SUSAN LENOX: HER RISE AND FALL

the sheet. Susan picked it up, handed it to him. He eyed her
with angry suspicion. "You don't believe me, do you?" he demanded.
"I don't know anything about it," replied she. "Anyhow, what
does it matter? The man I met on that show boat--the Mr.
Burlingham I've often talked about--he used to say that the dog
that stopped to lick his scratches never caught up with the prey."
He flung himself angrily in the bed. "You never did have any
heart--any sympathy. But who has? Even Drumley went back on
me--let 'em put a roast of my last play in the _Herald_--a
telegraphed roast from New Haven--said it was a dead failure.
And who wrote it? Why, some newspaper correspondent in the pay
of the _Syndicate_--and that means Brent. And of course it was
a dead failure. So--I gave up--and here I am. . . . This
your room?"
"Yes."
"Where's this nightshirt come from?"
"It belongs to the friend of the girl across the hall." He
laughed sneeringly. "The hell it does!" mocked he. "I
understand perfectly. I want my clothes."
"No one is coming," said Susan. "There's no one to come."
He was looking round the comfortable little room that was the
talk of the whole tenement and was stirring wives and fast
women alike to "do a little fixing up." Said he:
"A nice little nest you've made for him. You always were good
at that."
"I've made it for myself," said she. "I never bring men here."
"I want my clothes," cried he. "I haven't sunk that low, you----!"
The word he used did not greatly disturb Susan. The shell she
had formed over herself could ward off brutal contacts of
languages no less than of the other kinds. It did, however,
shock her a little to hear Rod Spenser use a word so crude.
"Give me my clothes," he ordered, waving his fists in a fierce,
feeble gesture.
"They were torn all to pieces. I threw them away. I'll get
you some more in the morning."
He dropped back again, a scowl upon his face. "I've got no
money--not a damn cent. I did half a day's work on the docks
and made enough to quiet me last night." He raised himself.
"I can work again. Give me my clothes!"
"They're gone," said Susan. "They were completely used up."
This brought back apparently anything but dim memory of what
his plight had been. "How'd I happen to get so clean?"
"Clara and I washed you off a little. You had fallen down."
He lay silent a few minutes, then said in a hesitating, ashamed
tone, "My troubles have made me a boor. I beg your pardon.
You've been tremendously kind to me."
"Oh, it wasn't much. Don't you feel sleepy?"
"Not a bit." He dragged himself from the bed. "But _you_ do.
I must go."
She laughed in the friendliest way. "You can't. You haven't
any clothes."
He passed his hand over his face and coughed violently, she
holding his head and supporting his emaciated shoulders. After
several minutes of coughing and gagging, gasping and groaning
and spitting, he was relieved by the spasm and lay down again.
When he got his breath, he said--with rest between words--"I'd
ask you to send for the ambulance, but if the doctors catch me,
they'll lock me away. I've got consumption. Oh, I'll soon be
out of it."
Susan sat silent. She did not dare look at him lest he should
see the pity and horror in her eyes.
"They'll find a cure for it," pursued he. "But not till the
day after I'm gone. That is the way my luck runs. Still, I
don't see why I should care to stay--and I don't! Have you any
more of that whiskey?"
Susan brought out the bottle again, gave him the last of the
whiskey--a large drink. He sat up, sipping it to make it last.
He noted the long row of books on the shelf fastened along the
wall beside the bed, the books and magazines on the table.
Said he:
"As fond of reading as ever, I see?"
"Fonder," said she. "It takes me out of myself."
"I suppose you read the sort of stuff you really like, now--not
the things you used to read to make old Drumley think you were
cultured and intellectual."
"No--the same sort," replied she, unruffled by his
contemptuous, unjust fling. "Trash bores me."
"Come to think of it, I guess you did have pretty good taste
in books."
But he was interested in himself, like all invalids; and, like
them, he fancied his own intense interest could not but be
shared by everyone. He talked on and on of himself, after the
manner of failures--told of his wrongs, of how friends had
betrayed him, of the jealousies and enmities his talents had
provoked. Susan was used to these hard-luck stories, was used
to analyzing them. With the aid of what she had worked out as
to his character after she left him, she had no difficulty in
seeing that he was deceiving himself, was excusing himself.
But after all she had lived through, after all she had
discovered about human frailty, especially in herself, she was
not able to criticize, much less condemn, anybody. Her doubts
merely set her to wondering whether he might not also be
self-deceived as to his disease.
"Why do you think you've got consumption?" asked she.
"I was examined at the free dispensary up in Second Avenue the
other day. I've suspected what was the matter for several
months. They told me I was right."
"But the doctors are always making mistakes. I'd not give up
if I were you."
"Do you suppose I would if I had anything to live for?"
"I was thinking about that a while ago--while you were asleep."
"Oh, I'm all in. That's a cinch."
"So am I," said she. "And as we've nothing to lose and no hope,
why, trying to do something won't make us any worse off. . . .
We've both struck the bottom. We can't go any lower." She
leaned forward and, with her earnest eyes fixed upon him,
said, "Rod--why not try--together?"
He closed his eyes.
"I'm afraid I can't be of much use to you," she went on. "But
you can help me. And helping me will make you help yourself.
I can't get up alone. I've tried. No doubt it's my fault. I
guess I'm one of those women that aren't hard enough or
self-confident enough to do what's necessary unless I've got
some man to make me do it. Perhaps I'd get the--the strength
or whatever it is, when I was much older. But by that time in
my case--I guess it'd be too late. Won't you help me, Rod?"
He turned his head away, without opening his eyes.
"You've helped me many times--beginning with the first day we met."
"Don't," he said. "I went back on you. I did sprain my ankle,
but I could have come."
"That wasn't anything," replied she. "You had already done a
thousand times more than you needed to do."
His hand wandered along the cover in her direction. She
touched it. Their hands clasped.
"I lied about where I got the money yesterday. I didn't work.
I begged. Three of us--from the saloon they call the Owl's
Chute--two Yale men--one of them had been a judge--and I.
We've been begging for a week. We were going out on the road
in a few days--to rob. Then--I saw you--in that old women's
dance hall--the Venusberg, they call it."
"You've come down here for me, Rod. You'll take me back?
You'll save me from the Venusberg?"
"I couldn't save anybody. Susie, at bottom I'm N. G. I
always was--and I knew it. Weak--vain. But you! If you
hadn't been a woman--and such a sweet, considerate one you'd
have never got down here."
"Such a fool," corrected Susan. "But, once I get up, I'll not
be so again. I'll fight under the rules, instead of acting in
the silly way they teach us as children."
"Don't say those hard things, Susie!"
"Aren't they true?"
"Yes, but I can't bear to hear them from a woman. . . . I
told you that you hadn't changed. But after I'd looked at you
a while I saw that you have. You've got a terrible look in
your eyes--wonderful and terrible. You had something of that
look as a child--the first time I saw you."
"The day after my marriage," said the girl, tearing her
face away.
"It was there then," he went on. "But now--it's--it's
heartbreaking, Susie when your face is in repose."
"I've gone through a fire that has burned up every bit of me
that can burn," said she. "I've been wondering if what's left
isn't strong enough to do something with. I believe so--if
you'll help me."
"Help you? I--help anybody? Don't mock me, Susie."
"I don't know about anybody else," said she sweetly and gently,
"but I do know about me."
"No use--too late. I've lost my nerve." He began to sob.
"It's because I'm unstrung," explained he.
"Don't think I'm a poor contemptible fool of a whiner. . . .
Yes, I _am_ a whiner! Susie, I ought to have been the woman
and you the man. Weak--weak--weak!"
She turned the gas low, bent over him, kissed his brow,
caressed him. "Let's do the best we can," she murmured.
He put his arm round her. "I wonder if there _is_ any hope," he
said. "No--there couldn't be."
"Let's not hope," pleaded she. "Let's just do the best we can."
"What--for instance?"
"You know the theater people. You might write a little play--a
sketch--and you and I could act it in one of the ten-cent houses."
"That's not a bad idea!" exclaimed he. "A little comedy--about
fifteen or twenty minutes." And he cast about for a plot,
found the beginnings of one the ancient but ever acceptable
commonplace of a jealous quarrel between two lovers--"I'll lay
the scene in Fifth Avenue--there's nothing low life likes so
much as high life." He sketched, she suggested. They planned
until broad day, then fell asleep, she half sitting up, his
head pillowed upon her lap.
She was awakened by a sense of a parching and suffocating heat.
She started up with the idea of fire in her drowsy mind. But
a glance at him revealed the real cause. His face was fiery
red, and from his lips came rambling sentences, muttered,
whispered, that indicated the delirium of a high fever. She
had first seen it when she and the night porter broke into
Burlingham's room in the Walnut Street House, in Cincinnati.
She had seen it many a time since; for, while she herself had
never been ill, she had been surrounded by illness all the
time, and the commonest form of it was one of these fevers,
outraged nature's frenzied rise against the ever denser swarms
of enemies from without which the slums sent to attack her.
Susan ran across the hall and roused Clara, who would watch
while she went for a doctor. "You'd better get Einstein in
Grand Street," Clara advised.
"Why not Sacci?" asked Susan.
"Our doctor doesn't know anything but the one thing--and
he doesn't like to take other kinds of cases. No, get
Einstein. . . . You know, he's like all of them--he won't
come unless you pay in advance."
"How much?" asked Susan.
"Three dollars. I'll lend you if----"
"No--I've got it." She had eleven dollars and sixty cents in
the world.
Einstein pronounced it a case of typhoid. "You must get him to
the hospital at once."
Susan and Clara looked at each other in terror. To them, as to
the masses everywhere, the hospital meant almost certain death;
for they assumed--and they had heard again and again
accusations which warranted it--that the public hospital
doctors and nurses treated their patients with neglect always,
with downright inhumanity often. Not a day passed without
their hearing some story of hospital outrage upon poverty,
without their seeing someone--usually some child--who was
paying a heavy penalty for having been in the charity wards.
Einstein understood their expression. "Nonsense!" said he
gruffly. "You girls look too sensible to believe those silly lies."
Susan looked at him steadily. His eyes shifted. "Of course, the
pay service _is_ better," said he in a strikingly different tone.
"How much would it be at a pay hospital?" asked Susan.
"Twenty-five a week including my services," said Doctor
Einstein. "But you can't afford that."
"Will he get the best treatment for that?"
"The very best. As good as if he were Rockefeller or the big
chap uptown."
"In advance, I suppose?"
"Would we ever get our money out of people if we didn't get it
in advance? We've got to live just the same as any other class."
"I understand," said the girl. "I don't blame you. I don't
blame anybody for anything." She said to Clara, "Can you lend
me twenty?"
"Sure. Come in and get it." When she and Susan were in the
hall beyond Einstein's hearing, she went on: "I've got the
twenty and you're welcome to it. But--Lorna hadn't you
better----"
"In the same sort of a case, what'd _you_ do?" interrupted Susan.
Clara laughed. "Oh--of course." And she gave Susan a roll of
much soiled bills--a five, the rest ones and twos.
"I can get the ambulance to take him free," said Einstein.
"That'll save you five for a carriage."
She accepted this offer. And when the ambulance went, with
Spenser burning and raving in the tightly wrapped blankets,
Susan followed in a street car to see with her own eyes that he
was properly installed. It was arranged that she could visit
him at any hour and stay as long as she liked.
She returned to the tenement, to find the sentiment of the
entire neighborhood changed toward her. Not loss of money, not
loss of work, not dispossession nor fire nor death is the
supreme calamity among the poor, but sickness. It is their
most frequent visitor--sickness in all its many frightful
forms--rheumatism and consumption, cancer and typhoid and the
rest of the monsters. Yet never do the poor grow accustomed or
hardened. And at the sight of the ambulance the neighborhood
had been instantly stirred. When the reason for its coming got
about, Susan became the object of universal sympathy and
respect. She was not sending her friend to be neglected and
killed at a charity hospital; she was paying twenty-five a week
that he might have a chance for life--twenty-five dollars a
week! The neighbors felt that her high purpose justified any
means she might be compelled to employ in getting the money.
Women who had scowled and spat as she walked by, spoke
friendlily to her and wiped their eyes with their filthy
skirts, and prayed in church and synagogue that she might
prosper until her man was well and the old debt paid. Clara
went from group to group, relating the whole story, and the
tears flowed at each recital. Money they had none to give; but
what they had they gave with that generosity which suddenly
transfigures rags and filth and makes foul and distorted bodies
lift in the full dignity of membership in the human family.
Everywhere in those streets were seen the ravages of
disease--rheumatism and rickets and goiter, wen and tumors and
cancer, children with only one arm or one leg, twisted spines,
sunken chests, distorted hips, scrofulous eyes and necks, all
the sad markings of poverty's supreme misery, the ferocious
penalties of ignorance, stupidity and want. But Susan's burden
of sorrow was not on this account overlooked.
Rafferty, who kept the saloon at the corner and was chief
lieutenant to O'Frayne, the District Leader, sent for her and
handed her a twenty. "That may help some," said he.
Susan hesitated--gave it back. "Thank you," said she, "and
perhaps later I'll have to get it from you. But I don't want
to get into debt. I already owe twenty."
"This ain't debt," explained Rafferty. "Take it and forget it."
"I couldn't do that," said the girl. "But maybe you'll lend it
to me, if I need it in a week or so?"
"Sure," said the puzzled saloon man--liquor store man, he
preferred to be called, or politician. "Any amount you want."
As she went away he looked after her, saying to his barkeeper:
"What do you think of that, Terry? I offered her a twenty and
she sidestepped."
Terry's brother had got drunk a few days before, had killed a
woman and was on his way to the chair. Terry scowled at the
boss and said:
"She's got a right to, ain't she? Don't she earn her money
honest, without harmin' anybody but herself? There ain't many
that can say that--not any that runs factories and stores and
holds their noses up as if they smelt their own sins, damn 'em!"
"She's a nice girl," said Rafferty, sauntering away. He was a
broad, tolerant and good-humored man; he made allowances for an
employee whose brother was in for murder.
Susan had little time to spend at the hospital. She must now
earn fifty dollars a week--nearly double the amount she had
been averaging. She must pay the twenty-five dollars for
Spenser, the ten dollars for her lodgings. Then there was the
seven dollars which must be handed to the police captain's
"wardman" in the darkness of some entry every Thursday night.
She had been paying the patrolman three dollars a week to keep
him in a good humor, and two dollars to the janitor's wife; she
might risk cutting out these items for the time, as both
janitor's wife and policeman were sympathetic. But on the
closest figuring, fifty a week would barely meet her absolute
necessities--would give her but seven a week for food and other
expenses and nothing toward repaying Clara.
