cried, "I'll tell him you doped
me and set these men on me. I'll tell him about Joe Bishop.
And Jim'll send the whole bunch of you to the pen. I'll not go
back to him till I get good and ready. And that means, I won't
go back at all, no matter what he offers me." She began to cry
in a maudlin way. "I hate him. I'm tired of living as if I
was back in the convent."
The madam stood, heaving to and fro and blowing like a chained
elephant. "I don't know what to do," she whined. "I wish Joe
Bishop was in hell."
"I'm going to get out of here," shrieked Susan, raving and
blazing again and waving her arms. "You don't know a good
thing when you get it. What kind of a bumjoint is this,
anyway? Where's my clothes? They must be dry by this time."
"Yes--yes--they're dry, my dear," whined the madam. "I'll
bring 'em to you."
And out she waddled, returning in a moment with her arms full
of the clothing. She found Susan in the bed and nestling
comfortably into the pillows. "Here are your clothes," she cried.
"No--I want to sleep," was Susan's answer in a cross, drowsy
tone. "I think I'll stay. You won't telephone Jim. But when
he finds me, I'll tell him to go to the devil."
"For God's sake!" wailed the madam. "I can't let you work
here. You don't want to ruin me, do you?"
Susan sat up, rubbed her eyes, yawned, brushed her hair back, put
a sly, smiling look into her face. "How much'll you give me to
go?" she asked. "Where's the fifteen that was in my stocking?"
"I've got it for you," said the madam.
"How much did I make tonight?"
"There was three at five apiece."
Three!--not only the two, but a third while she lay in a dead
stupor. Susan shivered.
"Your share's four dollars," continued the madam.
"Is that all!" cried Susan, jeering. "A bum joint! Oh,
there's my five the man gave me as a present."
"Yes--yes," quavered the madam.
"And another man gave me a dollar." She looked round. "Where
the devil is it?" She found it in a fold of the spread. "Then
you owe me twenty altogether, counting the money I had on me."
She yawned. "I don't want to go!" she protested, pausing
halfway in taking off the second pink stocking. Then she
laughed. "Lord, what hell Jim will raise if he finds I spent
the night working in this house. Why is it that, as soon as
men begin to care for a woman, they get prim about her?"
"Do get dressed, dear," wheedled the madam.
"I don't see why I should go at this time of night," objected
Susan pettishly. "What'll you give me if I go?"
The madam uttered a groan.
"You say you paid Joe Bishop twenty-five----"
"I'll kill him!" shrieked the madam. "He's ruined me--ruined me!"
"Oh, he's all right," said Susan cheerfully. "I like him.
He's a pretty little fellow. I'll not give him away to Jim."
"Joe was dead stuck on you," cried the madam eagerly. "I
might 'a' knowed he hadn't seen you before. I had to pay him
the twenty-five right away, to get him out of the house and let
me put you to work. He wanted to stay on."
Susan shivered, laughed to hide it. "Well, I'll go for twenty-five."
"Twenty-five!" shrieked the madam.
"You'll get it back from Joe."
"Maybe I won't. He's a dog--a dirty dog."
"I think I told Joe about Jim," said Susan reflectively. "I
was awful gabby downstairs. Yes--I told him."
And her lowered eyes gleamed with satisfaction when the madam
cried out: "You did! And after that he brought you here!
He's got it in for me. But I'll ruin him! I'll tear him up!"
Susan dressed with the utmost deliberation, the madam urging
her to make haste. After some argument, Susan yielded to the
madam's pleadings and contented herself with the twenty
dollars. The madam herself escorted Susan down to the outside
door and slathered her with sweetness and politeness. The rain
had stopped again. Susan went up Second Avenue slowly. Two
blocks from the dive from which she had escaped, she sank down
on a stoop and fainted.
IX
THE dash of cold rain drops upon her face and the chill of
moisture soaking through her clothing revived her. Throughout
the whole range of life, whenever we resist we suffer. As
Susan dragged her aching, cold wet body up from that stoop, it
seemed to her that each time she resisted the penalty grew
heavier. Could she have been more wretched had she remained in
that dive? From her first rebellion that drove her out of her
uncle's house had she ever bettered herself by resisting? She
had gone from bad to worse, from worse to worst.
Worst? "This _must_ be the worst!" she thought. "Surely there
can be no lower depth than where I am now." And then she
shuddered and her soul reeled. Had she not thought this at
each shelf of the precipice down which she had been falling?
"Has it a bottom? Is there no bottom?"
Wet through, tired through, she put up her umbrella and forced
herself feebly along. "Where am I going? Why do I not kill
myself? What is it that drives me on and on?"
There came no direct answer to that last question. But up from
those deep vast reservoirs of vitality that seemed sufficient
whatever the drain upon them--up from those reservoirs welled
strength and that unfaltering will to live which breathes upon
the corpse of hope and quickens it. And she had a sense of an
invisible being, a power that had her in charge, a destiny,
walking beside her, holding up her drooping strength, compelling
her toward some goal hidden in the fog and the storm.
At Eighth Street she turned west; at Third Avenue she paused,
waiting for chance to direct her. Was it not like the
maliciousness of fate that in the city whose rarely interrupted
reign of joyous sunshine made her call it the city of the Sun
her critical turn of chance should have fallen in foul weather?
Evidently fate was resolved on a thorough test of her
endurance. In the open square, near the Peter Cooper statue,
stood a huge all-night lunch wagon. She moved toward it, for
she suddenly felt hungry. It was drawn to the curb; a short
flight of ladder steps led to an interior attractive to sight
and smell. She halted at the foot of the steps and looked in.
The only occupant was the man in charge. In a white coat he
was leaning upon the counter, reading a newspaper which lay
flat upon it. His bent head was extensively and roughly
thatched with black hair so thick that to draw a comb through
it would have been all but impossible. As Susan let down her
umbrella and began to ascend, he lifted his head and gave her
a full view of a humorous young face, bushy of eyebrows and
mustache and darkly stained by his beard, close shaven though
it was. He looked like a Spaniard or an Italian, but he was a
black Irishman, one of the West coasters who recall in their
eyes and coloring the wrecking of the Armada.
"Good morning, lady," said he. "Breakfast or supper?"
"Both," replied Susan. "I'm starved."
The air was gratefully warm in the little restaurant on wheels.
The dominant odor was of hot coffee; but that aroma was carried
to a still higher delight by a suggestion of pastry. "The best
thing I've got," said the restaurant man, "is hot corn beef
hash. It's so good I hate to let any of it go. You can have
griddle cakes, too--and coffee, of course."
"Very well," said Susan.
She was ascending upon a wave of reaction from the events of
the night. Her headache had gone. The rain beating upon the
roof seemed musical to her now, in this warm shelter with its
certainty of the food she craved.
The young man was busy at the shiny, compact stove; the odors
of the good things she was presently to have grew stronger and
stronger, stimulating her hunger, bringing joy to her heart and
a smile to her eyes. She wondered at herself. After what she
had passed through, how could she feel thus happy--yes,
positively happy? It seemed to her this was an indication of
a lack in her somewhere--of seriousness, of sensibility, of she
knew not what. She ought to be ashamed of that lack. But she
was not ashamed. She was shedding her troubles like a
child--or like a philosopher.
"Do you like hash?" inquired the restaurant man over his shoulder.
"Just as you're making it," said she. "Dry but not too dry.
Brown but not too brown."
"You don't think you'd like a poached egg on top of it?"
"Exactly what I want!"
"It isn't everybody that can poach an egg," said the restaurant
man. "And it isn't every egg that can be poached. Now, my
eggs are the real thing. And I can poach 'em so you'd think
they was done with one of them poaching machines. I don't have
'em with the yellow on a slab of white. I do it so that the
white's all round the yellow, like in the shell. And I keep
'em tender, too. Did you say one egg or a pair?"
"Two," said Susan.
The dishes were thick, but clean and whole. The hash--"dry but
not too dry, brown but not too brown"--was artistically
arranged on its platter, and the two eggs that adorned its top
were precisely as he had promised. The coffee, boiled with the
milk, was real coffee, too. When the restaurant man had set
these things before her, as she sat expectant on a stool, he
viewed his handiwork with admiring eyes.
"Delmonico couldn't beat it," said he. "No, nor Oscar,
neither. That'll take the tired look out of your face, lady,
and bring the beauty back."
Susan ate slowly, listening to the music of the beating rain.
It was like an oasis, a restful halt between two stretches of
desert journey; she wished to make it as long as possible.
Only those who live exposed to life's buffetings ever learn to
enjoy to the full the great little pleasures of life--the
halcyon pauses in the storms--the few bright rays through the
break in the clouds, the joy of food after hunger, of a bath
after days of privation, of a jest or a smiling face or a kind
word or deed after darkness and bitterness and contempt. She saw
the restaurant man's eyes on her, a curious expression in them.
"What's the matter?" she inquired.