Fifty dollars a week! She might have a better chance to make
it could she go back to the Broadway-Fifth Avenue district.
But however vague other impressions from the life about her
might have been, there had been branded into her a deep and
terrible fear of the police an omnipotence as cruel as destiny
itself--indeed, the visible form of that sinister god at
present. Once in the pariah class, once with a "police
record," and a man or woman would have to scale the steeps of
respectability up to a far loftier height than Susan ever
dreamed of again reaching, before that malign and relentless
power would abandon its tyranny. She did not dare risk
adventuring a part of town where she had no "pull" and where,
even should she by chance escape arrest, Freddie Palmer would
hear of her; would certainly revenge himself by having her
arrested and made an example of. In the Grand Street district
she must stay, and she must "stop the nonsense" and "play the
game"--must be businesslike.
She went to see the "wardman," O'Ryan, who under the guise of
being a plain clothes man or detective, collected and turned in
to the captain, who took his "bit" and passed up the rest, all
the money levied upon saloons, dives, procuresses, dealers in
unlawful goods of any kind from opium and cocaine to girls for
"hock shops."
O'Ryan was a huge brute of a man, his great hard face bearing
the scars of battles against pistol, knife, bludgeon and fist.
He was a sour and savage brute, hated and feared by everyone
for his tyrannies over the helpless poor and the helpless
outcast class. He had primitive masculine notions as to
feminine virtue, intact despite the latter day general
disposition to concede toleration and even a certain
respectability to prostitutes. But by some chance which she
and the other girls did not understand he treated Susan with
the utmost consideration, made the gangs appreciate that if
they annoyed her or tried to drag her into the net of tribute
in which they had enmeshed most of the girls worth while, he
would regard it as a personal defiance to himself.
Susan waited in the back room of the saloon nearest O'Ryan's
lodgings and sent a boy to ask him to come. The boy came back
with the astonishing message that she was to come to O'Ryan's
flat. Susan was so doubtful that she paused to ask the
janitress about it.
"It's all right," said the janitress. "Since his wife died
three years ago him and his baby lives alone. There's his old
mother but she's gone out. He's always at home when he ain't
on duty. He takes care of the baby himself, though it howls
all the time something awful."
Susan ascended, found the big policeman in his shirt sleeves,
trying to soothe the most hideous monstrosity she had ever
seen--a misshapen, hairy animal looking like a monkey, like a
rat, like half a dozen repulsive animals, and not at all like
a human being. The thing was clawing and growling and grinding
its teeth. At sight of Susan it fixed malevolent eyes on her
and began to snap its teeth at her.
"Don't mind him," said O'Ryan. "He's only acting up queer."
Susan sat not daring to look at the thing lest she should show
her aversion, and not knowing how to state her business when the
thing was so clamorous, so fiendishly uproarious. After a time
O'Ryan succeeded in quieting it. He seemed to think some
explanation was necessary. He began abruptly, his gaze
tenderly on the awful creature, his child, lying quiet now in
his arms:
"My wife--she died some time ago--died when the baby here was born."
"You spend a good deal of time with it," said Susan.
"All I can spare from my job. I'm afraid to trust him to
anybody, he being kind of different. Then, too, I _like_ to
take care of him. You see, it's all I've got to remember _her_
by. I'm kind o' tryin' to do what _she'd_ want did." His lips
quivered. He looked at his monstrous child. "Yes, I _like_
settin' here, thinkin'--and takin' care of him."
This brute of a slave driver, this cruel tyrant over the poor
and the helpless--yet, thus tender and gentle--thus capable of
the enormous sacrifice of a great, pure love!
"_You've_ got a way of lookin' out of the eyes that's like her,"
he went on--and Susan had the secret of his strange forbearance
toward her. "I suppose you've come about being let off on the
assessment?"
Already he knew the whole story of Rod and the hospital.
"Yes--that's why I'm bothering you," said she.
"You needn't pay but five-fifty. I can only let you off a
dollar and a half--my bit and the captain's. We pass the rest
on up--and we don't dare let you off."
"Oh, I can make the money," Susan said hastily. "Thank you,
Mr. O'Ryan, but I don't want to get anyone into trouble."
"We've got the right to knock off one dollar and a half," said
O'Ryan. "But if we let you off the other, the word would get
up to--to wherever the graft goes--and they'd send down along
the line, to have merry hell raised with us. The whole thing's
done systematic, and they won't take no excuses, won't allow no
breaks in the system nowhere. You can see for yourself--it'd go
to smash if they did."
"Somebody must get a lot of money," said Susan.
"Oh, it's dribbled out--and as you go higher up, I don't
suppose them that gets it knows where it comes from. The whole
world's nothing but graft, anyhow. Sorry I can't let you off."
The thing in his lap had recovered strength for a fresh fit of
malevolence. It was tearing at its hairy, hideous face with
its claws and was howling and shrieking, the big father gently
trying to soothe it--for _her_ sake. Susan got away quickly.
She halted in the deserted hall and gave way to a spasm of dry
sobbing--an overflow of all the emotions that had been
accumulating within her. In this world of noxious and
repulsive weeds, what sudden startling upshooting of what
beautiful flowers! Flowers where you would expect to find the
most noisome weeds of all, and vilest weeds where you would
expect to find flowers. What a world!
However--the fifty a week must be got--and she must be
businesslike.
Most of the girls who took to the streets came direct from the
tenements of New York, of the foreign cities or of the factory
towns of New England. And the world over, tenement house life
is an excellent school for the life of the streets. It
prevents modesty from developing; it familiarizes the eye, the
ear, the nerves, to all that is brutal; it takes away from a
girl every feeling that might act as a restraining influence
except fear--fear of maternity, of disease, of prison. Thus,
practically all the other girls had the advantage over Susan.
Soon after they definitely abandoned respectability and
appeared in the streets frankly members of the profession, they
became bold and rapacious. They had an instinctive feeling
that their business was as reputable as any other, more
reputable than many held in high repute, that it would be most
reputable if it paid better and were less uncertain. They
respected themselves for all things, talk to the contrary in
the search for the sympathy and pity most human beings crave.
They despised the men as utterly as the men despised them.
They bargained as shamelessly as the men. Even those who did
not steal still felt that stealing was justifiable; for, in the
streets the sex impulse shows stripped of all disguise, shows
as a brutal male appetite, and the female feels that her
yielding to it entitles her to all she can compel and cozen and
crib. Susan had been unfitted for her profession--as for all
active, unsheltered life--by her early training. The point of
view given us in our childhood remains our point of view as to
all the essentials of life to the end. Reason, experience, the
influence of contact with many phases of the world, may change
us seemingly, but the under-instinct remains unchanged. Thus,
Susan had never lost, and never would lose her original
repugnance; not even drink had ever given her the courage to
approach men or to bargain with them. Her shame was a false
shame, like most of the shame in the world--a lack of courage,
not a lack of desire--and, however we may pretend, there can be
no virtue in abstinence merely through cowardice. Still, if
there be merit in shrinking, even when the cruelest necessities
were goading, that merit was hers in full measure. As a matter
of reason and sense, she admitted that the girls who respected
themselves and practiced their profession like merchants of
other kinds were right, were doing what she ought to do.
Anyhow, it was absurd to practice a profession half-heartedly.
To play your game, whatever it might be, for all there was in
it--that was the obvious first principle of success. Yet--she
remained laggard and squeamish.
What she had been unable to do for herself, to save herself
from squalor, from hunger, from cold, she was now able to do
for the sake of another--to help the man who had enabled her to
escape from that marriage, more hideous than anything she had
endured since, or ever could be called upon to endure--to save
him from certain neglect and probable death in the "charity"
hospital. Not by merely tolerating the not too impossible men
who joined her without sign from her, and not by merely
accepting what they gave, could fifty dollars a week be made.
She must dress herself in franker avowal of her profession,
must look as expensive as her limited stock of clothing,
supplemented by her own taste, would permit. She must flirt,
must bargain, must ask for presents, must make herself
agreeable, must resort to the crude female arts--which,
however, are subtle enough to convince the self-enchanted male
even in face of the discouraging fact of the mercenary
arrangement. She must crush down her repugnance, must be
active, not simply passive--must get the extra dollars by
stimulating male appetites, instead of simply permitting them
to satisfy themselves. She must seem rather the eager mistress
than the reluctant and impatient wife.
And she did abruptly change her manner. There was in her, as
her life had shown, a power of endurance, an ability to
sacrifice herself in order to do the thing that seemed
necessary, and to do it without shuffling or whining. Whatever
else her career had done for her, it undoubtedly had
strengthened this part of her nature. And now the result of
her training showed. With her superior intelligence for the
first time free to make the best of her opportunities, she
abruptly became equal to the most consummate of her sisters in
that long line of her sister-panders to male appetites which
extends from the bought wife or mistress or fiancee of the rich
grandee down all the social ranks to the wife or street girl
cozening for a tipsy day-laborer's earnings on a Saturday night
and the work girl teasing her "steady company" toward matrimony
on the park bench or in the dark entry of the tenement.
She was able to pay Clara back in less than ten days. In
Spenser's second week at the hospital she had him moved to
better quarters and better attendance at thirty dollars a week.
Although she had never got rid of her most unprofessional habit
of choosing and rejecting, there had been times when need
forced her into straits where her lot seemed to her almost as
low as that of the slave-like wives of the tenements, made her
almost think she would be nearly as well off were she the wife,
companion, butt, servant and general vent to some one dull and
distasteful provider of a poor living. But now she no longer
felt either degraded or heart sick and heart weary. And when
he passed the worst crisis her spirits began to return.
And when Roderick should be well, and the sketch written--and
an engagement got--Ah, then! Life indeed--life, at last! Was
it this hope that gave her the strength to fight down and
conquer the craving for opium? Or was it the necessity of
keeping her wits and of saving every cent? Or was it because
the opium habit, like the drink habit, like every other habit,
is a matter of a temperament far more than it is a matter of an
appetite--and that she had the appetite but not the
temperament? No doubt this had its part in the quick and
complete victory. At any rate, fight and conquer she did. The
strongest interest always wins. She had an interest stronger
than love of opium--an interest that substituted itself for opium
and for drink and supplanted them. Life indeed--life, at last!
In his third week Rod began to round toward health. Einstein
observed from the nurse's charts that Susan's visits were
having an unfavorably exciting effect. He showed her the
readings of temperature and pulse, and forbade her to stay
longer than five minutes at each of her two daily visits.
Also, she must not bring up any topic beyond the sickroom
itself. One day Spenser greeted her with, "I'll feel better,
now that I've got this off my mind." He held out to her a
letter. "Take that to George Fitzalan. He's an old friend of
mine--one I've done a lot for and never asked any favors of.
He may be able to give you something fairly good, right away."
Susan glanced penetratingly at him, saw he had been brooding
over the source of the money that was being spent upon him.
"Very well," said she, "I'll go as soon as I can."
"Go this afternoon," said he with an invalid's fretfulness.
"And when you come this evening you can tell me how you got on."
"Very well. This afternoon. But you know, Rod, there's not a
ghost of a chance."
"I tell you Fitzalan's my friend. He's got some gratitude.
He'll _do_ something."
"I don't want you to get into a mood where you'll be awfully
depressed if I should fail."
"But you'll not fail."
It was evident that Spenser, untaught by experience and
flattered into exaggerating his importance by the solicitude
and deference of doctors and nurses to a paying invalid, had
restored to favor his ancient enemy--optimism, the certain
destroyer of any man who does not shake it off. She went away,
depressed and worried. When she should come back with the only
possible news, what would be the effect upon him--and he still
in a critical stage? As the afternoon must be given to
business, she decided to go straight uptown, hoping to catch
Fitzalan before he went out to lunch. And twenty minutes after
making this decision she was sitting in the anteroom of a suite
of theatrical offices in the Empire Theater building. The girl
in attendance had, as usual, all the airs little people assume
when they are in close, if menial, relations with a person who,
being important to them, therefore fills their whole small
horizon. She deigned to take in Susan's name and the letter.
Susan seated herself at the long table and with the seeming of
calmness that always veiled her in her hours of greatest
agitation, turned over the pages of the theatrical journals and
magazines spread about in quantity.
After perhaps ten silent and uninterrupted minutes a man
hurried in from the outside hall, strode toward the frosted
glass door marked "Private." With his hand reaching for the
knob he halted, made an impatient gesture, plumped himself down
at the long table--at its distant opposite end. With a sweep of
the arm he cleared a space wherein he proceeded to spread
papers from his pocket and to scribble upon them furiously.
When Susan happened to glance at him, his head was bent so low
and his straw hat was tilted so far forward that she could not
see his face. She observed that he was dressed attractively in
an extremely light summer suit of homespun; his hands were
large and strong and ruddy--the hands of an artist, in good
health. Her glance returned to the magazine. After a few
minutes she looked up. She was startled to find that the man
was giving her a curious, searching inspection--and that he was
Brent, the playwright--the same fascinating face, keen,
cynical, amused--the same seeing eyes, that, in the Cafe Martin
long ago, had made her feel as if she were being read to her
most secret thought. She dropped her glance.
His voice made her start. "It's been a long time since I've
seen you," he was saying.
She looked up, not believing it possible he was addressing her.
But his gaze was upon her. Thus, she had not been mistaken in
thinking she had seen recognition in his eyes. "Yes," she
said, with a faint smile.
"A longer time for you than for me," said he.
"A good deal has happened to me," she admitted.
"Are you on the stage?"
"No. Not yet."
The girl entered by way of the private door. "Miss Lenox--this
way, please." She saw Brent, became instantly all smiles and
bows. "Oh--Mr. Fitzalan doesn't know you're here, Mr. Brent,"
she cried. Then, to Susan, "Wait a minute."
She was about to reenter the private office when Brent stopped
her with, "Let Miss Lenox go in first. I don't wish to see Mr.
Fitzalan yet." And he stood up, took off his hat, bowed
gravely to Susan, said, "I'm glad to have seen you again."
Susan, with some color forced into her old-ivory skin by
nervousness and amazement, went into the presence of Fitzalan.
As the now obsequious girl closed the door behind her, she
found herself facing a youngish man with a remnant of hair that
was little more than fuzz on the top of his head. His features
were sharp, aggressive, rather hard. He might have sat for the
typical successful American young man of forty--so much younger
in New York than is forty elsewhere in the United States--and so
much older. He looked at Susan with a pleasant sympathetic smile.
"So," said he, "you're taking care of poor Spenser, are you?
Tell him I'll try to run down to see him. I wish I could do
something for him--something worth while, I mean. But--his
request----
"Really, I've nothing of the kind. I couldn't possibly place
you--at least, not at present--perhaps, later on----"
"I understand," interrupted Susan. "He's very ill. It would
help him greatly if you would write him a few lines, saying
you'll give me a place at the first vacancy, but that it may
not be soon. I'll not trouble you again. I want the letter
simply to carry him over the crisis."
Fitzalan hesitated, rubbed his fuzzy crown with his jeweled
hand. "Tell him that," he said, finally. "I'm rather careful
about writing letters. . . . Yes, say to him what you
suggested, as if it was from me."
"The letter will make all the difference between his believing
and not believing," urged Susan. "He has great admiration and
liking for you--thinks you would do anything for him."
Fitzalan frowned; she saw that her insistence had roused--or,
rather, had strengthened--suspicion. "Really--you must excuse
me. What I've heard about him the past year has not----
"But, no matter, I can't do it. You'll let me know how he's
getting on? Good day." And he gave her that polite yet
positive nod of dismissal which is a necessary part of the
equipment of men of affairs, constantly beset as they are and
ever engaged in the battle to save their chief asset, time,
from being wasted.
Susan looked at him--a straight glance from gray eyes, a slight
smile hovering about her scarlet lips. He reddened, fussed
with the papers before him on the desk from which he had not
risen. She opened the door, closed it behind her. Brent was
seated with his back full to her and was busy with his
scribbling. She passed him, went on to the outer door. She
was waiting for his voice; she knew it would come.
"Miss Lenox!"
As she turned he was advancing. His figure, tall and slim and
straight, had the ease of movement which proclaims the man who
has been everywhere and so is at home anywhere. He held out a
card. "I wish to see you on business. You can come at three
this afternoon?"
"Yes," said Susan.
"Thanks," said he, bowing and returning to the table. She went
on into the hall, the card between her fingers. At the
elevator, she stood staring at the name--Robert Brent--as if it
were an inscription in a forgotten language. She was so
absorbed, so dazed that she did not ring the bell. The car
happened to stop at that floor; she entered as if it were
dark. And, in the street, she wandered many blocks down
Broadway before she realized where she was.
She left the elevated and walked eastward through Grand Street.
She was filled with a new and profound dissatisfaction. She
felt like one awakening from a hypnotic trance. The
surroundings, inanimate and animate, that had become endurable
through custom abruptly resumed their original aspect of
squalor and ugliness of repulsion and tragedy. A stranger--the
ordinary, unobservant, feebly imaginative person, going along
those streets would have seen nothing but tawdriness and
poverty. Susan, experienced, imaginative, saw _all_--saw what
another would have seen only after it was pointed out, and even
then but dimly. And that day her vision was no longer staled
and deadened by familiarity, but with vision fresh and with
nerves acute. The men--the women--and, saddest, most tragic of
all, the children! When she entered her room her reawakened
sensitiveness, the keener for its long repose, for the enormous
unconscious absorption of impressions of the life about
her--this morbid sensitiveness of the soul a-clash with its
environment reached its climax. As she threw open the door,
she shrank back before the odor--the powerful, sensual, sweet
odor of chypre so effective in covering the bad smells that
came up from other flats and from the noisome back yards. The
room itself was neat and clean and plain, with not a few
evidences of her personal taste--in the blending of colors, in
the selection of framed photographs on the walls. The one she
especially liked was the largest--a nude woman lying at full
length, her head supported by her arm, her face gazing straight
out of the picture, upon it a baffling expression--of sadness,
of cynicism, of amusement perhaps, of experience, yet of
innocence. It hung upon the wall opposite the door. When she
saw this picture in the department store, she felt at once a
sympathy between that woman and herself, felt she was for the
first time seeing another soul like her own, one that would
have understood her strange sense of innocence in the midst of
her own defiled and depraved self--a core of unsullied nature.
Everyone else in the world would have mocked at this notion of
a something within--a true self to which all that seemed to be
her own self was as external as her clothing; this woman of the
photograph would understand. So, there she hung--Susan's one
prized possession.
The question of dressing for this interview with Brent was
most important. Susan gave it much thought before she began to
dress, changed her mind again and again in the course of
dressing. Through all her vicissitudes she had never lost her
interest in the art of dress or her skill at it--and despite
the unfavorable surroundings she had steadily improved; any
woman anywhere would instantly have recognized her as one of
those few favored and envied women who know how to get together
a toilet. She finally chose the simplest of the half dozen
summer dresses she had made for herself--a plain white lawn,
with a short skirt. It gave her an appearance of extreme
youth, despite her height and the slight stoop in her
shoulders--a mere drooping that harmonized touchingly with the
young yet weary expression of her face. To go with the dress
she had a large hat of black rough straw with a very little
white trimming on it. With this large black hat bewitchingly
set upon her gracefully-done dark wavy hair, her sad, dreamy
eyes, her pallid skin, her sweet-bitter mouth with its rouged
lips seemed to her to show at their best. She felt that
nothing was quite so effective for her skin as a white dress.
In other colors--though she did not realize--the woman of bought
kisses showed more distinctly--never brazenly as in most of the
girls, but still unmistakably. In white she took on a glamour
of melancholy--and the human countenance is capable of no
expression so universally appealing as the look of melancholy
that suggests the sadness underlying all life, the pain that
pays for pleasure, the pain that pays and gets no pleasure, the
sorrow of the passing of all things, the faint foreshadow of
the doom awaiting us all. She washed the rouge from her lips,
studied the effect in the glass. "No," she said aloud,
"without it I feel like a hypocrite--and I don't look half so
well." And she put the rouge on again--the scarlet dash drawn
startlingly across her strange, pallid face.
XII
AT three that afternoon she stood in the vestibule of Brent's
small house in Park Avenue overlooking the oblong of green
between East Thirty-seventh Street and East Thirty-eighth. A
most reputable looking Englishman in evening dress opened the
door; from her reading and her theater-going she knew that
this was a butler. He bowed her in. The entire lower floor
was given to an entrance hall, done in plain black walnut,
almost lofty of ceiling, and with a grand stairway leading to
the upper part of the house. There was a huge fireplace to
the right; a mirror filled the entire back wall; a broad low
seat ran all round the room. In one corner, an enormous urn
of dark pottery; in another corner, a suit of armor, the
helmet, the breastplate and the gauntlets set with gold of
ancient lackluster.
The butler left her there and ascended the polished but
dead-finished stairway noiselessly. Susan had never before
been in so grand a room. The best private house she had ever
seen was Wright's in Sutherland; and while everybody else in
Sutherland thought it magnificent, she had felt that there was
something wrong, what she had not known. The grandiose New
York hotels and restaurants were more showy and more
pretentious far than this interior of Brent's. But her
unerring instinct of those born with good taste knew at first
view of them that they were simply costly; there were
beautiful things in them, fine carvings and paintings and
tapestries, but personality was lacking. And without
personality there can be no unity; without unity there can be
no harmony--and without harmony, no beauty.
Looking round her now, she had her first deep draught of
esthetic delight in interior decoration. She loved this quiet
dignity, this large simplicity--nothing that obtruded, nothing
that jarred, everything on the same scale of dark coloring and
large size. She admired the way the mirror, without pretense
of being anything but a mirror, enhanced the spaciousness of
the room and doubled the pleasure it gave by offering another
and different view of it.
Last of all Susan caught sight of herself--a slim, slightly
stooped figure, its white dress and its big black hat with
white trimmings making it stand out strongly against the
rather somber background. In a curiously impersonal way her
own sad, wistful face interested her. A human being's face is
a summary of his career. No man can realize at a thought what
he is, can epitomize in just proportion what has been made of
him by experience of the multitude of moments of which life is
composed. But in some moods and in some lights we do get such
an all-comprehending view of ourselves in looking at our own
faces. As she had instinctively felt, there was a world of
meaning in the contrast between her pensive brow above
melancholy eyes and the blood-red line of her rouged lips.
The butler descended. "Mr. Brent is in his library, on the
fourth floor," said he. "Will you kindly step this way, ma'am?"
Instead of indicating the stairway, he went to the panel next
the chimney piece. She saw that it was a hidden door
admitting to an elevator. She entered; the door closed; the
elevator ascended rapidly. When it came to a stop the door
opened and she was facing Brent.
"Thank you for coming," said he, with almost formal courtesy.
For all her sudden shyness, she cast a quick but seeing look
round. It was an overcast day; the soft floods of liquid
light--the beautiful light of her beloved City of the
Sun--poured into the big room through an enormous window of
clear glass which formed the entire north wall. Round the
other walls from floor almost to lofty ceiling were books in
solid rows; not books with ornamental bindings, but books for
use, books that had been and were being used. By way of
furniture there were an immense lounge, wide and long and
deep, facing the left chimney piece, an immense table desk
facing the north light, three great chairs with tall backs,
one behind the table, one near the end of the table, the third
in the corner farthest from the window; a grand piano, open,
with music upon its rack, and a long carved seat at its
keyboard. The huge window had a broad sill upon which was
built a generous window garden fresh and lively with bright
flowers. The woodwork, the ceiling, the furniture were of
mahogany. The master of this splendid simplicity was dressed
in a blue house suit of some summer material like linen. He
was smoking a cigarette, and offered her one from the great
carved wood box filled with them on the table desk.
"Thanks," said she. And when she had lighted it and was
seated facing him as he sat at his desk, she felt almost at
her ease. After all, while his gaze was penetrating, it was
also understanding; we do not mind being unmasked if the
unmasker at once hails us as brother. Brent's eyes seemed to say
to her, "Human!--like me." She smoked and let her gaze wander
from her books to window garden, from window garden to piano.
"You play?" said he.
"A very little. Enough for accompaniments to simple songs."
"You sing?"
"Simple songs. I've had but a few lessons from a small-town teacher."
"Let me hear."
She went to the piano, laid her cigarette in a tray ready
beside the music rack. She gave him the "Gipsy Queen," which
she liked because it expressed her own passion of revolt
against restraints of every conventional kind and her love for
the open air and open sky. He somehow took away all feeling
of embarrassment; she felt so strongly that he understood and
was big enough not to have it anywhere in him to laugh at
anything sincere. When she finished she resumed her cigarette
and returned to the chair near his.
"It's as I thought," said he. "Your voice can be trained--to
speak, I mean. I don't know as to its singing value. . . .
Have you good health?"
"I never have even colds. Yes, I'm strong."
"You'll need it."
"I have needed it," said she. Into her face came the sad, bitter
expression with its curious relief of a faint cynical smile.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her through a cloud
of smoke. She saw that his eyes were not gray, as she had
thought, but brown, a hazel brown with points of light
sparkling in the irises and taking away all the suggestion of
weakness and sentimentality that makes pure brown eyes
unsatisfactory in a man. He said slowly:
"When I saw you--in the Martin--you were on the way down. You
went, I see."
She nodded. "I'm still there."
"You like it? You wish to stay?"
She shook her head smilingly. "No, but I can stay if it's
necessary. I've discovered that I've got the health and the
nerves for anything."
"That's a great discovery. . . . Well, you'll soon be on your
way up. . . . Do you wish to know why I spoke to you this
morning?--Why I remembered you?"
"Why?"
"Because of the expression of your eyes--when your face is in repose."
She felt no shyness--and no sense of necessity of responding
to a compliment, for his tone forbade any thought of flattery.
She lowered her gaze to conceal the thoughts his words
brought--the memories of the things that had caused her eyes
to look as Rod and now Brent said.
"Such an expression," the playwright went on, "must mean
character. I am sick and tired of the vanity of these
actresses who can act just enough never to be able to learn to
act well. I'm going to try an experiment with you. I've
tried it several times but--No matter. I'm not discouraged.
I never give up. . . . Can you stand being alone?"
"I spend most of my time alone. I prefer it."
"I thought so. Yes--you'll do. Only the few who can stand
being alone ever get anywhere. Everything worth while is done
alone. The big battle--it isn't fought in the field, but by
the man sitting alone in his tent, working it all out. The
bridge--the tunnel through the great mountains--the
railway--the huge business enterprise--all done by the man
alone, thinking, plotting to the last detail. It's the same
way with the novel, the picture, the statue, the play--writing
it, acting it--all done by someone alone, shut in with his
imagination and his tools. I saw that you were one of the
lonely ones. All you need is a chance. You'd surely get it,
sooner or later. Perhaps I can bring it a little sooner. . . .
How much do you need to live on?"
"I must have fifty dollars a week--if I go on at--as I am now.
If you wish to take all my time--then, forty."
He smiled in a puzzled way.
"The police," she explained. "I need ten----"
"Certainly--certainly," cried he. "I understand--perfectly.
How stupid of me! I'll want all your time. So it's to be
forty dollars a week. When can you begin?"
Susan reflected. "I can't go into anything that'll mean a
long time," she said. "I'm waiting for a man--a friend of
mine to get well. Then we're going to do something together."
Brent made an impatient gesture. "An actor? Well, I suppose
I can get him something to do. But I don't want you to be
under the influence of any of these absurd creatures who think
they know what acting is--when they merely know how to dress
themselves in different suits of clothes, and strut themselves
about the stage. They'd rather die than give up their own
feeble, foolish little identities. I'll see that your actor
friend is taken care of, but you must keep away from him--for
the time at least."
"He's all I've got. He's an old friend."
"You--care for him?"
"I used to. And lately I found him again--after we had been
separated a long time. We're going to help each other up."
"Oh--he's down and out oh? Why?"
"Drink--and hard luck."
"Not hard luck. That helps a man. It has helped you. It has
made you what you are."
"What am I?" asked Susan.
Brent smiled mysteriously. "That's what we're going to find
out," said he. "There's no human being who has ever had a
future unless he or she had a past--and the severer the past
the more splendid the future."
Susan was attending with all her senses. This man was putting
into words her own inarticulate instincts.
"A past," he went on in his sharp, dogmatic way, "either
breaks or makes. You go into the crucible a mere ore, a
possibility. You come out slag or steel." He was standing
now, looking down at her with quizzical eyes. "You're about
due to leave the pot," said he.
"And I've hopes that you're steel. If not----" He shrugged
his shoulders--"You'll have had forty a week for your time,
and I'll have gained useful experience."
Susan gazed at him as if she doubted her eyes and ears.
"What do you want me to do?" she presently inquired.
"Learn the art of acting--which consists of two parts. First,
you must learn to act--thousands of the profession do that.