"I was thinking," said he, "how miserable you must have been to
be so happy now."
"Oh, I guess none of us has any too easy a time," said she.
"But it's mighty hard on women. I used to think different,
before I had bad luck and got down to tending this lunch wagon.
But now I understand about a lot of things. It's all very well
for comfortable people to talk about what a man or a woman
ought to do and oughtn't to do. But let 'em be slammed up
against it. They'd sing a different song--wouldn't they?"
"Quite different," said Susan.
The man waved a griddle spoon. "I tell you, we do what we've
got to do. Yes--the thieves and--and--all of us. Some's used
for foundations and some for roofing and some for inside fancy
work and some for outside wall. And some's used for the
rubbish heap. But all's used. They do what they've got to do.
I was a great hand at worrying what I was going to be used for.
But I don't bother about it any more." He began to pour the
griddle cake dough. "I think I'll get there, though," said he
doggedly, as if he expected to be derided for vanity.
"You will," said Susan.
"I'm twenty-nine. But I've been being got ready for something.
They don't chip away at a stone as they have at me without
intending to make some use of it."
"No, indeed," said the girl, hope and faith welling up in her
own heart.
"And what's more, I've stood the chipping. I ain't become
rubbish; I'm still a good stone. That's promising, ain't it?"
"It's a sure sign," declared Susan. Sure for herself, no less
than for him.
The restaurant man took from under the counter several
well-worn schoolbooks. He held them up, looked at Susan and
winked. "Good business--eh?"
She laughed and nodded. He put the books back under the
counter, finished the cakes and served them. As he gave her
more butter he said:
"It ain't the best butter--not by a long shot. But it's
good--as good as you get on the average farm--or better. Did
you ever eat the best butter?"
"I don't know. I've had some that was very good."
"Eighty cents a pound?"
"Mercy, no," exclaimed Susan.
"Awful price, isn't it? But worth the money--yes, sir! Some
time when you've got a little change to spare, go get half a
pound at one of the swell groceries or dairies. And the best
milk, too. Twelve cents a quart. Wait till I get money. I'll
show 'em how to live. I was born in a tenement. Never had
nothing. Rags to wear, and food one notch above a garbage
barrel."
"I know," said Susan.
"But even as a boy I wanted the high-class things. It's
wanting the best that makes a man push his way up."
Another customer came--a keeper of a butcher shop, on his way
to market. Susan finished the cakes, paid the forty cents and
prepared to depart. "I'm looking for a hotel," said she to the
restaurant man, "one where they'll take me in at this time, but
one that's safe not a dive."
"Right across the square there's a Salvation Army shelter--very
good--clean. I Don't know of any other place for a lady."
"There's a hotel on the next corner," put in the butcher,
suspending the violent smacking and sipping which attended his
taking rolls and coffee. "It ain't neither the one thing nor
the other. It's clean and cheap, and they'll let you behave if
you want to."
"That's all I ask," said the girl. "Thank you." And she
departed, after an exchange of friendly glances with the
restaurant man. "I feel lots better," said she.
"It was a good breakfast," replied he.
"That was only part. Good luck!"
"Same to you, lady. Call again. Try my chops."
At the corner the butcher had indicated Susan found the usual
Raines Law hotel, adjunct to a saloon and open to all comers,
however "transient." But she took the butcher's word for it,
engaged a dollar-and-a-half room from the half-asleep clerk,
was shown to it by a colored bellboy who did not bother to wake
up. It was a nice little room with barely space enough for a
bed, a bureau, a stationary washstand, a chair and a small
radiator. As she undressed by the light of a sad gray dawn,
she examined her dress to see how far it needed repair and how
far it might be repaired. She had worn away from Forty-third
Street her cheapest dress because it happened to be of an
inconspicuous blue. It was one of those suits that look fairly
well at a glance on the wax figure in the department store
window, that lose their bloom as quickly as a country bride,
and at the fourth or fifth wearing begin to make frank and
sweeping confession of the cheapness of every bit of the
material and labor that went into them. These suits are
typical of all that poverty compels upon the poor, all that
they in their ignorance and inexperience of values accept
without complaint, fancying they are getting money's worth and
never dreaming they are more extravagant than the most prodigal
of the rich. However, as their poverty gives them no choice,
their ignorance saves them from futilities of angry discontent.
Susan had bought this dress because she had to have another
dress and could not afford to spend more than twelve dollars,
and it had been marked down from twenty-five. She had worn it
in fair weather and had contrived to keep it looking pretty
well. But this rain had finished it quite. Thereafter, until
she could get another dress, she must expect to be classed as
poor and seedy--therefore, on the way toward deeper
poverty--therefore, an object of pity and of prey. If she went
into a shop, she would be treated insultingly by the shopgirls,
despising her as a poor creature like themselves. If a man
approached her, he would calculate upon getting her very cheap
because a girl in such a costume could not have been in the
habit of receiving any great sum. And if she went with him, he
would treat her with far less consideration than if she had
been about the same business in smarter attire. She spread the
dress on bureau and chair, smoothing it, wiping the mud stains
from it. She washed out her stockings at the stationary stand,
got them as dry as her remarkably strong hands could wring
them, hung them on a rung of the chair near the hot little
radiator. She cleaned her boots and overshoes with an old
newspaper she found in a drawer, and wet at the washstand. She
took her hat to pieces and made it over into something that
looked almost fresh enough to be new. Then, ready for bed, she
got the office of the hotel on the telephone and left a call
for half-past nine o'clock--three hours and a half away. When
she was throwing up the window, she glanced into the street.
The rain had once more ceased. Through the gray dimness the
men and women, boys and girls, on the way to the factories and
shops for the day's work, were streaming past in funereal
procession. Some of the young ones were lively. But the mass
was sullen and dreary. Bodies wrecked or rapidly wrecking by
ignorance of hygiene, by the foul air and foul food of the
tenements, by the monotonous toil of factory and shop--mindless
toil--toil that took away mind and put in its place a distaste
for all improvement--toil of the factories that distorted the
body and enveloped the soul in sodden stupidity--toil of the
shops that meant breathing bad air all day long, meant stooped
shoulders and varicose veins in the legs and the arches of the
insteps broken down, meant dull eyes, bad skin, female
complaints, meant the breeding of desires for the luxury the
shops display, the breeding of envy and servility toward those
able to buy these luxuries.
Susan lingered, fascinated by this exhibit of the price to the
many of civilization for the few. Work? Never! Not any more
than she would. "Work" in a dive! Work--either branch of it,
factory and shop or dive meant the sale of all the body and all
the soul; her profession--at least as she practiced it--meant
that perhaps she could buy with part of body and part of soul
the privilege of keeping the rest of both for her own self. If
she had stayed on at work from the beginning in Cincinnati,
where would she be now? Living in some stinking tenement hole,
with hope dead. And how would she be looking? As dull of eye
as the rest, as pasty and mottled of skin, as ready for any
chance disease. Work? Never! Never! "Not at anything that'd
degrade me more than this life. Yes--more." And she lifted
her head defiantly. To her hunger Life was thus far offering
only a plate of rotten apples; it was difficult to choose among
them--but there was choice.
She was awakened by the telephone bell; and it kept on ringing
until she got up and spoke to the office through the sender.
Never had she so craved sleep; and her mental and physical
contentment of three hours and a half before had been succeeded
by headache, a general soreness, a horrible attack of the
blues. She grew somewhat better, however, as she washed first
in hot water, then in cold at the stationary stand which was
quite as efficient if not so luxurious as a bathtub. She
dressed in a rush, but not so hurriedly that she failed to make
the best toilet the circumstances permitted. Her hair went up
unusually well; the dress did not look so badly as she had
feared it would. "As it's a nasty day," she reflected, "it won't
do me so much damage. My hat and my boots will make them give
me the benefit of the doubt and think I'm saving my good clothes."
She passed through the office at five minutes to ten. When she
reached Lange's winter garden, its clock said ten minutes past
ten, but she knew it must be fast. Only one of the four
musicians had arrived--the man who played the drums, cymbals,
triangle and xylophone--a fat, discouraged old man who knew how
easily he could be replaced. Neither Lange nor his wife had
come; her original friend, the Austrian waiter, was wiping off
tables and cleaning match stands. He welcomed her with a smile
of delight that showed how few teeth remained in the front of
his mouth and how deeply yellow they were. But Susan saw only
his eyes--and the kind heart that looked through them.
"Maybe you haven't had breakfast already?" he suggested.
"I'm not hungry, thank you."
"Perhaps some coffee--yes?"
Susan thought the coffee would make her feel better. So he
brought it--Vienna fashion--an open china pot full of strong,
deliciously aromatic black coffee, a jug of milk with whipped
white of egg on top, a basket of small sweet rolls powdered
with sugar and caraway seed. She ate one of the rolls, drank
the coffee. Before she had finished, the waiter stood beaming
before her and said:
"A cigarette--yes?"
"Oh, no," replied Susan, a little sadly.
"But yes," urged he. "It isn't against the rules. The boss's
wife smokes. Many ladies who come here do--real ladies. It is
the custom in Europe. Why not?" And he produced a box of
cigarettes and put it on the table. Susan lit one of them and
once more with supreme physical content came a cheerfulness
that put color and sprightliness into the flowers of hope. And
the sun had won its battle with the storm; the storm was in
retreat. Sunshine was streaming in at the windows, into her
heart. The waiter paused in his work now and then to enjoy
himself in contemplating the charming picture she made. She
was thinking of what the wagon restaurant man had said. Yes,
Life had been chipping away at her; but she had remained good
stone, had not become rubbish.
About half-past ten Lange came down from his flat which was
overhead. He inspected her by daylight and finding that his
electric light impressions were not delusion was highly pleased
with her. He refused to allow her to pay for the coffee.
"Johann!" he called, and the leader of the orchestra approached
and made a respectful bow to his employer. He had a solemn
pompous air and the usual pompadour. He and Susan plunged into
the music question, found that the only song they both knew was
Tosti's "Good Bye."
"That'll do to try," said Lange. "Begin!"
And after a little tuning and voice testing, Susan sang the
"Good Bye" with full orchestra accompaniment. It was not good;
it was not even pretty good; but it was not bad. "You'll do
all right," said Lange. "You can stay. Now, you and Johann
fix up some songs and get ready for tonight." And he turned
away to buy supplies for restaurant and bar.
Johann, deeply sentimental by nature, was much pleased with
Susan's contralto. "You do not know how to sing," said he.
"You sing in your throat and you've got all the faults of
parlor singers. But the voice is there--and much
expressiveness--much temperament. Also, you have
intelligence--and that will make a very little voice
go a great way."
Before proceeding any further with the rehearsal, he took Susan
up to a shop where sheet music was sold and they selected three
simple songs: "Gipsy Queen," "Star of My Life" and "Love in
Dreams." They were to try "Gipsy Queen" that night, with "Good
Bye" and, if the applause should compel, "Suwanee River."
When they were back at the restaurant Susan seated herself in
a quiet corner and proceeded to learn the words of the song and
to get some notion of the tune.
She had lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Lange and Katy, whose hair was
very golden indeed and whose voice and manner proclaimed the
Bowery and its vaudeville stage. She began by being grand with
Susan, but had far too good a heart and far too sensible a
nature to keep up long. It takes more vanity, more solemn
stupidity and more leisure than plain people have time for, to
maintain the force of fake dignity. Before lunch was over it
was Katy and Lorna; and Katy was distressed that her duties at
the theater made it impossible for her to stay and help Lorna
with the song.
At the afternoon rehearsal Susan distinguished herself. To
permit business in the restaurant and the rehearsal at the same
time, there was a curtain to divide the big room into two
unequal parts. When Susan sang her song through for the first
time complete, the men smoking and drinking on the other side
of the curtain burst into applause. Johann shook hands with
Susan, shook hands again, kissed her hand, patted her shoulder.
But in the evening things did not go so well.
Susan, badly frightened, got away from the orchestra, lagged
when it speeded to catch up with her. She made a pretty and
engaging figure in the costume, low in the neck and ending at
the knees. Her face and shoulders, her arms and legs, the
lines of her slender, rounded body made a success. But they
barely saved her from being laughed at. When she finished,
there was no applause so no necessity for an encore. She ran
upstairs, and, with nerves all a-quiver, hid herself in the
little room she and Katy were to share. Until she failed she
did not realize how much she had staked upon this venture. But
now she knew; and it seemed to her that her only future was the
streets. Again her chance had come; again she had thrown it
away. If there were anything in her--anything but mere vain
hopes--that could not have occurred. In her plight anyone with
a spark of the divinity that achieves success would have
scored. "I belong in the streets," said she. Before dinner
she had gone out and had bought a ninety-five cent night-dress
and some toilet articles. These she now bundled together again.
She changed to her street dress; she stole down the stairs.
She was out at the side door, she was flying through the side
street toward the Bowery. "Hi!" shouted someone behind her.
"Where you going?" And overtaking her came her staunch friend
Albert, the waiter. Feeling that she must need sympathy and
encouragement, he had slipped away from his duties to go up to
her. He had reached the hall in time to see what she was about
and had darted bareheaded after her.
"Where you going?" he repeated, excitedly.
A crowd began to gather. "Oh, good-by," she cried. "I'm
getting out before I'm told to go--that's all. I made a
failure. Thank you, Albert." She put out her hand; she was
still moving and looking in the direction of the Bowery.
"Now you mustn't be foolish,", said he, holding on tightly to her
hand. "The boss says it's all right. Tomorrow you do better."
"I'd never dare try again."
"Tomorrow makes everything all right. You mustn't act like a
baby. The first time Katy tried, they yelled her off the
stage. Now she gets eleven a week. Come back right away with
me. The boss'd be mad if you won't. You ain't acting right,
Miss Lorna. I didn't think you was such a fool."
He had her attention now. Unmindful of the little crowd they
had gathered, they stood there discussing until to save Albert
from pneumonia she returned with him. He saw her started up
the stairs, then ventured to take his eye off her long enough
to put his head into the winter garden and send a waiter for
Lange. He stood guard until Lange came and was on his way to her.
The next evening, a Saturday, before a crowded house she sang
well, as well as she had ever sung in her life--sang well enough
to give her beauty of face and figure, her sweetness, her charm
the opportunity to win a success. She had to come back and
sing "Suwanee River." She had to come for a second encore;
and, flushed with her victory over her timidity, she sang
Tosti's sad cry of everlasting farewell with all the tenderness
there was in her. That song exactly fitted her passionate,
melancholy voice; its words harmonized with the deep sadness
that was her real self, that is the real self of every
sensitive soul this world has ever tried with its exquisite
torments for flesh and spirit. The tears that cannot be shed
were in her voice, in her face, as she stood there, with her
violet-gray eyes straining into vacancy. But the men and the
women shed tears; and when she moved, breaking the spell of
silence, they not only applauded, they cheered.
The news quickly spread that at Lange's there was a girl singer
worth hearing and still more worth looking at. And Lange had
his opportunity to arrive.
But several things stood in his way, things a man of far more
intelligence would have found it hard to overcome.
Like nearly all saloon-keepers, he was serf to a brewery; and
the particular brewery whose beer his mortgage compelled
him to push did not make a beer that could be pushed. People
complained that it had a disagreeably bitter aftertaste. In
the second place, Mrs. Lange was a born sitter. She had
married to rest--and she was resting. She was always piled
upon a chair. Thus, she was not an aid but a hindrance, an
encourager of the help in laziness and slovenliness. Again,
the cooking was distinctly bad; the only really good thing the
house served was coffee, and that was good only in the
mornings. Finally, Lange was a saver by nature and not a
spreader. He could hold tightly to any money he closed his
stubby fingers upon; he did not know how to plant money and
make it grow, but only how to hoard.
Thus it came to pass that, after the first spurt, the business
fell back to about where it had been before Susan came.
Albert, the Austrian waiter, explained to Susan why it was that
her popularity did the house apparently so little
good--explained with truth where she suspected kind-hearted
plotting, that she had arrested its latterly swift-downward
slide. She was glad to hear what he had to say, as it was most
pleasant to her vanity; but she could not get over the
depression of the central fact--she was not making the sort of
business to justify asking Lange for more than board and lodging;
she was not in the way of making the money that was each
day more necessary, as her little store dwindled.
The question of getting money to live on is usually dismissed
in a princely way by writers about human life. It is in
reality, except with the few rich, the ever-present
question--as ever-present as the necessity of breathing--and it
is not, like breathing, a matter settled automatically. It
dominates thought; it determines action. To leave it out of
account ever, in writing a human history, is to misrepresent
and distort as utterly as would a portrait painter who
neglected to give his subject eyes, or a head, even. With the
overwhelming mass of us, money is at all times all our lives
long the paramount question--for to be without it is
destruction worse than death, and we are almost all perilously
near to being without it. Thus, airily to pass judgment upon
men and women as to their doings in getting money for
necessaries, for what the compulsion of custom and habit has
made necessaries to them--airily to judge them for their doings
in such dire straits is like sitting calmly on shore and
criticizing the conduct of passengers and sailors in a
stormbeset sinking ship. It is one of the favorite pastimes of
the comfortable classes; it makes an excellent impression as to
one's virtue upon one's audience; it gives us a pleasing sense
of superior delicacy and humor. But it is none the less mean
and ridiculous. Instead of condemnation, the world needs to
bestir itself to remove the stupid and cruel creatures that
make evil conduct necessary; for can anyone, not a prig, say
that the small part of the human race that does well does so
because it is naturally better than the large part that does ill?