Second, you must learn not to act--and so far I know there
aren't a dozen in the whole world who've got that far along.
I've written a play I think well of. I want to have it done
properly--it, and several other plays I intend to write. I'm
going to give you a chance to become famous--better still, great."
Susan looked at him incredulously. "Do you know who I am?"
she asked at last.
"Certainly."
Her eyes lowered, the faintest tinge of red changed the
amber-white pallor of her cheeks, her bosom rose and
fell quickly.
"I don't mean," he went on, "that I know any of the details of
your experience. I only know the results as they are written
in your face. The details are unimportant. When I say I know
who you are, I mean I know that you are a woman who has
suffered, whose heart has been broken by suffering, but not
her spirit. Of where you came from or how you've lived, I
know nothing. And it's none of my business--no more than it's
the public's business where __I__ came from and how I've learned
to write plays."
Well, whether he was guessing any part of the truth or all of
it, certainly what she had said about the police and now this
sweeping statement of his attitude toward her freed her of the
necessity of disclosing herself. She eagerly tried to dismiss
the thoughts that had been making her most uneasy. She said:
"You think I can learn to act?"
"That, of course," replied he. "Any intelligent person can
learn to act--and also most persons who have no more
intelligence in their heads than they have in their feet.
I'll guarantee you some sort of career. What I'm interested
to find out is whether you can learn _not_ to act. I believe
you can. But----" He laughed in self-mockery. "I've made several
absurd mistakes in that direction. . . . You have led a life in
which most women become the cheapest sort of liars--worse
liars even than is the usual respectable person, because they
haven't the restraint of fearing loss of reputation. Why is
it you have not become a liar?"
Susan laughed. "I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps because lying
is such a tax on the memory. May I have another cigarette?"
He held the match for her. "You don't paint--except your
lips," he went on, "though you have no color. And you don't
wear cheap finery. And while you use a strong scent, it's not
one of the cheap and nasty kind--it's sensual without being
slimy. And you don't use the kind of words one always hears
in your circle."
Susan looked immensely relieved. "Then you _do_ know who I
am!" she cried.
"You didn't suppose I thought you fresh from a fashionable
boarding school, did you? I'd hardly look there for an
actress who could act. You've got
experience--experience--experience--written all over your
face--sadly, satirically, scornfully, gayly, bitterly. And
what I want is experience--not merely having been through
things, but having been through them understandingly. You'll
help me in my experiment?"
He looked astonished, then irritated, when the girl, instead
of accepting eagerly, drew back in her chair and seemed to be
debating. His irritation showed still more plainly when she
finally said:
"That depends on him. And he--he thinks you don't like him."
"What's his name?" said Brent in his abrupt, intense fashion.
"What's his name?"
"Spenser--Roderick Spenser."
Brent looked vague.
"He used to be on the _Herald_. He writes plays."
"Oh--yes. I remember. He's a weak fool."
Susan abruptly straightened, an ominous look in eyes and brow.
Brent made an impatient gesture. "Beg pardon. Why be
sensitive about him? Obviously because you know I'm right.
I said fool, not ass. He's clever, but ridiculously vain. I
don't dislike him. I don't care anything about him--or about
anybody else in the world. No man does who amounts to
anything. With a career it's as Jesus said--leave father and
mother, husband and wife--land, ox everything--and follow it."
"What for?" said Susan.
"To save your soul! To be a somebody; to be strong. To be
able to give to anybody and everybody--whatever they need. To
be happy."
"Are you happy?"
"No," he admitted. "But I'm growing in that direction. . . .
Don't waste yourself on Stevens--I beg pardon, Spenser.
You're bigger than that. He's a small man with large
dreams--a hopeless misfit. Small dreams for small men; large
dreams for--" he laughed--"you and me--our sort."
Susan echoed his laugh, but faint-heartedly. "I've watched
your name in the papers," she said, sincerely unconscious of
flattery. "I've seen you grow more and more famous. But--if
there had been anything in me, would I have gone down and down?"
"How old are you?"
"About twenty-one."
"Only twenty-one and that look in your face! Magnificent! I
don't believe I'm to be disappointed this time. You ask why
you've gone down! You haven't. You've gone _through_."
"Down," she insisted, sadly.
"Nonsense! The soot'll rub off the steel."
She lifted her head eagerly. Her own secret thought put into words.
"You can't make steel without soot and dirt. You can't make
anything without dirt. That's why the nice, prim, silly
world's full of cabinets exhibiting little chips of raw
material polished up neatly in one or two spots. That's why
there are so few men and women--and those few have had to make
themselves, or are made by accident. You're an accident, I
suppose. The women who amount to anything usually are. The
last actress I tried to do anything with might have become a
somebody if it hadn't been for one thing: She had a hankering
for respectability--a yearning to be a society person--to be
thought well of by society people. It did for her."
"I'll not sink on that rock," said Susan cheerfully.
"No secret longing for social position?"
"None. Even if I would, I couldn't."
"That's one heavy handicap out of the way. But I'll not let
myself begin to hope until I find out whether you've got
incurable and unteachable vanity. If you have--then, no hope.
If you haven't--there's a fighting chance."
"You forget my compact," Susan reminded him.
"Oh--the lover--Spenser."
Brent reflected, strolled to the big window, his hands deep in
his pockets. Susan took advantage of his back to give way to
her own feelings of utter amazement and incredulity. She
certainly was not dreaming. And the man gazing out at the
window was certainly flesh and blood--a great man, if voluble
and eccentric. Perhaps to act and speak as one pleased was
one of the signs of greatness, one of its perquisites. Was
he amusing himself with her? Was he perchance taken with
her physically and employing these extraordinary methods as
ways of approach? She had seen many peculiarities of
sex-approach in men--some grotesque, many terrible, all beyond
comprehension. Was this another such?
He wheeled suddenly, surprised her eyes upon him. He burst
out laughing, and she felt that he had read her thoughts.
However, he merely said:
"Have you anything to suggest--about Spenser?"
"I can't even tell him of your offer now. He's very ill--and
sensitive about you."
"About me? How ridiculous! I'm always coming across men I
don't know who are full of venom toward me. I suppose he
thinks I crowded him. No matter. You're sure you're not
fancying yourself in love with him?"
"No, I am not in love with him. He has changed--and so have I."
He smiled at her. "Especially in the last hour?" he suggested.
"I had changed before that. I had been changing right along.
But I didn't realize it fully until you talked with me--no,
until after you gave me your card this morning."
"You saw a chance--a hope--eh?"
She nodded.
"And at once became all nerves and courage. . . . As to
Spenser--I'll have some play carpenter sent to collaborate
with him and set him up in the play business. You know it's a
business as well as an art. And the chromos sell better than
the oil paintings--except the finest ones. It's my chromos
that have earned me the means and the leisure to try oils."
"He'd never consent. He's very proud."
"Vain, you mean. Pride will consent to anything as a means to an
end. It's vanity that's squeamish and haughty. He needn't know."
"But I couldn't discuss any change with him until he's much better."
"I'll send the play carpenter to him--get Fitzalan to send one
of his carpenters." Brent smiled. "You don't think _he_'ll
hang back because of the compact, do you?"
Susan flushed painfully. "No," she admitted in a low voice.
Brent was still smiling at her, and the smile was cynical.
But his tone soothed where his words would have wounded, as he
went on: "A man of his sort--an average,
`there-are-two-kinds-of-women, good-and-bad' sort of man--has
but one use for a woman of your sort."
"I know that," said Susan.
"Do you mind it?"
"Not much. I'd not mind it at all if I felt that I was somebody."
Brent put his hand on her shoulder. "You'll do, Miss Lenox,"
he said with quiet heartiness. "You may not be so big a
somebody as you and I would like. But you'll count as one,
all right."
She looked at him with intense appeal in her eyes. "Why?" she
said earnestly." _Why_ do you do this?"
He smiled gravely down at her--as gravely as Brent could
smile--with the quizzical suggestion never absent from his
handsome face, so full of life and intelligence. "I've been
observing your uneasiness," said he. "Now listen. It would
be impossible for you to judge me, to understand me. You are
young and as yet small. I am forty, and have lived
twenty-five of my forty years intensely. So, don't fall into
the error of shallow people and size me up by your own foolish
little standards. Do you see what I mean?"
Susan's candid face revealed her guilt. "Yes," said she,
rather humbly.
"I see you do understand," said he. "And that's a good sign.
Most people, hearing what I said, would have disregarded it as
merely my vanity, would have gone on with their silly judging,
would have set me down as a conceited ass who by some accident
had got a reputation. But to proceed--I have not chosen you
on impulse. Long and patient study has made me able to judge
character by the face, as a horse dealer can judge horses by
looking at them. I don't need to read every line of a book to
know whether it's wise or foolish, worth while or not. I
don't need to know a human being for years or for hours or for
minutes even, before I can measure certain things. I measured
you. It's like astronomy. An astronomer wants to get the
orbit of a star. He takes its position twice--and from the
two observations he can calculate the orbit to the inch. I've
got three observations of your orbit. Enough--and to spare."
"I shan't misunderstand again," said Susan.
"One thing more," insisted Brent. "In our relations, we are
to be not man and woman, but master and pupil. I shan't waste
your time with any--other matters."
It was Susan's turn to laugh. "That's your polite way of
warning me not to waste any of your time with--other matters."
"Precisely," conceded he. "A man in my position--a man in any
sort of position, for that matter--is much annoyed by women
trying to use their sex with him. I wished to make it clear
at the outset that----"
"That I could gain nothing by neglecting the trade of actress
for the trade of woman," interrupted Susan. "I understand
perfectly."
He put out his hand. "I see that at least we'll get on
together. I'll have Fitzalan send the carpenter to your
friend at once."
"Today!" exclaimed Susan, in surprise and delight.
"Why not?" He arranged paper and pen. "Sit here and write
Spenser's address, and your own. Your salary begins with
today. I'll have my secretary mail you a check. And as soon
as I can see you again, I'll send you a telegram.
Meanwhile--" He rummaged among a lot of paper bound plays on
the table "Here's `Cavalleria Rusticana.' Read it with a view
to yourself as either _Santuzzao_ or _Lola_. Study her first
entrance--what you would do with it. Don't be frightened. I
expect nothing from you--nothing whatever. I'm glad you know
nothing about acting. You'll have the less to unlearn."
They had been moving towards the elevator. He shook hands
again and, after adjusting the mechanism for the descent,
closed the door. As it was closing she saw in his expression
that his mind had already dismissed her for some one of the
many other matters that crowded his life.
XIII
THE Susan Lenox who left Delancey Street at half past two that
afternoon to call upon Robert Brent was not the Susan Lenox
who returned to Delancey Street at half-past five. A man is
wandering, lost in a cave, is groping this way and that in
absolute darkness, with flagging hope and fainting
strength--has reached the point where he wonders at his own
folly in keeping on moving--is persuading himself that the
sensible thing would be to lie down and give up. He sees a
gleam of light. Is it a reality? Is it an illusion--one more
of the illusions that have lured him on and on? He does not
know; but instantly a fire sweeps through him, warming his
dying strength into vigor.
So it was with Susan.
The pariah class--the real pariah class--does not consist of
merely the women formally put beyond the pale for violations
of conventional morality and the men with the brand of thief
or gambler upon them. Our social, our industrial system has
made it far vaster. It includes almost the whole
population--all those who sell body or brain or soul in an
uncertain market for uncertain hire, to gain the day's food
and clothing, the night's shelter. This vast mass floats
hither and yon on the tides and currents of destiny. Now it
halts, resting sluggishly in a dead calm; again it moves,
sometimes slowly, sometimes under the lash of tempest. But it
is ever the same vast inertia, with no particle of it
possessing an aim beyond keeping afloat and alive. Susan had
been an atom, a spray of weed, in this Sargasso Sea.
If you observe a huge, unwieldy crowd so closely packed that
nothing can be done with it and it can do nothing with itself,
you will note three different types. There are the entirely
inert--and they make up most of the crowd. They do not
resist; they helplessly move this way and that as the chance
waves of motion prompt. Of this type is the overwhelming
majority of the human race. Here and there in the mass you
will see examples of a second type. These are individuals who
are restive and resentful under the sense of helplessness and
impotence. They struggle now gently, now furiously. They
thrust backward or forward or to one side. They thresh about.
But nothing comes of their efforts beyond a brief agitation,
soon dying away in ripples. The inertia of the mass and their
own lack of purpose conquer them. Occasionally one of these
grows so angry and so violent that the surrounding inertia
quickens into purpose--the purpose of making an end of this
agitation which is serving only to increase the general
discomfort. And the agitator is trampled down, disappears,
perhaps silently, perhaps with groan or shriek. Continue to
look at this crowd, so pitiful, so terrible, such a melancholy
waste of incalculable power--continue to observe and you may
chance upon an example of the third type. You are likely at
first to confuse the third type with the second, for they seem
to be much alike. Here and there, of the resentful
strugglers, will be one whose resentment is intelligent. He
struggles, but it is not aimless struggle. He has seen or
suspected in a definite direction a point where he would be
more or less free, perhaps entirely free. He realizes how he
is hemmed in, realizes how difficult, how dangerous, will be
his endeavor to get to that point. And he proceeds to try to
minimize or overcome the difficulties, the dangers. He
struggles now gently, now earnestly, now violently--but always
toward his fixed objective. He is driven back, to one side,
is almost overwhelmed. He causes commotions that threaten to
engulf him, and must pause or retreat until they have calmed.
You may have to watch him long before you discover that, where
other strugglers have been aimless, he aims and resolves. And
little by little he gains, makes progress toward his goal--and
once in a long while one such reaches that goal. It is
triumph, success.
Susan, young, inexperienced, dazed; now too despondent, now
too hopeful; now too gentle and again too infuriated--Susan
had been alternating between inertia and purposeless struggle.
Brent had given her the thing she lacked--had given her a
definite, concrete, tangible purpose. He had shown her the
place where, if she should arrive, she might be free of that
hideous slavery of the miserable mass; and he had inspired her
with the hope that she could reach it.
And that was the Susan Lenox who came back to the little room
in Delancey Street at half-past five.
Curiously, while she was thinking much about Brent, she was
thinking even more about Burlingham--about their long talks on
the show boat and in their wanderings in Louisville and
Cincinnati. His philosophy, his teachings--the wisdom he had,
but was unable to apply--began to come back to her. It was
not strange that she should remember it, for she had admired
him intensely and had listened to his every word, and she was
then at the time when the memory takes its clearest and
strongest impressions. The strangeness lay in the suddenness
with which Burlingham, so long dead, suddenly came to life,
changed from a sad and tender memory to a vivid possibility,
advising her, helping her, urging her on.