Spring was slow in opening. Susan's one dress was in a
deplorable state. The lining hung in rags. The never good
material was stretched out of shape, was frayed and worn gray
in spots, was beyond being made up as presentable by the most
careful pressing and cleaning. She had been forced to buy a
hat, shoes, underclothes. She had only three dollars and a few
cents left, and she simply did not dare lay it all out in dress
materials. Yet, less than all would not be enough; all would
not be enough.
Lange had from time to time more than hinted at the
opportunities she was having as a public singer in his hall.
But Susan, for all her experience, had remained one of those
upon whom such opportunities must be thrust if they are to be
accepted.
So long as she had food and shelter, she could not make
advances; she could not even go so far as passive acquiescence.
She knew she was again violating the fundamental canon of
success; whatever one's business, do it thoroughly if at all.
But she could not overcome her temperament which had at this
feeble and false opportunity at once resented itself. She knew
perfectly that therein was the whole cause of her failure to
make the success she ought to have made when she came up from
the tenements, and again when she fell into the clutches of
Freddie Palmer. But it is one thing to know; it is another
thing to do. Susan ignored the attempts of the men; she
pretended not to understand Lange when they set him on to
intercede with her for them. She saw that she was once more
drifting to disaster--and that she had not long to drift. She
was exasperated against herself; she was disgusted with
herself. But she drifted on.
Growing seedier looking every day, she waited, defying the
plain teachings of experience. She even thought seriously of
going to work. But the situation in that direction remained
unchanged. She was seeing things, the reasons for things, more
clearly now, as experience developed her mind. She felt that
to get on in respectability she ought to have been either more
or less educated. If she had been used from birth to
conditions but a step removed from savagery, she might have
been content with what offered, might even have felt that she
was rising. Or if she had been bred to a good trade, and
educated only to the point where her small earnings could have
satisfied her desires, then she might have got along in
respectability. But she had been bred a "lady"; a Chinese
woman whose feet have been bound from babyhood until her
fifteenth or sixteenth year--how long it would be, after her
feet were freed, before she could learn to walk at all!--and
would she ever be able to learn to walk well?
What is luxury for one is squalor for another; what is
elevation for one degrades another. In respectability she
could not earn what was barest necessity for her--what she was
now getting at Lange's--decent shelter, passable food. Ejected
from her own class that shelters its women and brings them up
in unfitness for the unsheltered life, she was dropping as all
such women must and do drop--was going down, down,
down--striking on this ledge and that, and rebounding to resume
her ever downward course.
She saw her own plight only too vividly. Those whose outward
and inward lives are wide apart get a strong sense of dual
personality. It was thus with Susan. There were times when
she could not believe in the reality of her external life.
She often glanced through the columns on columns, pages on
pages of "want ads" in the papers--not with the idea of
answering them, for she had served her apprenticeship at that,
but simply to force herself to realize vividly just how matters
stood with her. Those columns and pages of closely printed
offerings of work! Dreary tasks, all of them--tasks devoid of
interest, of personal sense of usefulness, tasks simply to keep
degrading soul in degenerating body, tasks performed in filthy
factories, in foul-smelling workrooms and shops, in unhealthful
surroundings. And this, throughout civilization, was the
"honest work" so praised--by all who don't do it, but live
pleasantly by making others do it. Wasn't there something in
the ideas of Etta's father, old Tom Brashear? Couldn't
sensible, really loving people devise some way of making most
tasks less repulsive, of lessening the burdens of those tasks
that couldn't be anything but repulsive? Was this stupid
system, so cruel, so crushing, and producing at the top such
absurd results as flashy, insolent autos and silly palaces and
overfed, overdressed women, and dogs in jeweled collars, and
babies of wealth brought up by low menials--was this system
really the best?
"If they'd stop canting about `honest work' they might begin to
get somewhere."
In the effort to prevent her downward drop from beginning again
she searched all the occupations open to her. She could not
find one that would not have meant only the most visionary
prospect of some slight remote advancement, and the certain and
speedy destruction of what she now realized was her chief asset
and hope--her personal appearance. And she resolved that she
would not even endanger it ever again. The largest part of the
little capital she took away from Forty-third Street had gone
to a dentist who put in several fillings of her back teeth.
She had learned to value every charm--hair, teeth, eyes, skin,
figure, hands. She watched over them all, because she felt
that when her day finally came--and come it would, she never
allowed long to doubt--she must be ready to enter fully into
her own. Her day! The day when fate should change the life her
outward self would be compelled to live, would bring it into
harmony with the life of inward self--the self she could control.
Katy had struck up a friendship at once profitable and
sentimental with her stage manager. She often stayed out all
night. On one of these nights Susan, alone in the tiny room
and asleep, was roused by feeling hands upon her. She started
up half awake and screamed.
"Sh!" came in Lange's voice. "It's me."
Susan had latterly observed sly attempts on his part to make
advances without his wife and daughter's suspecting; but she
had thought her way of quietly ignoring was effective. "You
must go," she whispered. "Mrs. Lange must have heard."
"I had to come," said he hoarsely, a mere voice in the
darkness. "I can't hold out no longer without you, Lorna."
"Go--go," urged Susan.
But it was too late. In the doorway, candle in hand, appeared
Mrs. Lange. Despite her efforts at "dressiness" she was in her
best hour homely and nearly shapeless. In night dress and
released from corsets she was hideous and monstrous. "I
thought so!" she shrieked. "I thought so!"
"I heard a burglar, mother," whined Lange, an abject and
guilty figure.
"Shut your mouth, you loafer!" shrieked Mrs. Lange. And she
turned to Susan. "You gutter hussy, get on your clothes and
clear out!"
"But--Mrs. Lange----" began Susan.
"Clear out!" she shouted, opening the outer hall. "Dress
mighty damn quick and clear out!"
"Mother, you'll wake the people upstairs," pleaded Lange--and
Susan had never before realized how afraid of his wife the
little man was. "For God's sake, listen to sense."
"After I've thrown you--into the streets," cried his wife,
beside herself with jealous fury. "Get dressed, I tell you!"
she shouted at Susan.
And the girl hurried into her clothes, making no further
attempt to speak. She knew that to plead and to explain would
be useless; even if Mrs. Lange believed, still she would drive
from the house the temptation to her husband. Lange, in a
quaking, cowardly whine, begged his wife to be sensible and
believe his burglar story. But with each half-dozen words he
uttered, she interrupted to hurl obscene epithets at him or at
Susan. The tenants of the upstairs flats came down. She told
her wrongs to a dozen half-clad men, women and children; they
took her side at once, and with the women leading showered vile
insults upon Susan. The uproar was rising, rising. Lange
cowered in a corner, crying bitterly like a whipped child.
Susan, only partly dressed, caught up her hat and rushed into
the hall. Several women struck at her as she passed. She
stumbled on the stairs, almost fell headlong. With the most
frightful words in tenement house vocabulary pursuing her she
fled into the street, and did not pause until she was within a
few yards of the Bowery. There she sat down on a doorstep and,
half-crazed by the horror of her sudden downfall, laced her
shoes and buttoned her blouse and put on her hat with fumbling,
shaking fingers. It had all happened so quickly that she would
have thought she was dreaming but for the cold night air and
the dingy waste of the Bowery with the streetwalkers and
drunken bums strolling along under the elevated tracks. She
had trifled with the opportunity too long. It had flown in
disgust, dislodging her as it took flight. If she would be
over nice and critical, would hesitate to take the only upward
path fate saw fit to offer, then--let her seek the bottom!
Susan peered down, and shuddered.
She went into the saloon at the corner, into the little back
room. She poured down drink after drink of the frightful
poison sold as whiskey with the permission of a government
owned by every interest that can make big money out of a race
of free men and so can afford to pay big bribes. It is
characteristic of this poison of the saloon of the tenement
quarter that it produces in anyone who drinks it a species of
quick insanity, of immediate degeneration--a desire to commit
crime, to do degraded acts. Within an hour of Susan's being
thrown into the streets, no one would have recognized her. She
had been drinking, had been treating the two faded but young
and decently dressed streetwalkers who sat at another table.
The three, fired and maddened by the poison, were amusing
themselves and two young men as recklessly intoxicated as they.
Susan, in an attitude she had seen often enough but had never
dreamed of taking, was laughing wildly at a coarse song, was
standing up, skirts caught high and body swaying in drunken
rhythm as she led the chorus.
When the barkeeper announced closing time, one of the young men
said to her:
"Which way?"
"To hell," laughed she. "I've been thrown out everywhere else.
Want to go along?"
"I'll never desert a perfect lady," replied he.
X
SHE was like one who has fallen bleeding and broken into a
cave; who after a time gathers himself together and crawls
toward a faint and far distant gleam of light; who suddenly
sees the light no more and at the same instant lurches forward
and down into a deeper chasm.
Occasionally sheer exhaustion of nerves made it impossible for
her to drink herself again into apathy before the effects of
the last doses of the poison had worn off. In these intervals
of partial awakening--she never permitted them to lengthen out,
as such sensation as she had was of one
falling--falling--through empty space--with whirling brain and
strange sounds in the ears and strange distorted sights or
hallucinations before the eyes--falling
down--down--whither?--to how great a depth?--or was there no
bottom, but simply presently a plunging on down into the black
of death's bottomless oblivion?