Clara, dressed to go to dinner with her lover, was waiting to
arrange about their meeting to make together the usual rounds
in the evening. "I've got an hour before I'm due at the
hospital," said Susan. "Let's go down to Kelly's for a drink."
While they were going and as they sat in the clean little back
room of Kelly's well ordered and select corner saloon, Clara
gave her all the news she had gathered in an afternoon of
visits among their acquaintances--how, because of a
neighborhood complaint, there was to be a fake raid on
Gussie's opium joint at midnight; that Mazie had caught a
frightful fever; and that Nettie was dying in Governeur of the
stab in the stomach her lover had given her at a ball three
nights before; that the police had raised the tariff for
sporting houses, and would collect seventy-five and a hundred
a month protection money where the charge had been twenty-five
and fifty--the plea was that the reformers, just elected and
hoping for one term only, were compelling a larger fund from
vice than the old steady year-in-and-year-out ruling crowd.
"And they may raise _us_ to fifteen a week," said Clara,
"though I doubt it. They'll not cut off their nose to spite
their face. If they raised the rate for the streets they'd
drive two-thirds of the girls back to the factories and sweat
shops. You're not listening, Lorna. What's up?"
"Nothing."
"Your fellow's not had a relapse?"
"No--nothing."
"Need some money? I can lend you ten. I did have twenty, but
I gave Sallie and that little Jew girl who's her side partner
ten for the bail bondsman. They got pinched last night for not
paying up to the police. They've gone crazy about that prize
fighter--at least, he thinks he is--that Joe O'Mara, and
they're giving him every cent they make. It's funny about
Sallie. She's a Catholic and goes to mass regular. And she
keeps straight on Sunday--no money'll tempt her--I've seen it
tried. Do you want the ten?"
"No. I've got plenty."
"We must look in at that Jolly Rovers' ball tonight. There'll
be a lot of fellows with money there.
"We can sure pull off something pretty good. Anyhow, we'll
have fun. But you don't care for the dances. Well, they are
a waste of time. And because the men pay for a few bum drinks
and dance with a girl, they don't want to give up anything
more. How's she to live, I want to know?"
"Would you like to get out of this, Clara?" interrupted Susan,
coming out of her absent-mindedness.
"Would I! But what's the use of talking?"
"But I mean, would you _really?_"
"Oh--if there was something better. But is there? I don't
see how I'd be as well off, respectable. As I said to the
rescue woman, what is there in it for a `reclaimed' girl, as
they call it? When they ask a man to reform they can offer
him something--and he can go on up and up. But not for girls.
Nothing doing but charity and pity and the second table and
the back door. I can make more money at this and have a
better time, as long as my looks last. And I've turned down
already a couple of chances to marry--men that wouldn't have
looked at me if I'd been in a store or a factory or living
out. I may marry."
"Don't do that," said Susan. "Marriage makes brutes of men,
and slaves of women."
"You speak as if you knew."
"I do," said Susan, in a tone that forbade question.
"I ain't exactly stuck on the idea myself," pursued Clara.
"And if I don't, why when my looks are gone, where am I worse
off than I'd be at the same age as a working girl? If I have
to get a job then, I can get it--and I'll not be broken down
like the respectable women at thirty--those that work or those
that slop round boozing and neglecting their children while
their husbands work. Of course, there's chances against you
in this business. But so there is in every business. Suppose
I worked in a factory and lost a leg in the machinery, like
that girl of Mantell, the bricklayer's? Suppose I get an
awful disease--to hear some people talk you'd think there
wasn't any chances of death or horrible diseases at
respectable work. Why, how could anybody be worse off than if
they got lung trouble and boils as big as your fist like those
girls over in the tobacco factory?"
"You needn't tell me about work," said Susan. "The streets
are full of wrecks from work--and the hospitals--and the
graveyard over on the Island. You can always go to that
slavery. But I mean a respectable life, with everything better."
"Has one of those swell women from uptown been after you?"
"No. This isn't a pious pipe dream."
"You sound like it. One of them swell silk smarties got at me
when I was in the hospital with the fever. She was a
bird--she was. She handed me a line of grand talk, and I,
being sort of weak with sickness, took it in. Well, when she
got right down to business, what did she want me to do? Be a
dressmaker or a lady's maid. Me work twelve, fourteen, God
knows how many hours--be too tired to have any fun--travel
round with dead ones--be a doormat for a lot of cheap people
that are tryin' to make out they ain't human like the rest of
us. _Me!_ And when I said, `No, thank you,' what do you think?"
"Did she offer to get you a good home in the country?" said Susan.
"That was it. The _country!_ The nerve of her! But I called
her bluff, all right, all right. I says to her, `Are you
going to the country to live?' And she reared at _me_ daring
to question _her_, and said she wasn't. `You'd find it dead
slow, wouldn't you?' says I. And she kind o' laughed and
looked almost human. `Then,' says I, `no more am I going to the
country. I'll take my chances in little old New York,' I says."
"I should think so!" exclaimed Susan.
"I'd like to be respectable, if I could afford it. But
there's nothing in that game for poor girls unless they
haven't got no looks to sell and have to sell the rest of
themselves for some factory boss to get rich off of while they
get poorer and weaker every day. And when they say `God' to
me, I say, `Who's he? He must be somebody that lives up on
Fifth Avenue. We ain't seen him down our way.'"
"I mean, go on the stage," resumed Susan.
"I wouldn't mind, if I could get in right. Everything in this
world depends on getting in right. I was born four flights up
in a tenement, and I've been in wrong ever since."
"I was in wrong from the beginning, too," said Susan,
thoughtfully. "In wrong--that's it exactly." Clara's eyes
again became eager with the hope of a peep into the mystery of
Susan's origin. But Susan went on, "Yes, I've always been in
wrong. Always."
"Oh, no," declared Clara. "You've got education--and
manners--and ladylike instincts. I'm at home here. I was
never so well off in my life. I'm, you might say, on my way
up in the world. Most of us girls are--like the fellow that
ain't got nothing to eat or no place to sleep and gets into
jail--he's better off, ain't he? But you--you don't belong
here at all."
"I belong anywhere--and everywhere--and nowhere," said Susan.
"Yes, I belong here. I've got a chance uptown. If it pans
out, I'll let you in."
Clara looked at her wistfully. Clara had a wicked temper when
she was in liquor, and had the ordinary human proneness to
lying, to mischievous gossip, and to utter laziness. The life
she led, compelling cleanliness and neatness and a certain
amount of thrift under penalty of instant ruin, had done her
much good in saving her from going to pieces and becoming the
ordinary sloven and drag on the energies of some man.
"Lorna," she now said, "I do believe you like me a little."
"More than that," Susan assured her. "You've saved me from
being hard-hearted. I must go to the hospital. So long!"
"How about this evening?" asked Clara.
"I'm staying in. I've got something to do."
"Well--I may be home early--unless I go to the ball."
Susan was refused admittance at the hospital. Spenser, they
said, had received a caller, had taxed his strength enough for
the day. Nor would it be worth while to return in the
morning. The same caller was coming again. Spenser had said
she was to come in the afternoon. She received this
cheerfully, yet not without a certain sense of hurt--which,
however, did not last long.
When she was admitted to Spenser the following afternoon, she
faced him guiltily--for the thoughts Brent had set to bubbling
and boiling in her. And her guilt showed in the tone of her
greeting, in the reluctance and forced intensity of her kiss
and embrace. She had compressed into the five most receptive
years of a human being's life an experience that was, for one
of her intelligence and education, equal to many times five
years of ordinary life. And this experience had developed her
instinct for concealing her deep feelings into a fixed habit.
But it had not made her a liar--had not robbed her of her
fundamental courage and self-respect which made her shrink in
disdain from deceiving anyone who seemed to her to have the
right to frankness. Spenser, she felt as always, had that
right--this, though he had not been frank with her; still,
that was a matter for his own conscience and did not affect
her conscience as to what was courageous and honorable toward
him. So, had he been observing, he must have seen that
something was wrong. But he was far too excited about his own
affairs to note her.
"My luck's turned!" cried he, after kissing her with
enthusiasm. "Fitzalan has sent Jack Sperry to me, and we're
to collaborate on a play. I told you Fitz was the real thing."
Susan turned hastily away to hide her telltale face.
"Who's Sperry?" asked she, to gain time for self-control.
"Oh, He's a play-smith--and a bear at it. He has knocked
together half a dozen successes. He'll supply the trade
experience that I lack, and Fitzalan will be sure to put on
our piece."
"You're a lot better--aren't you?"
"Better? I'm almost well."
He certainly had made a sudden stride toward health. By way
of doing something progressive he had had a shave, and that
had restored the look of youth to his face--or, rather, had
uncovered it. A strong, handsome face it was--much handsomer
than Brent's--and with the subtle, moral weakness of
optimistic vanity well concealed. Yes, much handsomer than
Brent's, which wasn't really handsome at all--yet was superbly
handsomer, also--the handsomeness that comes from being
through and through a somebody. She saw again why she had
cared for Rod so deeply; but she also saw why she could not
care again, at least not in that same absorbed, self-effacing
way. Physical attraction--yes. And a certain remnant of the
feeling of comradeship, too. But never again utter belief,
worshipful admiration--or any other degree of belief or
admiration beyond the mild and critical. She herself had
grown. Also, Brent's penetrating and just analysis of Spenser
had put clearly before her precisely what he was--precisely
what she herself had been vaguely thinking of him.
As he talked on and on of Sperry's visit and the new projects,
she listened, looking at his character in the light Brent had
turned upon it--Brent who had in a few brief moments turned
such floods of light upon so many things she had been seeing
dimly or not at all. Moderate prosperity and moderate
adversity bring out the best there is in a man; the extreme of
either brings out his worst. The actual man is the best there
is in him, and not the worst, but it is one of the tragedies
of life that those who have once seen his worst ever afterward
have sense of it chiefly, and cannot return to the feeling
they had for him when his worst was undreamed of. "I'm not in
love with Brent," thought Susan. "But having known him, I
can't ever any more care for Rod. He seems small beside
Brent--and he _is_ small."
Spenser in his optimistic dreaming aloud had reached a point
where it was necessary to assign Susan a role in his dazzling
career. "You'll not have to go on the stage," said he. "I'll
look out for you. By next week Sperry and I will have got
together a scenario for the play and when Sperry reads it
to Fitzalan we'll get an advance of at least five hundred. So
you and I will take a nice room and bath uptown--as a
starter--and we'll be happy again--happier than before."
"No, I'm going to support myself," said Susan promptly.
"Trash!" cried Spenser, smiling tenderly at her. "Do you
suppose I'd allow you to mix up in stage life? You've
forgotten how jealous I am of you. You don't know what I've
suffered since I've been here sick, brooding over what you're
doing, to----"
She laid her fingers on his lips. "What's the use of fretting
about anything that has to be?" said she, smilingly. "I'm
going to support myself. You may as well make up your mind to it."
"Plenty of time to argue that out," said he, and his tone
forecast his verdict on the arguing. And he changed the
subject by saying, "I see you still cling to your fad of
looking fascinating about the feet. That was one of the
reasons I never could trust you. A girl with as charming
feet and ankles as you have, and so much pride in getting
them up well, simply cannot be trustworthy." He laughed.
"No, you were made to be taken care of, my dear."
She did not press the matter. She had taken her stand; that
was enough for the present. After an hour with him, she went
home to get herself something to eat on her gas stove.
Spenser's confidence in the future did not move her even to
the extent of laying out half a dollar on a restaurant dinner.
Women have the habit of believing in the optimistic
outpourings of egotistical men, and often hasten men along the
road to ruin by proclaiming this belief and acting upon it.
But not intelligent women of experience; that sort of woman,
by checking optimistic husbands, fathers, sons, lovers, has
even put off ruin--sometimes until death has had the chance to
save the optimist from the inevitable consequence of his
folly. When she finished her chop and vegetable, instead of
lighting a cigarette and lingering over a cup of black coffee
she quickly straightened up and began upon the play Brent had
given her. She had read it several times the night before,
and again and again during the day. But not until now did she
feel sufficiently calmed down from her agitations of thought
and emotion to attack the play understandingly.
Thanks to defective education the most enlightened of us go
through life much like a dim-sighted man who has no
spectacles. Almost the whole of the wonderful panorama of the
universe is unseen by us, or, if seen, is but partially
understood or absurdly misunderstood. When it comes to the
subtler things, the things of science and art, rarely indeed
is there anyone who has the necessary training to get more
than the crudest, most imperfect pleasure from them. What
little training we have is so limping that it spoils the charm
of mystery with which savage ignorance invests the universe
from blade of grass to star, and does not put in place of that
broken charm the profounder and loftier joy of understanding.
To take for illustration the most widely diffused of all the
higher arts and sciences, reading: How many so-called
"educated" people can read understandingly even a novel, the
form of literature designed to make the least demand upon the
mind? People say they have read, but, when questioned, they
show that they have got merely a glimmering of the real
action, the faintest hint of style and characterization, have
perhaps noted some stray epigram which they quote with
evidently faulty grasp of its meaning.
When the thing read is a play, almost no one can get from it
a coherent notion of what it is about. Most of us have
nothing that can justly be called imagination; our early
training at home and at school killed in the shoot that finest
plant of the mind's garden. So there is no ability to fill in
the picture which the dramatic author draws in outline. Susan
had not seen "Cavalleria Rusticana" either as play or as
opera. But when she and Spenser were together in Forty-fourth
Street, she had read plays and had dreamed over them; the talk
had been almost altogether of plays--of writing plays, of
constructing scenes, of productions, of acting, of all the
many aspects of the theater. Spenser read scenes to her, got
her to help him with criticism, and she was present when he
went over his work with Drumley, Riggs, Townsend and the
others. Thus, reading a play was no untried art to her.
She read "Cavalleria" through slowly, taking about an hour to
it. She saw now why Brent had given it to her as the primer
lesson--the simple, elemental story of a peasant girl's ruin
under promise of marriage; of her lover's wearying of one who
had only crude physical charm; of his being attracted by a
young married woman, gay as well as pretty, offering the
security in intrigue that an unmarried woman could not offer.
Such a play is at once the easiest and the hardest to act--the
easiest because every audience understands it perfectly and
supplies unconsciously almost any defect in the acting; the
hardest because any actor with the education necessary to
acting well finds it next to impossible to divest himself or
herself of the sophistications of education and get back to
the elemental animal.
_Santuzza_ or _Lola_? Susan debated. _Santuzza_ was the big and
easy part; _Lola_, the smaller part, was of the kind that is
usually neglected. But Susan saw possibilities in the
character of the woman who won _Turiddu_ away--the triumphant
woman. The two women represented the two kinds of love--the
love that is serious, the love that is light. And experience
had taught her why it is that human nature soon tires of
intensity, turns to frivolity. She felt that, if she could
act, she would try to show that not _Turiddu's_ fickleness nor
his contempt of the woman who had yielded, but _Santuzza's_ sad
intensity and _Lola's_ butterfly gayety had cost _Santuzza_ her
lover and her lover his life. So, it was not _Santuzza's_ but
_Lola's_ first entrance that she studied.
In the next morning's mail, under cover addressed "Miss Susan
Lenox, care of Miss Lorna Sackville," as she had written it
for Brent, came the promised check for forty dollars. It was
signed John P. Garvey, Secretary, and was inclosed with a
note bearing the same signature:
DEAR MADAM:
Herewith I send you a check for forty dollars for the first
week's salary under your arrangement with Mr. Brent. No
receipt is necessary. Until further notice a check for the
same amount will be mailed you each Thursday. Unless you
receive notice to the contrary, please call as before, at
three o'clock next Wednesday.
It made her nervous to think of those five days before she
should see Brent. He had assured her he would expect nothing
from her; but she felt she must be able to show him that she
had not been wasting her time--his time, the time for which he
was paying nearly six dollars a day. She must work every
waking hour, except the two hours each day at the hospital.
She recalled what Brent had said about the advantage of being
contented alone--and how everything worth doing must be done
in solitude. She had never thought about her own feelings as
to company and solitude, as it was not her habit to think
about herself. But now she realized how solitary she had
been, and how it had bred in her habits of thinking and
reading--and how valuable these habits would be to her in her
work. There was Rod, for example. He hated being alone,
must have someone around even when he was writing; and he had
no taste for order or system. She understood why it was so
hard for him to stick at anything, to put anything through to
the finish. With her fondness for being alone, with her
passion for reading and thinking about what she read, surely
she ought soon to begin to accomplish something--if there was
any ability in her.
She found Rod in higher spirits. Several ideas for his play
had come to him; he already saw it acted, successful, drawing
crowded houses, bringing him in anywhere from five hundred to
a thousand a week. She was not troubled hunting for things to
talk about with him--she, who could think of but one thing and
that a secret from him. He talked his play, a steady stream
with not a seeing glance at her or a question about her. She
watched the little clock at the side of the bed. At the end
of an hour to the minute, she interrupted him in the middle of
a sentence. "I must go now," said she, rising.
"Sit down," he cried. "You can stay all day. The doctor says
it will do me good to have you to talk with. And Sperry isn't
coming until tomorrow."
"I can't do it," said she. "I must go."
He misunderstood her avoiding glance. "Now, Susie--sit down
there," commanded he. "We've got plenty of money. You--you
needn't bother about it any more."
"We're not settled yet," said she. "Until we are, I'd not dare
take the risk." She was subtly adroit by chance, not by design.
"Risk!" exclaimed he angrily. "There's no risk. I've as good
as got the advance money. Sit down."
She hesitated. "Don't be angry," pleaded she in a voice that
faltered. "But I must go."
Into his eyes came the gleam of distrust and jealousy. "Look
at me," he ordered.
With some difficulty she forced her eyes to meet his.
"Have you got a lover?"
"No."
"Then where do you get the money we're living on?" He counted
on her being too humiliated to answer in words. Instead of
the hanging head and burning cheeks he saw clear, steady eyes,
heard a calm, gentle and dignified voice say:
"In the streets."
His eyes dropped and a look of abject shame made his face
pitiable. "Good Heavens," he muttered.
"How low we are!"
"We've been doing the best we could," said she simply.
"Isn't there any decency anywhere in you?" he flashed out,
eagerly seizing the chance to forget his own shame in
contemplating her greater degradation.
She looked out of the window. There was something terrible in
the calmness of her profile. She finally said in an even,
pensive voice:
"You have been intimate with a great many women, Rod. But you
have never got acquainted with a single one."
He laughed good-humoredly. "Oh, yes, I have. I've learned
that `every woman is at heart a rake,' as Mr. Jingle Pope says."
She looked at him again, her face now curiously lighted by her
slow faint smile. "Perhaps they showed you only what they
thought you'd be able to appreciate," she suggested.
He took this as evidence of her being jealous of him. "Tell
me, Susan, did you leave me--in Forty-fourth Street--because
you thought or heard I wasn't true to you?"
"What did Drumley tell you?"
"I asked him, as you said in your note. He told me he knew no
reason."
So Drumley had decided it was best Rod should not know why she
left. Well, perhaps--probably--Drumley was right. But there
was no reason why he shouldn't know the truth now. "I left,"
said she, "because I saw we were bad for each other."
This amused him. She saw that he did not believe. It wounded
her, but she smiled carelessly. Her smile encouraged him to
say: "I couldn't quite make up my mind whether the reason was
jealousy or because you had the soul of a shameless woman.
You see, I know human nature, and I know that a woman who once
crosses the line never crosses back. I'll always have to
watch you, my dear. But somehow I like it. I guess you
have--you and I have--a rotten streak in us. We were brought
up too strictly. That always makes one either too firm or too
loose. I used to think I liked good women. But I don't.
They bore me. That shows I'm rotten."
"Or that your idea of what's good is--is mistaken."
"You don't pretend that _you_ haven't done wrong?" cried Rod.
"I might have done worse," replied she. "I might have wronged
others. No, Rod, I can't honestly say I've ever felt wicked."
"Why, what brought you here?"
She reflected a moment, then smiled. "Two things brought me
down," said she. "In the first place, I wasn't raised right.
I was raised as a lady instead of as a human being. So I
didn't know how to meet the conditions of life. In the second
place--" her smile returned, broadened--"I was too--too what's
called `good.'"
"Pity about you!" mocked he.
"Being what's called good is all very well if you're
independent or if you've got a husband or a father to do
life's dirty work for you--or, perhaps, if you happen to be in
some profession like preaching or teaching--though I don't
believe the so-called `goodness' would let you get very far
even as a preacher. In most lines, to practice what we're
taught as children would be to go to the bottom like a stone.
You know this is a hard world, Rod. It's full of men and
women fighting desperately for food and clothes and a roof to
cover them--fighting each other. And to get on you've got to
have the courage and the indifference to your fellow beings
that'll enable you to do it."
"There's a lot of truth in that," admitted Spenser. "If I'd
not been such a `good fellow,' as they call it--a fellow
everybody liked--if I'd been like Brent, for instance--Brent,
who never would have any friends, who never would do anything
for anybody but himself, who hadn't a thought except for his
career--why, I'd be where he is."
It was at the tip of Susan's tongue to say, "Yes--strong--able
to help others--able to do things worth while." But she did
not speak.
Rod went on: "I'm not going to be a fool any longer. I'm
going to be too busy to have friends or to help people or to
do anything but push my own interests."
Susan, indifferent to being thus wholly misunderstood, was
again moving toward the door. "I'll be back this evening, as
usual," said she.
Spenser's face became hard and lowering: "You're going to
stay here now, or you're not coming back," said he. "You can
take your choice. Do you want me to know you've got the soul
of a streetwalker?"
She stood at the foot of the bed, gazing at the wall above his
head. "I must earn our expenses until we're safe," said she,
once more telling a literal truth that was yet a complete
deception.
"Why do you fret me?" exclaimed he. "Do you want me to be
sick again?"
"Suppose you didn't get the advance right away," urged she.
"I tell you I shall get it! And I won't have you--do as you
are doing. If you go, you go for keeps."
She seated herself. "Do you want me to read or take dictation?"
His face expressed the satisfaction small people find in small
successes at asserting authority. "Don't be angry," said he.
"I'm acting for your good. I'm saving you from yourself."
"I'm not angry," replied she, her strange eyes resting upon him.
He shifted uncomfortably. "Now what does that look mean?" he
demanded with an uneasy laugh.
She smiled, shrugged her shoulders.
Sperry--small and thin, a weather-beaten, wooden face
suggesting Mr. Punch, sly keen eyes, theater in every tone and
gesture Sperry pushed the scenario hastily to completion and
was so successful with Fitzalan that on Sunday afternoon he
brought two hundred and fifty dollars, Spenser's half of the
advance money.
"Didn't I tell you!" said Spenser to Susan, in triumph.
"We'll move at once. Go pack your traps and put them in a
carriage, and by the time you're back here Sperry and the
nurses will have me ready."
It was about three when Susan got to her room. Clara heard
her come in and soon appeared, bare feet in mules, hair
hanging every which way. Despite the softening effect of the
white nightdress and of the framing of abundant hair, her face
was hard and coarse. She had been drunk on liquor and on
opium the night before, and the effects were wearing off. As
she was only twenty years old, the hard coarse look would
withdraw before youth in a few hours; it was there only
temporarily as a foreshadowing of what Clara would look like
in five years or so.
"Hello, Lorna," said she. "Gee, what a bun my fellow and I
had on last night! Did you hear us scrapping when we came in
about five o'clock?"
"No," replied Susan. "I was up late and had a lot to do, and
was kept at the hospital all day. I guess I must have fallen
asleep."
"He gave me an awful beating," pursued Clara. "But I got one
good crack at him with a bottle." She laughed. "I don't
think he'll be doing much flirting till his cheek heals up.
He looks a sight!" She opened her nightdress and showed Susan
a deep blue-black mark on her left breast. "I wonder if I'll
get cancer from that?" said she. "It'd be just my rotten
luck. I've heard of several cases of it lately, and my father
kicked my mother there, and she got cancer. Lord, how she did
suffer!"
Susan shivered, turned her eyes away. Her blood surged with
joy that she had once more climbed up out of this deep, dark
wallow where the masses of her fellow beings weltered in
darkness and drunkenness and disease--was up among the favored
ones who, while they could not entirely escape the great ills
of life, at least had the intelligence and the means to
mitigate them. How fortunate that few of these unhappy ones
had the imagination to realize their own wretchedness! "I
don't care what becomes of me," Clara was saying. "What is
there in it for me? I can have a good time only as long as my
looks last--and that's true of every woman, ain't it? What's
a woman but a body? Ain't I right?"
"That's why I'm going to stop being a woman as soon as ever I
can," said Susan.
"Why, you're packing up!" cried Clara.
"Yes. My friend's well enough to be moved. We're going to
live uptown."
"Right away?"
"This afternoon."
Clara dropped into a chair and began to weep. "I'll miss you
something fierce!" sobbed she. "You're the only friend in the
world I give a damn for, or that gives a damn for me. I wish
to God I was like you. You don't need anybody."
"Oh, yes, I do, dear," cried Susan.
"But, I mean, you don't lean on anybody. I don't mean you're
hard-hearted--for you ain't. You've pulled me and a dozen
other girls out of the hole lots of times. But you're
independent. Can't you take me along? I can drop that bum
across the hall. I don't give a hoot for him. But a girl's
got to make believe she cares for somebody or she'd blow her
brains out."
"I can't take you along, but I'm going to come for you as soon
as I'm on my feet," said Susan. "I've got to get up myself
first. I've learned at least that much."
"Oh, you'll forget all about _me_."
"No," said Susan.
And Clara knew that she would not. Moaned Clara, "I'm not fit
to go. I'm only a common streetwalker. You belong up there.
You're going back to your own. But I belong here. I wish to
God I was like most of the people down here, and didn't have
any sense. No wonder you used to drink so! I'm getting that
way, too. The only people that don't hit the booze hard down
here are the muttonheads who don't know nothing and can't
learn nothing. . . . I used to be contented. But somehow,
being with you so much has made me dissatisfied."
"That means you're on your way up," said Susan, busy with her packing.
"It would, if I had sense enough. Oh, it's torment to have
sense enough to see, and not sense enough to do!"
"I'll come for you soon," said Susan. "You're going up with me."
Clara watched her for some time in silence. "You're sure
you're going to win?" said she, at last.
"Sure," replied Susan.
"Oh, you can't be as sure as that."
"Yes, but I can," laughed she. "I'm done with foolishness.
I've made up my mind to get up in the world--_with_ my
self-respect if possible; if not, then without it. I'm going
to have everything--money, comfort, luxury, pleasure.
Everything!" And she dropped a folded skirt emphatically upon
the pile she had been making, and gave a short, sharp nod. "I
was taught a lot of things when I was little--things about
being sweet and unselfish and all that. They'd be fine, if
the world was Heaven. But it isn't."
"Not exactly," said Clara.
"Maybe they're fine, if you want to get to Heaven," continued
Susan. "But I'm not trying to get to Heaven. I'm trying to
live on earth. I don't like the game, and I don't like its
rules. But--it's the only game, and I can't change the rules.
So I'm going to follow them--at least, until I get what I want."
"Do you mean to say you've got any respect for yourself?" said
Clara. "__I__ haven't. And I don't see how any girl in our
line can have."
"I thought I hadn't," was Susan's reply, "until I talked
with--with someone I met the other day. If you slipped and
fell in the mud--or were thrown into it--you wouldn't say,
`I'm dirty through and through. I can never get clean
again'--would you?"
"But that's different," objected Clara.
"Not a bit," declared Susan. "If you look around this world,
you'll see that everybody who ever moved about at all has
slipped and fallen in the mud--or has been pushed in."
"Mostly pushed in."
"Mostly pushed in," assented Susan. "And those that have good
sense get up as soon as they can, and wash as much of the mud
off as'll come off--maybe all--and go on. The fools--they
worry about the mud. But not I--not any more!. . . And not
you, my dear--when I get you uptown."
Clara was now looking on Susan's departure as a dawn of good
luck for herself. She took a headache powder, telephoned for
a carriage, and helped carry down the two big packages that
contained all Susan's possessions worth moving. And they
kissed each other good-by with smiling faces. Susan did not
give Clara, the loose-tongued, her new address; nor did Clara,
conscious of her own weakness, ask for it.
"Don't put yourself out about me," cried Clara in farewell.
"Get a good tight grip yourself, first."
"That's advice I need," answered Susan. "Good-by.
Soon--_soon!_"
The carriage had to move slowly through those narrow tenement
streets, so thronged were they with the people swarmed from
hot little rooms into the open to try to get a little air that
did not threaten to burn and choke as it entered the lungs.