Drink--always drink. Yet in every other way she took care of
her health--a strange mingling of prudence and subtle hope with
recklessness and frank despair. All her refinement, baffled in
the moral ways, concentrated upon the physical. She would be
neat and well dressed; she would not let herself be seized of
the diseases on the pariah in those regions--the diseases
through dirt and ignorance and indifference.
In the regions she now frequented recklessness was the keynote.
There was the hilarity of the doomed; there was the cynical or
stolid indifference to heat or cold, to rain or shine, to rags,
to filth, to jail, to ejection for nonpayment of rent, to
insult of word or blow. The fire engines--the ambulance--the
patrol wagon--the city dead wagon--these were all ever passing
and repassing through those swarming streets. It was the
vastest, the most populous tenement area of the city. Its
inhabitants represented the common lot--for it is the common
lot of the overwhelming mass of mankind to live near to
nakedness, to shelterlessness, to starvation, without ever
being quite naked or quite roofless or quite starved. The
masses are eager for the necessities; the classes are eager for
the comforts and luxuries. The masses are ignorant; the
classes are intelligent--or, at least, shrewd. The unconscious
and inevitable exploitation of the masses by the classes
automatically and of necessity stops just short of the
catastrophe point--for the masses must have enough to give them
the strength to work and reproduce. To go down through the
social system as had Susan from her original place well up
among the classes is like descending from the beautiful dining
room of the palace where the meat is served in taste and
refinement upon costly dishes by well mannered servants to
attractively dressed people--descending along the various stages
of the preparation of the meat, at each stage less of
refinement and more of coarseness, until one at last arrives at
the slaughter pen. The shambles, stinking and reeking blood
and filth! The shambles, with hideous groan or shriek, or more
hideous silent look of agony! The shambles of society where
the beauty and grace and charm of civilization are created out
of noisome sweat and savage toil, out of the health and
strength of men and women and children, out of their ground up
bodies, out of their ground up souls. Susan knew those regions
well. She had no theories about them, no resentment against
the fortunate classes, no notion that any other or better
system might be possible, any other or better life for the
masses. She simply accepted life as she found it, lived it as
best she could.
Throughout the masses of mankind life is sustained by
illusions--illusions of a better lot tomorrow, illusions of a
heaven beyond a grave, where the nightmare, life in the body,
will end and the reality, life in the spirit, will begin. She
could not join the throngs moving toward church and synagogue
to indulge in their dream that the present was a dream from
which death would be a joyful awakening. She alternately
pitied and envied them. She had her own dream that this dream,
the present, would end in a joyful awakening to success and
freedom and light and beauty. She admitted to herself that the
dream was probably an illusion, like that of the pious throngs.
But she was as unreasonably tenacious of her dream as they were
of theirs. She dreamed it because she was a human being--and
to be human means to hope, and to hope means to dream of a
brighter future here or hereafter, or both here and hereafter.
The earth is peopled with dreamers; she was but one of them.
The last thought of despair as the black earth closes is a
hope, perhaps the most colossal of hope's delusions, that there
will be escape in the grave.
There is the time when we hope and know it and believe in it.
There is the time when we hope and know it but have ceased to
believe in it. There is the time when we hope, believing that
we have altogether ceased to hope. That time had come for
Susan. She seemed to think about the present. She moved about
like a sleepwalker.
What women did she know--what men? She only dimly remembered
from day to day--from hour to hour. Blurred faces passed
before her, blurred voices sounded in her ears, blurred
personalities touched hers. It was like the jostling of a huge
crowd in night streets. A vague sense of buffetings--of rude
contacts--of momentary sensations of pain, of shame, of
disgust, all blunted and soon forgotten.
In estimating suffering, physical or mental, to fail to take
into account a more important factor--the merciful paralysis or
partial paralysis of any center of sensibility--that is
insistently assaulted.
She no longer had headaches or nausea after drinking deeply.
And where formerly it had taken many stiff doses of liquor to
get her into the state of recklessness or of indifference, she
was now able to put herself into the mood in which life was
endurable with two or three drinks, often with only one. The
most marked change was that never by any chance did she become
gay; the sky over her life was steadily gray--gray or black, to
gray again--never lighter.
How far she had fallen! But swift descent or gradual, she had
adapted herself--had, in fact, learned by much experience of
disaster to mitigate the calamities, to have something to keep
a certain deep-lying self of selfs intact--unaffected by what
she had been forced to undergo. It seemed to her that if she
could get the chance--or could cure herself of the blindness
which was always preventing her from seeing and seizing the
chance that doubtless offered again and again--she could shed
the surface her mode of life had formed over her and would find
underneath a new real surface, stronger, sightly, better able
to bear--like the skin that forms beneath the healing wound.
In these tenements, as in all tenements of all degrees, she and
the others of her class were fiercely resented by the heads of
families where there was any hope left to impel a striving
upward. She had the best furnished room in the tenement. She
was the best dressed woman--a marked and instantly recognizable
figure because of her neat and finer clothes. Her profession
kept alive and active the instincts for care of the person that
either did not exist or were momentary and feeble in the
respectable women. The slovenliness, the scurrilousness of
even the wives and daughters of the well-to-do and the rich of
that region would not have been tolerated in any but the lowest
strata of her profession, hardly even in those sought by men of
the laboring class. Also, the deep horror of disease, which
her intelligence never for an instant permitted to relax its
hold, made her particular and careful when in other
circumstances drink might have reduced her to squalor. She
spent all her leisure time--for she no longer read--in the care
of her person.
She was watched with frightened, yet longing and curious, eyes
by all the girls who were at work. The mothers hated her; many
of them spat upon the ground after she had passed. It was a
heart-breaking struggle, that of these mothers to save their
daughters, not from prostitution, not from living with men
outside marriage, not from moral danger, but from the practical
danger, the danger of bringing into the world children with no
father to help feed and clothe them. In the opinion of these
people--an opinion often frankly expressed, rarely concealed
with any but the thinnest hypocrisy--the life of prostitution
was not so bad. Did the life of virtue offer any attractive
alternative? Whether a woman was "bad" or "good," she must
live in travail and die in squalor to be buried in or near the
Potter's Field. But if the girl still living at home were not
"good," that would mean a baby to be taken care of, would mean
the girl herself not a contributor to the family support but a
double burden. And if she went into prostitution, would her
family get the benefit? No.
The mothers made little effort to save their sons; they
concentrated on the daughters. It was pitiful to see how in
their ignorance they were unaware of the strongest forces
working against them. The talk of all this motley humanity--of
"good" no less than "bad" women, of steady workingmen, of
political heelers, thieves and bums and runners for dives--was
frankly, often hideously, obscene. The jammed together way of
living made modesty impossible, or scantest decency--made the
pictures of it among the aspiring few, usually for the benefit
of religion or charitable visitors, a pitiful, grotesque
hypocrisy. Indeed, the prostitute class was the highest in
this respect. The streetwalkers, those who prospered, had
better masters, learned something about the pleasures and
charms of privacy, also had more leisure in which to think, in
however crude a way, about the refinements of life, and more
money with which to practice those refinements. The boys from
the earliest age were on terms of licentious freedom with the
girls. The favorite children's games, often played in the open
street with the elders looking on and laughing, were sex games.
The very babies used foul language--that is, used the language
they learned both at home and in the street. It was primitive
man; Susan was at the foundation of the world.
To speak of the conditions there as a product of civilization
is to show ignorance of the history of our race, is to fancy
that we are civilized today, when in fact we
are--historically--in a turbulent and painful period of
transition from a better yesterday toward a tomorrow in which
life will be worth living as it never has been before in all
the ages of duration. In this today of movement toward
civilization which began with the discovery of iron and will
end when we shall have discovered how to use for the benefit of
all the main forces of nature--in this today of agitation
incident to journeying, we are in some respects better off, in
other respects worse off, than the race was ten or fifteen
thousand years ago. We have lost much of the freedom that was
ours before the rise of governments and ruling classes; we have
gained much--not so much as the ignorant and the unthinking and
the uneducated imagine, but still much. In the end we which
means the masses of us--will gain infinitely. But gain or loss
has not been in so-called morality. There is not a virtue that
has not existed from time ages before record. Not a vice which
is shallowly called "effete" or the "product of
overcivilization," but originated before man was man.