Susan's nostrils were filled with the stenches of animal and
vegetable decay--stenches descending in heavy clouds from the
open windows of the flats and from the fire escapes crowded
with all manner of rubbish; stenches from the rotting, brimful
garbage cans; stenches from the groceries and butcher shops
and bakeries where the poorest qualities of food were exposed
to the contamination of swarms of disgusting fat flies, of
mangy, vermin-harassed children and cats and dogs; stenches
from the never washed human bodies, clad in filthy garments
and drawn out of shape by disease and toil. Sore eyes,
scrofula, withered arm or leg, sagged shoulder, hip out of
joint--There, crawling along the sidewalk, was the boy whose
legs had been cut off by the street car; and the stumps were
horribly ulcered. And there at the basement window drooled
and cackled the fat idiot girl whose mother sacrificed
everything always to dress her freshly in pink. What a
world!--where a few people such a very few!--lived in health
and comfort and cleanliness--and the millions lived in disease
and squalor, ignorant, untouched of civilization save to wear
its cast-off clothes and to eat its castaway food and to live
in its dark noisome cellars!--And to toil unceasingly to make
for others the good things of which they had none themselves!
It made her heartsick--the sadder because nothing could be
done about it. Stay and help? As well stay to put out a
conflagration barehanded and alone.
As the carriage reached wider Second Avenue, the horses broke
into a trot. Susan drew a long breath of the purer air--then
shuddered as she saw the corner where the dive into which the
cadet had lured her flaunted its telltale awnings. Lower
still her spirits sank when she was passing, a few blocks
further on, the music hall. There, too, she had had a chance,
had let hope blaze high. And she was going forward--into--the
region where she had been a slave to Freddie Palmer--no, to
the system of which he was a slave no less than she----
"I _must_ be strong! I _must!_" Susan said to herself, and
there was desperation in the gleam of her eyes, in the set of
her chin. "This time I will fight! And I feel at last that
I can."
But her spirits soared no more that day.
XIV
SPERRY had chosen for "Mr. and Mrs. Spenser" the second floor
rear of a house on the south side of West Forty-fifth Street
a few doors off Sixth Avenue. It was furnished as a
sitting-room--elegant in red plush, with oil paintings on the
walls, a fringed red silk-plush dado fastened to the
mantelpiece with bright brass-headed tacks, elaborate
imitation lace throws on the sofa and chairs, and an imposing
piece that might have been a cabinet organ or a pianola or a
roll-top desk but was in fact a comfortable folding bed.
There was a marble stationary washstand behind the
hand-embroidered screen in the corner, near one of the two
windows. Through a deep clothes closet was a small but
satisfactory bathroom.
"And it's warm in winter," said Mrs. Norris, the landlady, to
Susan. "Don't you hate a cold bathroom?"
Susan declared that she did.
"There's only one thing I hate worse," said Mrs. Norris, "and
that's cold coffee."
She had one of those large faces which look bald because the
frame of hair does not begin until unusually far back. At
fifty, when her hair would be thin, Mrs. Norris would be
homely; but at thirty she was handsome in a bold, strong
way. Her hair was always carefully done, her good figure
beautifully corseted. It was said she was not married to Mr.
Norris--because New York likes to believe that people are
living together without being married, because Mr. Norris came
and went irregularly, and because Mrs. Norris was so
particular about her toilet--and everyone knows that when a
woman has the man with whom she's satisfied securely fastened,
she shows her content or her virtuous indifference to other
men--or her laziness--by neglecting her hair and her hips and
dressing in any old thing any which way. Whatever the truth
as to Mrs. Norris's domestic life, she carried herself
strictly and insisted upon keeping her house as respectable as
can reasonably be expected in a large city. That is, everyone
in it was quiet, was of steady and sedate habit, was backed by
references. Not until Sperry had thoroughly qualified as a
responsible person did Mrs. Norris accept his assurances as to
the Spensers and consent to receive them. Downtown the
apartment houses that admit persons of loose character are
usually more expensive because that class of tenants have more
and expect more than ordinary working people. Uptown the
custom is the reverse; to get into a respectable house you
must pay more. The Spensers had to pay fourteen a week for
their quarters--and they were getting a real bargain, Mrs.
Norris having a weakness for literature and art where they
were respectable and paid regularly.
"What's left of the two hundred and fifty will not last long,"
said Spenser to Susan, when they were established and alone.
"But we'll have another five hundred as soon as the play's
done, and that'll be in less than a month. We're to begin
tomorrow. In less than two months the play'll be on and the
royalties will be coming in. I wonder how much I owe the
doctor and the hospital."
"That's settled," said Susan.
He glanced at her with a frown. "How much was it? You had no
right to pay!"
"You couldn't have got either doctor or room without payment
in advance." She spoke tranquilly, with a quiet assurance of
manner that was new in her, the nervous and sensitive about
causing displeasure in others. She added, "Don't be cross,
Rod. You know it's only pretense."
"Don't you believe anybody has any decency?" demanded he.
"It depends on what you mean by decency," replied she. "But
why talk of the past? Let's forget it."
"I would that I could!" exclaimed he.
She laughed at his heroics. "Put that in your play," said
she. "But this isn't the melodrama of the stage. It's the
farce comedy of life."
"How you have changed! Has all the sweetness, all the
womanliness, gone out of your character?"
She showed how little she was impressed. "I've learned to
take terrible things--really terrible things--without making
a fuss--or feeling like making a fuss. You can't expect me to
get excited over mere staginess. They're fond of fake
emotions up in this part of town. But down where I've been so
long the real horrors come too thick and fast for there to be
any time to fake."
He continued to frown, presently came out of a deep study to
say, "Susie, I see I've got to have a serious talk with you."
"Wait till you're well, my dear," said she. "I'm afraid I'll
not be very sympathetic with your seriousness."
"No--today. I'm not an invalid. And our relations worry me,
whenever I think of them."
He observed her as she sat with hands loosely clasped in her
lap; there was an inscrutable look upon her delicate face,
upon the clear-cut features so attractively framed by her
thick dark hair, brown in some lights, black in others.
"Well?" said she.
"To begin, I want you to stop rouging your lips. It's the
only sign of--of what you were. I'd a little rather you
didn't smoke. But as respectable women smoke nowadays, why I
don't seriously object. And when you get more clothes, get
quieter ones. Not that you dress loudly or in bad taste----"
"Thank you," murmured Susan.
"What did you say?"
"I didn't mean to interrupt. Go on."
"I admire the way you dress, but it makes me jealous. I want
you to have nice clothes for the house. I like things that
show your neck and suggest your form. But I don't want you
attracting men's eyes and their loose thoughts, in the
street. . . . And I don't want you to look so damnably alluring
about the feet. That's your best trick--and your worst. Why
are you smiling--in that fashion?"
"You talk to me as if I were your wife."
He gazed at her with an expression that was as affectionate as
it was generous--and it was most generous. "Well, you may be
some day--if you keep straight. And I think you will."
The artificial red of her lips greatly helped to make her
sweetly smiling face the perfection of gentle irony. "And
you?" said she.
"You know perfectly well it's different about a man."
"I know nothing of the sort," replied she. "Among certain
kinds of people that is the rule. But I'm not of those kinds.
I'm trying to make my way in the world, exactly like a man.
So I've got to be free from the rules that may be all very
well for ladies. A woman can't fight with her hands tied, any
more than a man can--and you know what happens to the men who
allow themselves to be tied; they're poor downtrodden
creatures working hard at small pay for the men who fight with
their hands free."
"I've taken you out of the unprotected woman class, my dear,"
he reminded her. "You're mine, now, and you're going back
where you belong."
"Back to the cage it's taken me so long to learn to do
without?" She shook her head. "No, Rod--I couldn't possibly
do it--not if I wanted to. . . . You've got several false ideas
about me. You'll have to get rid of them, if we're to get along."
"For instance?"
"In the first place, don't delude yourself with the notion
that I'd marry you. I don't know whether the man I was forced
to marry is dead or whether he's got a divorce. I don't care.
No matter how free I was I shouldn't marry you."
He smiled complacently. She noted it without irritation.
Truly, small indeed is the heat of any kind that can be got
from the warmed-up ashes of a burnt-out passion. She went
easily on:
"You have nothing to offer me--neither love nor money. And a
woman--unless she's a poor excuse--insists on one or the other.
You and I fancied we loved each other for a while. We don't
fool ourselves in that way now. At least I don't, though I
believe you do imagine I'm in love with you."
"You wouldn't be here if you weren't."
"Put that out of your head, Rod. It'll only breed trouble.
I don't like to say these things to you, but you compel me to.
I learned long ago how foolish it is to put off unpleasant
things that will have to be faced in the end. The longer
they're put off the worse the final reckoning is. Most of my
troubles have come through my being too weak or
good-natured--or whatever it was--to act as my good sense told
me. I'm not going to make that mistake any more. And I'm
going to start the new deal with absolute frankness with you.
I am not in love with you."
"I know you better than you know yourself," said he.
"For a little while after I found you again I did have a
return of the old feeling--or something like it. But it soon
passed. I couldn't love you. I know you too well."
He struggled hard with his temper, as his vanity lashed at it.
She saw, struggled with her old sensitiveness about inflicting
even necessary pain upon others, went on:
"I simply like you, Rod--and that's all. We're well
acquainted. You're physically attractive to me--not wildly
so, but enough--more than any other man--probably more than
most husbands are to their wives--or most wives to their
husbands. So as long as you treat me well and don't wander
off to other women, I'm more than willing to stay on here."
"Really!" said he, in an intensely sarcastic tone. "Really!"
"Now--keep your temper," she warned. "Didn't I keep mine when
you were handing me that impertinent talk about how I should
dress and the rest of it? No--let me finish. In the second
place and in conclusion, my dear Rod, I'm not going to live
off you. I'll pay my half of the room. I'll pay for my own
clothes--and rouge for my lips. I'll buy and cook what we eat
in the room; you'll pay when we go to a restaurant. I believe
that's all."
"Are you quite sure?" inquired he with much satire.
"Yes, I think so. Except--if you don't like my terms, I'm
ready to leave at once."
"And go back to the streets, I suppose?" jeered he.
"If it were necessary--yes. So long as I've got my youth and
my health, I'll do precisely as I please. I've no craving for
respectability--not the slightest. I--I----" She tried to
speak of her birth, that secret shame of which she was
ashamed. She had been thinking that Brent's big fine way of
looking at things had cured her of this bitterness. She found
that it had not--as yet. So she went on, "I'd prefer your
friendship to your ill will--much prefer it, as you're the
only person I can look to for what a man can do for a woman,
and as I like you. But if I have to take tyranny along with
the friendship--" she looked at him quietly and her tones were
almost tender, almost appealing--"then, it's good-by, Rod."
She had silenced him, for he saw in her eyes, much more gray
than violet though the suggestion of violet was there, that
she meant precisely what she said. He was astonished, almost
dazed by the change in her. This woman grown was not the
Susie who had left him. No--and yet----
She had left him, hadn't she? That showed a character
completely hidden from him, perhaps the character he was now
seeing. He asked--and there was no sarcasm and a great deal
of uneasiness in his tone:
"How do you expect to make a living?"
"I've got a place at forty dollars a week."
"Forty dollars a week! You!" He scowled savagely at her.
"There's only one thing anyone would pay you forty a week for."
"That's what I'd have said," rejoined she. "But it seems not
to be true. My luck may not last, but while it lasts, I'll
have forty a week."
"I don't believe you," said he, with the angry bluntness
of jealousy.
"Then you want me to go?" inquired she, with a certain
melancholy but without any weakness.
He ignored her question. He demanded:
"Who's giving it to you?"
"Brent."
Spenser leaned from the bed toward her in his excitement.
"_Robert_ Brent?" he cried.
"Yes. I'm to have a part in one of his plays."
Spenser laughed harshly. "What rot! You're his mistress."
"It wouldn't be strange for you to think I'd accept that
position for so little, but you must know a man of his sort
wouldn't have so cheap a mistress."
"It's simply absurd."
"He is to train me himself."
"You never told me you knew him."
"I don't."
"Who got you the job?"
"He saw me in Fitzalan's office the day you sent me there. He
asked me to call, and when I went he made me the offer."
"Absolute rot. What reason did he give?"
"He said I looked as if I had the temperament he was in search of."
"You must take me for a fool."
"Why should I lie to you?"
"God knows. Why do women lie to men all the time? For the
pleasure of fooling them."
"Oh, no. To get money, Rod--the best reason in the world, it
being rather hard for a woman to make money by working for it."
"The man's in love with you!"
"I wish he were," said Susan, laughing. "I'd not be here, my
dear--you may be sure of that. And I'd not content myself
with forty a week. Oh, you don't know what tastes I've got!
Wait till I turn myself loose."
"Well--you can--in a few months," said Spenser.
Even as he had been protesting his disbelief in her story, his
manner toward her had been growing more respectful--a change
that at once hurt and amused her with its cynical suggestions,
and also pleased her, giving her a confidence-breeding sense
of a new value in herself. Rod went on, with a kind of
shamefaced mingling of jest and earnest:
"You stick by me, Susie, old girl, and the time'll come when
I'll be able to give you more than Brent."
"I hope so," said Susan.
He eyed her sharply. "I feel like a fool believing such a
fairy story as you've been telling me. Yet I do."
"That's good," laughed she. "Now I can stay. If you hadn't
believed me, I'd have had to go. And I don't want to do
that--not yet."
His eyes flinched. "Not yet? What does that mean?"
"It means I'm content to stay, at present. Who can answer for
tomorrow?" Her eyes lit up mockingly. "For instance--you.
Today you think you're going to be true to me don't you? Yet
tomorrow--or as soon as you get strength and street clothes, I
may catch you in some restaurant telling some girl she's the
one you've been getting ready for."
He laughed, but not heartily. Sperry came, and Susan went to
buy at a department store a complete outfit for Rod, who still
had only nightshirts. As she had often bought for him in the
old days, she felt she would have no difficulty in fitting him
nearly enough, with her accurate eye supplementing the
measurements she had taken. When she got back home two hours
and a half later, bringing her purchases in a cab, Sperry had
gone and Rod was asleep. She sat in the bathroom, with the
gas lighted, and worked at "Cavalleria" until she heard him
calling. He had awakened in high good-humor.
"That was an awful raking you gave me before Sperry came,"
began he. "But it did me good. A man gets so in the habit of
ordering women about that it becomes second nature to him.
You've made it clear to me that I've even less control over
you than you have over me. So, dear, I'm going to be humble
and try to give satisfaction, as servants say."
"You'd better," laughed Susan. "At least, until you get on
your feet again."