To speak of the conditions in which Susan Lenox now lived as
savagery is to misuse the word. Every transitional stage is
accompanied by a disintegration. Savagery was a settled state
in which every man and every woman had his or her fixed
position, settled duties and rights. With the downfall of
savagery with the beginning of the journey toward that hope of
tomorrow, civilization, everything in the relations of men with
men and men with women, became unsettled. Such social systems
as the world has known since have all been makeshift and
temporary--like our social systems of today, like the moral and
extinct codes rising and sinking in power over a vast multitude
of emigrants moving from a distant abandoned home toward a
distant promised land and forced to live as best they can in
the interval. In the historic day's journey of perhaps fifteen
thousand years our present time is but a brief second. In that
second there has come a breaking up of the makeshift
organization which long served the working multitudes fairly
well. The result is an anarchy in which the strong oppress the
weak, in which the masses are being crushed by the burdens
imposed upon them by the classes. And in that particular part
of the human race en route into which fate had flung Susan
Lenox conditions not of savagery but of primitive chaos were
prevailing. A large part of the population lived off the
unhappy workers by prostitution, by thieving, by petty
swindling, by politics, by the various devices in coarse, crude
and small imitation of the devices employed by the ruling
classes. And these petty parasites imitated the big parasites
in their ways of spending their dubiously got gains. To have
a "good time" was the ideal here as in idle Fifth Avenue; and
the notions of a "good time" in vogue in the two opposite
quarters differed in degree rather than in kind.
Nothing to think about but the appetites and their vices.
Nothing to hope for but the next carouse. Susan had brought
down with her from above one desire unknown to her associates
and neighbors--the desire to forget. If she could only forget!
If the poison would not wear off at times!
She could not quite forget. And to be unable to forget is to
remember--and to remember is to long--and to long is to hope.
Several times she heard of Freddie Palmer. Twice she chanced
upon his name in the newspaper--an incidental reference to him
in connection with local politics. The other times were when
men talking together in the drinking places frequented by both
sexes spoke of him as a minor power in the organization. Each
time she got a sense of her remoteness, of her security. Once
she passed in Grand Street a detective she had often seen with
him in Considine's at Broadway and Forty-second. The "bull"
looked sharply at her. Her heart stood still. But he went on
without recognizing her. The sharp glance had been simply that
official expression of see-all and know-all which is mere
formality, part of the official livery, otherwise meaningless.
However, it is not to that detective's discredit that he failed to
recognize her. She had adapted herself to her changed surroundings.
Because she was of a different and higher class, and because
she picked and chose her company, even when drink had beclouded
her senses and instinct alone remained on drowsy guard, she
prospered despite her indifference. For that region had its
aristocracy of rich merchants, tenement-owners, politicians
whose sons, close imitators of the uptown aristocracies in
manners and dress, spent money freely in the amusements that
attract nearly all young men everywhere. Susan made almost as
much as she could have made in the more renowned quarters of
the town. And presently she was able to move into a tenement
which, except for two workingmen's families of a better class,
was given over entirely to fast women. It was much better
kept, much cleaner, much better furnished than the tenements
for workers chiefly; they could not afford decencies, much less
luxuries. All that sort of thing was, for the neighborhood,
concentrated in the saloons, the dance halls, the fast houses
and the fast flats.
Her walks in Grand Street and the Bowery, repelling and
capricious though she was with her alternating moods of cold
moroseness and sardonic and mocking gayety, were bringing her
in a good sum of money for that region. Sometimes as much as
twenty dollars a week, rarely less than twelve or fifteen. And
despite her drinking and her freehandedness with her
fellow-professionals less fortunate and with the street beggars
and for tenement charities, she had in her stockings a capital
of thirty-one dollars.
She avoided the tough places, the hang-outs of the gangs. She
rarely went alone into the streets at night--and the afternoons
were, luckily, best for business as well as for safety. She
made no friends and therefore no enemies. Without meaning to
do so and without realizing that she did so, she held herself
aloof without haughtiness through sense of loneliness, not at
all through sense of superiority. Had it not been for her
scarlet lips, a far more marked sign in that region than
anywhere uptown, she would have passed in the street for a more
or less respectable woman--not thoroughly respectable; she was
too well dressed, too intelligently cared for to seem the good
working girl.
On one of the few nights when she lingered in the little back
room of the saloon a few doors away at the corner, as she
entered the dark passageway of the tenement, strong fingers
closed upon her throat and she was borne to the floor. She
knew at once that she was in the clutch of one of those terrors
of tenement fast women, the lobbygows--men who live by lying in
wait in the darkness to seize and rob the lonely, friendless
fast woman. She struggled--and she was anything but weak. But
not a sound could escape from her tight-pressed throat. Soon
she became unconscious.
One of the workingmen, returning drunk from the meeting of the
union, in the corner saloon, stumbled over her, gave her a kick
in his anger. This roused her; she uttered a faint cry.
"Thought it was a man," mumbled he, dragging her to a sitting
position. He struck a match. "Oh--it's you! Don't make any
noise. If my old woman came out, she'd kill us both."
"Never mind me," said Susan. "I was only stunned."
"Oh, I thought it was the booze. They say you hit it
something fierce."
"No--a lobbygow." And she felt for her stockings. They were
torn away from her garters. Her bosom also was bare, for the
lobbygow had searched there, also.
"How much did he get?"
"About thirty-five."
"The hell he did! Want me to call a cop?"
"No," replied Susan, who was on her feet again. "What's the use?"
"Those damn cops!" cursed the workingman. "They'd probably pinch
you--or both of us. Ten to one the lobbygows divide with them."
"I didn't mean that," said Susan. The police were most
friendly and most kind to her. She was understanding the ways
of the world better now, and appreciated that the police
themselves were part of the same vast system of tyranny and
robbery that was compelling her. The police made her pay
because they dared not refuse to be collectors. They bound
whom the mysterious invisible power compelled them to bind;
they loosed whom that same power bade them loose. She had no
quarrel with the police, who protected her from far worse
oppressions and oppressors than that to which they subjected
her. And if they tolerated lobbygows and divided with them, it
was because the overshadowing power ordained it so.
"Needn't be afraid I'll blow to the cop," said the drunken
artisan. "You can damn the cops all you please to me. They
make New York worse than Russia."
"I guess they do the best they can--like everybody else," said
the girl wearily.
"I'll help you upstairs."
"No, thank you," said she. Not that she did not need help; but
she wished no disagreeable scene with the workingman's wife who
might open the door as they passed his family's flat.
She went upstairs, the man waiting below until she should be
safe--and out of the way. She staggered into her room,
tottered to the bed, fell upon it. A girl named Clara, who
lived across the hall, was sitting in a rocking-chair in a
nightgown, reading a Bertha Clay novel and smoking a cigarette.
She glanced up, was arrested by the strange look in Susan's eyes.
"Hello--been hitting the pipe, I see," said she. "Down in
Gussie's room?"
"No. A lobbygow," said Susan.
"Did he get much?"
"About thirty-five."
"The----!" cried Clara. "I'll bet it was Gussie's fellow.
I've suspected him. Him and her stay in, hitting the pipe all
the time. That costs money, and she hasn't been out for I
don't know how long. Let's go down there and raise hell."
"What's the use?" said Susan.
"You ought to 'a' put it in the savings bank. That's what I
do--when I have anything. Then, when I'm robbed, they only get
what I've just made. Last time, they didn't get nothing--but
me." And she laughed. Her teeth were good in front, but out
on one side and beginning to be discolored on the other. "How
long had you been saving?"
"Nearly six months."
"Gee! _Isn't_ that hell!" Presently she laughed. "Six months'
work and only thirty-five to show for it. Guess you're about
as poor at hiving it up as I am. I give it to that loafer I
live with. You give it away to anybody that wants a stake.
Well--what's the diff? It all goes."
"Give me a cigarette," said Susan, sitting up and inspecting
the bruises on her bosom and legs. "And get that bottle of
whiskey from under the soiled clothes in the bottom of the
washstand."
"It _is_ something to celebrate, isn't it?" said Clara. "My
fellow's gone to his club tonight, so I didn't go out. I never
do any more, unless he's there to hang round and see that I
ain't done up. You'll have to get a fellow. You'll have to
come to it, as I'm always telling you. They're expensive, but
they're company--anybody you can count on for shining up, even
if it is for what they can get out of you, is better than not
having nobody nowhere. And they keep off bums and lobbygows
and scare the bilkers into coughing up."
"Not for me," replied Susan.
The greater the catastrophe, the longer the time before it is
fully realized. Susan's loss of the money that represented so
much of savage if momentary horror, and so much of unconscious
hope this calamity did not overwhelm her for several days.
Then she yielded for the first time to the lure of opium. She
had listened longingly to the descriptions of the delights as
girls and men told; for practically all of them smoked--or took
cocaine. But to Clara's or Gussie's invitations to join the
happy band of dreamers, she had always replied, "Not yet. I'm
saving that." Now, however, she felt that the time had come.
Hope in this world she had none. Before the black adventure,
why not try the world of blissful unreality to which it gave
entrance? Why leave life until she had exhausted all it put
within her reach?
She went to Gussie's room at midnight and flung herself down in
a wrapper upon a couch opposite a sallow, delicate young man.
His great dark eyes were gazing unseeingly at her, were perhaps
using her as an outline sketch from which his imagination could
picture a beauty of loveliness beyond human. Gussie taught her
how to prepare the little ball of opium, how to put it on the
pipe and draw in its fumes. Her system was so well prepared
for it by the poisons she had drunk that she had satisfactory
results from the outset. And she entered upon the happiest
period of her life thus far. All the hideousness of her
profession disappeared under the gorgeous draperies of the
imagination. Opium's magic transformed the vile, the obscene,
into the lofty, the romantic, the exalted. The world she had
been accustomed to regard as real ceased to be even the blur
the poisonous liquors had made of it, became a vague, distant
thing seen in a dream. Her opium world became the vivid reality.
The life she had been leading had made her extremely thin, had
hardened and dulled her eyes, had given her that sad,
shuddering expression of the face upon which have beaten a
thousand mercenary and lustful kisses. The opium soon changed
all this. Her skin, always tending toward pallor, became of
the dead amber-white of old ivory. Her thinness took on an
ethereal transparency that gave charm even to her slight stoop.
Her face became dreamy, exalted, rapt; and her violet-gray eyes
looked from it like the vents of poetical fires burning without
ceasing upon an altar to the god of dreams. Never had she been
so beautiful; never had she been so happy--not with the coarser
happiness of dancing eye and laughing lip, but with the ecstasy
of soul that is like the shimmers of a tranquil sea quivering
rhythmically under the caresses of moonlight.
In her descent she had now reached that long narrow shelf along
which she would walk so long as health and looks should
last--unless some accident should topple her off on the one
side into suicide or on the other side into the criminal
prostitute class. And such accidents were likely to happen.
Still there was a fair chance of her keeping her balance until
loss of looks and loss of health--the end of the shelf--should
drop her abruptly to the very bottom. She could guess what was
there. Every day she saw about the streets, most wretched and
most forlorn of its wretched and forlorn things, the solitary
old women, bent and twisted, wrapped in rotting rags, picking
papers and tobacco from the gutters and burrowing in garbage
barrels, seeking somehow to get the drink or the dope that
changed hell into heaven for them.
Despite liquor and opium and the degradations of the
street-woman's life she walked that narrow ledge with curious
steadiness. She was unconscious of the cause. Indeed,
self-consciousness had never been one of her traits. The cause
is interesting.
In our egotism, in our shame of what we ignorantly regard as
the lowliness of our origin we are always seeking alleged lofty
spiritual explanations of our doings, and overlook the actual,
quite simple real reason. One of the strongest factors in
Susan's holding herself together in face of overwhelming odds,
was the nearly seventeen years of early training her Aunt Fanny
Warham had given her in orderly and systematic ways--a place
for everything and everything in its place; a time for
everything and everything at its time, neatness, scrupulous
cleanliness, no neglecting of any of the small, yet large,
matters that conserve the body. Susan had not been so apt a
pupil of Fanny Warham's as was Ruth, because Susan had not
Ruth's nature of the old-maidish, cut-and-dried conventional.
But during the whole fundamentally formative period of her life
Susan Lenox had been trained to order and system, and they had
become part of her being, beyond the power of drink and opium
and prostitution to disintegrate them until the general
break-up should come. In all her wanderings every man or woman
or girl she had met who was not rapidly breaking up, but was
offering more or less resistance to the assaults of bad habits,
was one who like herself had acquired in childhood strong good
habits to oppose the bad habits and to fight them with. An
enemy must be met with his own weapons or stronger. The
strongest weapons that can be given a human animal for
combating the destructive forces of the struggle for existence
are not good sentiments or good principles or even pious or
moral practices--for, bad habits can make short work of all
these--but are good habits in the practical, material matters
of life. They operate automatically, they apply to all the
multitude of small, every day; semi-unconscious actions of the
daily routine. They preserve the _morale_. And not morality
but morals is the warp of character--the part which, once
destroyed or even frayed, cannot be restored.
Susan, unconsciously and tenaciously practicing her early
training in order and system whenever she could and wherever
she could, had an enormous advantage over the mass of the
girls, both respectable and fast. And while their evidence was
always toward "going to pieces" her tendency was always to
repair and to put off the break-up.
One June evening she was looking through the better class of
dance halls and drinking resorts for Clara, to get her to go up
to Gussie's for a smoke. She opened a door she had never
happened to enter before--a dingy door with the glass frosted.
Just inside there was a fetid little bar; view of the rest of
the room was cut off by a screen from behind which came the
sound of a tuneless old piano. She knew Clara would not be in
such a den, but out of curiosity she glanced round the screen.
She was seeing a low-ceilinged room, the walls almost dripping
with the dirt of many and many a hard year. In a corner was
the piano, battered, about to fall to pieces, its ancient and
horrid voice cracked by the liquor which had been poured into
it by facetious drunkards. At the keyboard sat an old
hunchback, broken-jawed, dressed in slimy rags, his one eye
instantly fixed upon her with a lecherous expression that made
her shiver as it compelled her to imagine the embrace he was
evidently imagining. His filthy fingers were pounding out a
waltz. About the floor were tottering in the measure of the
waltz a score of dreadful old women. They were in calico.
They had each a little biscuit knot of white hair firmly upon
the crown of the head. From their bleached, seamed old faces
gleamed the longings or the torments of all the passions they
could no longer either inspire or satisfy. They were one time
prostitutes, one time young, perhaps pretty women, now
descending to death--still prostitutes in heart and mind but
compelled to live as scrub women, cleaners of all manner of
loathsome messes in dives after the drunkards had passed on.
They were now enjoying the reward of their toil, the pleasures
of which they dreamed and to which they looked forward as they
dragged their stiff old knees along the floors in the wake of
the brush and the cloth. They were drinking biting poisons
from tin cups--for those hands quivering with palsy could not
be trusted with glass-dancing with drunken, disease-swollen or
twisted legs--venting from ghastly toothless mouths strange
cries of merriment that sounded like shrieks of damned souls at
the licking of quenchless flames.
Susan stood rooted to the threshold of that frightful
scene--that vision of the future toward which she was hurrying.
A few years--a very few years--and, unless she should have
passed through the Morgue, here she would be, abandoning her
body to abominations beyond belief at the hands of degenerate
oriental sailors to get a few pennies for the privileges of
this dance hall. And she would laugh, as did these, would
enjoy as did these, would revel in the filth her senses had
been trained to find sweet. "No! No!" she protested. "I'd
kill myself first!" And then she cowered again, as the thought
came that she probably would not, any more than these had
killed themselves. The descent would be gradual--no matter how
swift, still gradual. Only the insane put an end to life.
Yes--she would come here some day.
She leaned against the wall, her throat contracting in a fit of
nausea. She grew cold all over; her teeth chattered. She
tried in vain to tear her gaze from the spectacle; some
invisible power seemed to be holding her head in a vise,
thrusting her struggling eyelids violently open.
There were several men, dead drunk, asleep in old wooden chairs
against the wall. One of these men was so near her that she
could have touched him. His clothing was such an assortment of
rags slimy and greasy as one sometimes sees upon the top of a
filled garbage barrel to add its horrors of odor of long
unwashed humanity to the stenches from vegetable decay. His
wreck of a hard hat had fallen from his head as it dropped
forward in drunken sleep. Something in the shape of the head
made her concentrate upon this man. She gave a sharp cry,
stretched out her hand, touched the man's shoulder.
"Rod!" she cried. "Rod!"
The head slowly lifted, and the bleary, blowsy wreck of
Roderick Spenser's handsome face was turned stupidly toward
her. Into his gray eyes slowly came a gleam of recognition.
Then she saw the red of shame burst into his hollow cheeks, and
the head quickly drooped.
She shook him. "Rod! It's _you!_"
"Get the hell out," he mumbled. "I want to sleep."
"You know me," she said. "I see the color in your face. Oh,
Rod--you needn't be ashamed before _me_."
She felt him quiver under her fingers pressing upon his
shoulder. But he pretended to snore.
"Rod," she pleaded, "I want you to come along with me. I can't
do you any harm now."
The hunchback had stopped playing. The old women were crowding
round Spenser and her, were peering at them, with eyes eager
and ears a-cock for romance--for nowhere on this earth do the
stars shine so sweetly as down between the precipices of shame
to the black floor of the slum's abyss. Spenser, stooped and
shaking, rose abruptly, thrust Susan aside with a sweep of the
arm that made her reel, bolted into the street. She recovered
her balance and amid hoarse croakings of "That's right, honey!
Don't give him up!" followed the shambling, swaying figure.
He was too utterly drunk to go far; soon down he sank, a heap
of rags and filth, against a stoop.
She bent over him, saw he was beyond rousing, straightened and
looked about her. Two honest looking young Jews stopped.
"Won't you help me get him home?" she said to them.
"Sure!" replied they in chorus. And, with no outward sign of
the disgust they must have felt at the contact, they lifted up
the sot, in such fantastic contrast to Susan's clean and even
stylish appearance, and bore him along, trying to make him seem
less the helpless whiskey-soaked dead weight. They dragged him
up the two flights of stairs and, as she pushed back the door,
deposited him on the floor. She assured them they could do
nothing more, thanked them, and they departed. Clara appeared
in her doorway.
"God Almighty, Lorna!" she cried. "_What_ have you got there?
How'd it get in?"
"You've been advising me to take a fellow," said Susan.
"Well--here he is."
Clara looked at her as if she thought her crazed by drink or
dope. "I'll call the janitor and have him thrown out."
"No, he's my lover," said Susan. "Will you help me clean him up?"
Clara, looking at Spenser's face now, saw those signs which not
the hardest of the world's hard uses can cut or tear away.
"Oh!" she said, in a tone of sympathy. "He _is_ down, isn't he?
But he'll pull round all right."
She went into her room to take off her street clothes and to
get herself into garments as suitable as she possessed for one
of those noisome tasks that are done a dozen times a day by the
bath nurses in the receiving department of a charity hospital.
When she returned, Susan too was in her chemise and ready to
begin the search for the man, if man there was left deep buried
in that muck. While Susan took off the stinking and rotten
rags, and flung them into the hall, Clara went to the bathroom
they and Mollie shared, and filled the tub with water as hot as
her hand could bear. With her foot Susan pushed the rags along
the hall floor and into the garbage closet. Then she and Clara
lifted the emaciated, dirt-streaked, filth-smeared body,
carried it to the bathroom, let it down into the water. There
were at hand plenty of those strong, specially prepared soaps
and other disinfectants constantly used by the women of their
kind who still cling to cleanliness and health. With these
they attacked him, not as if he were a human being, but as if
he were some inanimate object that must be scoured before it
could be used.
Again and again they let out the water, black, full of dead and
dying vermin; again and again they rinsed him, attacked him
afresh. Their task grew less and less repulsive as the man
gradually appeared, a young man with a soft skin, a well-formed
body, unusually good hands and feet, a distinguished face
despite its savage wounds from dissipation, hardly the less
handsome for the now fair and crisp beard which gave it a look
of more years than Spenser had lived.
If Spenser recovered consciousness--and it seems hardly
possible that he did not--he was careful to conceal the fact.
He remained limp, inert, apparently in a stupor. They gave him
one final scrubbing, one final rinsing, one final thorough
inspection. "Now, he's all right," declared Clara. "What
shall we do with him?"
"Put him to bed," said Susan.
They had already dried him off in the empty tub. They now
rubbed him down with a rough towel, lifted him, Susan taking
the shoulders, Clara the legs, and put him in Susan's bed.
Clara ran to her room, brought one of the two nightshirts she
kept for her fellow. When they had him in this and with a
sheet over him, they cleaned and straightened the bathroom,
then lit cigarettes and sat down to rest and to admire the work
of their hands.
"Who is he?" asked Clara.
"A man I used to know," said Susan. Like all the girls in that
life with a real story to tell, she never told about her past
self. Never tell? They never even remember if drink and drugs
will do their duty.
"I don't blame you for loving him," said Clara. "Somehow, the
lower a man sinks the more a woman loves him. It's the other
way with men. But then men don't know what love is. And a
woman don't really know till she's been through the mill."
"I don't love him," said Susan.
"Same thing," replied the practical Clara, with a wave of the
bare arm at the end of which smoked the cigarette. "What're
you going to do with him?"
"I don't know," confessed Susan.
She was not a little uneasy at the thought of his awakening.
Would he despise her more than ever now--fly from her back to
his filth? Would he let her try to help him? And she looked
at the face which had been, in that other life so long, long
ago, dearer to her than any face her eyes had ever rested upon;
a sob started deep down within her, found its slow and painful
way upward, shaking her whole body and coming from between her
clenched teeth in a groan. She forgot all she had suffered
from Rod--forgot the truth about him which she had slowly
puzzled out after she left him and as experience enabled her to
understand actions she had not understood at the time. She
forgot it all. That past--that far, dear, dead past! Again
she was a simple, innocent girl upon the high rock, eating that
wonderful dinner. Again the evening light faded, stars and
moon came out, and she felt the first sweet stirring of love
for him. She could hear his voice, the light, clear,
entrancing melody of the Duke's song--
La Donna e mobile
Qua penna al vento--
She burst into tears--tears that drenched her soul as the rain
drenches the blasted desert and makes the things that could
live in beauty stir deep in its bosom. And Clara, sobbing in
sympathy, kissed her and stole away, softly closing the door.
"If a man die, shall he live again?" asked the old Arabian
philosopher. If a woman die, shall she live again?. . .
Shall not that which dies in weakness live again in strength?. . .
Looking at him, as he lay there sleeping so quietly, her
being surged with the heaving of high longings and hopes.
If _they_ could only live again! Here they were, together, at
the lowest depth, at the rock bottom of life. If they could
build on that rock, build upon the very foundation of the
world, then would they indeed build in strength! Then, nothing
could destroy--nothing!. . . If they could live again! If
they could build!
She had something to live for--something to fight for. Into
her eyes came a new light; into her soul came peace and
strength. Something to live for--someone to redeem.
XI
SHE fell asleep, her head resting upon her hand, her elbow on
the arm of the chair. She awoke with a shiver; she opened her
eyes to find him gazing at her. The eyes of both shifted
instantly. "Wouldn't you like some whiskey?" she asked.
"Thanks," replied he, and his unchanged voice reminded her
vividly of his old self, obscured by the beard and by the
dissipated look.
She took the bottle from its concealment in the locked
washstand drawer, poured him out a large drink. When she came
back where he could see the whiskey in the glass, his eyes
glistened and he raised himself first on his elbow, then to a
sitting position. His shaking hand reached out eagerly and his
expectant lips quivered. He gulped the whiskey down.
"Thank you," he said, gazing longingly at the bottle as he held
the empty glass toward her.
"More?"
"I _would_ like a little more," said he gratefully.
Again she poured him a large drink, and again he gulped it
down. "That's strong stuff," said he. "But then they sell
strong stuff in this part of town. The other kind tastes weak
to me now."
He dropped back against the pillows. She poured herself a
drink. Halfway to her lips the glass halted. "I've got to
stop that," thought she, "if I'm going to do anything for him
or for myself." And she poured the whiskey back and put the
bottle away. The whole incident took less than five seconds.
It did not occur that she was essaying and achieving the
heroic, that she had in that instant revealed her right to her
dream of a career high above the common lot.
"Don't _you_ drink?" said he.
"I've decided to cut it out," replied she carelessly. "There's
nothing in it."
"I couldn't live without it--and wouldn't."
"It _is_ a comfort when one's on the way down," said she. "But
I'm going to try the other direction--for a change."
She held a box of cigarettes toward him. He took one, then
she; she held the lighted match for him, lit her own cigarette,
let the flame of the match burn on, she absently watching it.
"Look out! You'll burn yourself!" cried he.
She started, threw the match into the slop jar. "How do you
feel?" inquired she.
"Like the devil," he answered. "But then I haven't known what
it was to feel any other way for several months except when I
couldn't feel at all." A long silence, both smoking, he
thinking, she furtively watching him. "You haven't changed so
much," he finally said. "At least, not on the outside."
"More on the outside than on the inside," said she. "The
inside doesn't change much. There I'm almost as I was that day
on the big rock. And I guess you are, too--aren't you?"
"The devil I am! I've grown hard and bitter."
"That's all outside," declared she. "That's the shell--like
the scab that stays over the sore spot till it heals."
"Sore spot? I'm nothing but sore spots. I've been treated
like a dog."
And he proceeded to talk about the only subject that interested
him--himself. He spoke in a defensive way, as if replying to
something she had said or thought. "I've not got down in the
world without damn good excuse. I wrote several plays, and
they were tried out of town. But we never could get into New
York. I think Brent was jealous of me, and his influence kept
me from a hearing. I know it sounds conceited, but I'm sure
I'm right."
"Brent?" said she, in a queer voice. "Oh, I think you must be
mistaken. He doesn't look like a man who could do petty mean
things. No, I'm sure he's not petty."
"Do you know him?" cried Spenser, in an irritated tone.
"No. But--someone pointed him out to me once--a long time
ago--one night in the Martin. And then--you'll remember--there
used to be a great deal of talk about him when we lived in
Forty-third Street. You admired him tremendously."
"Well, he's responsible," said Spenser, sullenly. "The men on
top are always trampling down those who are trying to climb up.
He had it in for me. One of my friends who thought he was a
decent chap gave him my best play to read. He returned it with
some phrases about its showing talent--one of those phrases
that don't mean a damn thing. And a few weeks ago--" Spenser
raised himself excitedly--"the thieving hound produced a play
that was a clean steal from mine. I'd be laughed at if I
protested or sued. But I _know_, curse him!"
He fell back shaking so violently that his cigarette dropped to