"You say we don't love each other," Rod went on, a becoming
brightness in his strong face. "Well--maybe so. But--we suit
each other--don't we?"
"That's why I want to stay," said Susan, sitting on the bed
and laying her hand caressingly upon his. "I could stand it
to go, for I've been trained to stand anything--everything.
But I'd hate it."
He put his arm round her, drew her against his breast.
"Aren't you happy here?" he murmured.
"Happier than any place else in the world," replied she softly.
After a while she got a small dinner for their two selves on
the gas stove she had brought with her and had set up in the
bathroom. As they ate, she cross-legged on the bed opposite
him, they beamed contentedly at each other. "Do you remember
the dinner we had at the St. Nicholas in Cincinnati?" asked she.
"It wasn't as good as this," declared he. "Not nearly so well
cooked. You could make a fortune as a cook. But then you do
everything well."
"Even to rouging my lips?"
"Oh, forget it!" laughed he. "I'm an ass. There's a
wonderful fascination in the contrast between the dash of
scarlet and the pallor of that clear, lovely skin of yours."
Her eyes danced. "You are getting well!" she exclaimed. "I'm
sorry I bought you clothes. I'll be uneasy every time you're out."
"You can trust me. I see I've got to hustle to keep my job
with you. Well, thank God, your friend Brent's old enough to
be your father."
"Is he?" cried Susan. "Do you know, I never thought of his age."
"Yes, he's forty at least--more. Are you sure he isn't after
_you_, Susie?"
"He warned me that if I annoyed him in that way he'd discharge me."
"Do you like him?"
"I--don't--know" was Susan's slow, reflective answer.
"I'm--afraid of him--a little."
Both became silent. Finally Rod said, with an impatient shake
of the head, "Let's not think of him."
"Let's try on your new clothes," cried Susan.
And when the dishes were cleared away they had a grand time
trying on the things she had bought. It was amazing how near
she had come to fitting him. "You ought to feel flattered,"
said she. "Only a labor of love could have turned out so well."
He turned abruptly from admiring his new suit in the glass and
caught her in his arms. "You do love me--you do!" he cried.
"No woman would have done all you've done for me, if she didn't."
For answer, Susan kissed him passionately; and as her body
trembled with the sudden upheaval of emotions long dormant or
indulged only in debased, hateful ways, she burst into tears.
She knew, even in that moment of passion, that she did not
love him; but not love itself can move the heart more deeply
than gratitude and her bruised heart was so grateful for his
words and tones and gestures of affection!
Wednesday afternoon, on the way to Brent's house, she glanced
up at the clock in the corner tower of the Grand Central
Station. It lacked five minutes of three. She walked slowly,
timed herself so accurately that, as the butler opened the
door, a cathedral chime hidden somewhere in the upper interior
boomed the hour musically. The man took her direct to the
elevator, and when it stopped at the top floor, Brent himself
opened the door, as before. He was dismissing a short fat man
whom Susan placed as a manager, and a tall, slim, and most
fashionably dressed woman with a beautiful insincere
face--anyone would have at once declared her an actress,
probably a star. The woman gave Susan a searching, feminine
look which changed swiftly to superciliousness. Both the man
and the woman were loath to go, evidently had not finished
what they had come to say. But Brent, in his abrupt but
courteous way, said:
"Tomorrow at four, then. As you see, my next appointment has
begun." And he had them in the elevator with the door closed.
He turned upon Susan the gaze that seemed to take in
everything. "You are in better spirits, I see," said he.
"I'm sorry to have interrupted," said she. "I could have waited."
"But __I__ couldn't," replied he. "Some day you'll discover
that your time is valuable, and that to waste it is far
sillier than if you were to walk along throwing your money
into the gutter. Time ought to be used like money--spent
generously but intelligently." He talked rapidly on, with his
manner as full of unexpressed and inexpressible intensity as
the voice of the violin, with his frank egotism that had no
suggestion of vanity or conceit. "Because I systematize my
time, I'm never in a hurry, never at a loss for time to give
to whatever I wish. I didn't refuse to keep you waiting for
your sake but for my own. Now the next hour belongs to you
and me--and we'll forget about time--as, if we were dining in
a restaurant, we'd not think of the bill till it was
presented. What did you do with the play?"
Susan could only look at him helplessly.
He laughed, handed her a cigarette, rose to light a match for
her. "Settle yourself comfortably," said he, "and say what's
in your head."
With hands deep in the trousers of his house suit, he paced up
and down the long room, the cigarette loose between his lips.
Whenever she saw his front face she was reassured; but
whenever she saw his profile, her nerves trembled--for in the
profile there was an expression of almost ferocious
resolution, of tragic sadness, of the sternness that spares
not. The full face was kind, if keen; was sympathetic--was
the man as nature had made him. The profile was the great
man--the man his career had made. And Susan knew that the
profile was master.
"Which part did you like _Santuzza_ or _Lola_?"
"_Lola_," replied she.
He paused, looked at her quickly. Why?"
"Oh, I don't sympathize with the woman--or the man--who's
deserted. I pity, but I can't help seeing it's her or his own
fault. _Lola_ explains why. Wouldn't you rather laugh than
cry? _Santuzza_ may have been attractive in the moments of
passion, but how she must have bored _Turiddu_ the rest of the
time! She was so intense, so serious--so vain and selfish."
"Vain and selfish? That's interesting." He walked up and
down several times, then turned on her abruptly. "Well--go on,"
he said. "I'm waiting to hear why she was vain and selfish."
"Isn't it vain for a woman to think a man ought to be crazy
about her all the time because he once has been? Isn't it
selfish for her to want him to be true to her because it gives
_her_ pleasure, even though she knows it doesn't give _him_ pleasure?"
"Men and women are all vain and selfish in love," said he.
"But the women are meaner than the men," replied she, "because
they're more ignorant and narrow-minded."
He was regarding her with an expression that made her uneasy.
"But that isn't in the play--none of it," said he.
"Well, it ought to be," replied she. "_Santuzza_ is the
old-fashioned conventional heroine. I used to like
them--until I had lived a little, myself. She isn't true to
life. But in _Lola_----"
"Yes--what about _Lola_?" he demanded.
"Oh, she wasn't a heroine, either. She was just human--taking
happiness when it offered. And her gayety--and her
capriciousness. A man will always break away from a solemn,
intense woman to get that sort of sunshine."
"Yes--yes--go on," said Brent.
"And her sour, serious, solemn husband explains why wives are
untrue to their husbands. At least, it seems so to me."
He was walking up and down again. Every trace of indolence,
of relaxation, was gone from his gait and from his features.
His mind was evidently working like an engine at full speed.
Suddenly he halted. "You've given me a big idea," said he.
"I'll throw away the play I was working on. I'll do your play."
Susan laughed--pleased, yet a little afraid he was kinder than
she deserved. "What I said was only common sense--what my
experience has taught me."
"That's all that genius is, my dear," replied he. "As soon as
we're born, our eyes are operated on so that we shall never
see anything as it is. The geniuses are those who either
escape the operation or are reendowed with true sight by
experience." He nodded approvingly at her. "You're going to
be a person--or, rather, you're going to show you're a person.
But that comes later. You thought of _Lola_ as your part?"
"I tried to. But I don't know anything about acting except
what I've seen and the talk I've heard."
"As I said the other day, that means you've little to learn.
Now--as to _Lola's_ entrance."
"Oh, I thought of a lot of things to do--to show that she, too,
loved _Turiddu_ and that she had as much right to love--and to
be loved--as _Santuzza_ had. _Santuzza_ had had her chance, and
had failed."
Brent was highly amused. "You seem to forget that _Lola_ was a
married woman--and that if _Santuzza_ didn't get a husband she'd
be the mother of a fatherless child."
Never had he seen in her face such a charm of sweet melancholy
as at that moment. "I suppose the way I was born and the life
I've led make me think less of those things than most people
do," replied she. "I was talking about natural hearts--what
people think inside--the way they act when they have courage."
"When they have courage," Brent repeated reflectively. "But
who has courage?"
"A great many people are compelled to have it," said she.
"I never had it until I got enough money to be independent."
"I never had it," said Susan, "until I had no money."
He leaned against the big table, folded his arms on his chest,
looked at her with eyes that made her feel absolutely at ease
with him. Said he:
"You have known what it was to have no money--none?"
Susan nodded. "And no friends--no place to sleep--worse off
than _Robinson Crusoe_ when the waves threw him on the island.
I had to--to suck my own blood to keep alive."
"You smile as you say that," said he.
"If I hadn't learned to smile over such things," she answered,
"I'd have been dead long ago."
He seated himself opposite her. He asked:
"Why didn't you kill yourself?"
"I was afraid."
"Of the hereafter?"
"Oh no. Of missing the coming true of my dreams about life."
"Love?"
"That--and more. Just love wouldn't satisfy me. I want to
see the world--to know the world--and to be somebody. I want
to try _everything_."
She laughed gayly--a sudden fascinating vanishing of the
melancholy of eyes and mouth, a sudden flashing out of young
beauty. "I've been down about as deep as one can go. I want
to explore in the other direction."
"Yes--yes," said Brent, absently. "You must see it all."
He remained for some time in a profound reverie, she as
unconscious of the passing of time as he for if he had his
thoughts, she had his face to study. Try as she would, she
could not associate the idea of age with him--any age. He
seemed simply a grown man. And the more closely she studied
him the greater her awe became. He knew so much; he
understood so well. She could not imagine him swept away by
any of the petty emotions--the vanities, the jealousies, the
small rages, the small passions and loves that made up the
petty days of the small creatures who inhabit the world and
call it theirs. Could he fall in love? Had he been in love?
Yes--he must have been in love many times--for many women must
have taken trouble to please a man so well worth while, and he
must have passed from one woman to another as his whims or his
tastes changed. Could he ever care about her--as a woman?
Did he think her worn out as a physical woman? Or would he
realize that body is nothing by itself; that unless the soul
enters it, it is cold and meaningless and worthless--like the
electric bulb when the filament is dark and the beautiful,
hot, brilliant and intensely living current is not in it?
Could she love him? Could she ever feel equal and at ease,
through and through, with a man so superior?
"You'd better study the part of _Lola_--learn the lines," said
he, when he had finished his reflecting. "Then--this day week
at the same hour--we will begin. We will work all
afternoon--we will dine together--go to some theater where I
can illustrate what I mean. Beginning with next Wednesday
that will be the program every day until further notice."
"Until you see whether you can do anything with me or not?"
"Just so. You are living with Spenser?"
"Yes." Susan could have wished his tone less matter-of-fact.
"How is he getting on?"
"He and Sperry are doing a play for Fitzalan."
"Really? That's good. He has talent. If he'll learn of
Sperry and talk less and work more, and steadily, he'll make
a lot of money. You are not tied to him in any way?"
"No--not now that he's prospering. Except, of course, that
I'm fond of him."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, everybody must have somebody.
You've not seen this house. I'll show it to you, as we've
still fifteen minutes."
A luxurious house it was--filled with things curious and, some
of them, beautiful--things gathered in excursions through
Europe, Susan assumed. The only absolutely simple room was
his bedroom, big and bare and so arranged that he could sleep
practically out of doors. She saw servants--two men besides
the butler, several women. But the house was a bachelor's
house, with not a trace of feminine influence. And evidently
he cared nothing about it but lived entirely in that wonderful
world which so awed Susan--the world he had created within
himself, the world of which she had alluring glimpses through
his eyes, through his tones and gestures even. Small people
strive to make, and do make, impression of themselves by
laboring to show what they know and think. But the person of
the larger kind makes no such effort. In everything Brent
said and did and wore, in all his movements, gestures,
expressions, there was the unmistakable hallmark of the man
worth while. The social life has banished simplicity from
even the most savage tribe. Indeed, savages, filled with
superstitions, their every movement the result of some notion
of proper ceremonial, are the most complex of all the human
kind. The effort toward simplicity is not a movement back to
nature, for there savage and lower animal are completely
enslaved by custom and instinct; it is a movement upward
toward the freedom of thought and action of which our best
intelligence has given us a conception and for which it has
given us a longing. Never had Susan met so simple a man; and
never had she seen one so far from all the silly ostentations
of rudeness, of unattractive dress, of eccentric or coarse
speech wherewith the cheap sort of man strives to proclaim
himself individual and free.
With her instinct for recognizing the best at first sight,
Susan at once understood. And she was like one who has been
stumbling about searching for the right road, and has it
suddenly shown to him. She fairly darted along this right
road. She was immediately busy, noting the mistakes in her
own ideas of manners and dress, of good and bad taste. She
realized how much she had to learn. But this did not
discourage her. For she realized at the same time that she
could learn--and his obvious belief in her as a possibility
was most encouraging.
When he bade her good-by at the front door and it closed
behind her, she was all at once so tired that it seemed to her
she would then and there sink down through sheer fatigue and
fall asleep. For no physical exercise so quickly and utterly
exhausts as real brain exercise--thinking, studying, learning
with all the concentrated intensity of a thoroughbred in the
last quarter of the mile race.
XV
SPENSER had time and thought for his play only. He no longer
tormented himself with jealousy of the abilities and income
and fame of Brent and the other successful writers for the
stage; was not he about to equal them, probably to surpass
them? As a rule, none of the mean emotions is able to
thrive--unless it has the noxious vapors from disappointment
and failure to feed upon. Spenser, in spirits and in hope
again, was content with himself. Jealousy of Brent about
Susan had been born of dissatisfaction with himself as a
failure and envy of Brent as a success; it died with that
dissatisfaction and that envy. His vanity assured him that
while there might be possibly--ways in which he was not
without rivals, certainly where women were concerned he simply
could not be equaled; the woman he wanted he could have--and he
could hold her as long as he wished. The idea that Susan
would give a sentimental thought to a man "old enough to be
her father"--Brent was forty-one--was too preposterous to
present itself to his mind. She loved the handsome,
fascinating, youthful Roderick Spenser; she would soon be
crazy about him.
Rarely does it occur to a man to wonder what a woman is
thinking. During courtship very young men attribute intellect
and qualities of mystery and awe to the woman they love. But
after men get an insight into the mind of woman and discover
how trivial are the matters that of necessity usually engage
it, they become skeptical about feminine mentality; they would
as soon think of speculating on what profundities fill the
brain of the kitten playing with a ball as of seeking a
solution of the mystery behind a woman's fits of abstraction.
However, there was in Susan's face, especially in her eyes, an
expression so unusual, so arresting that Spenser,
self-centered and convinced of woman's intellectual deficiency
though he was, did sometimes inquire what she was thinking
about. He asked this question at breakfast the morning after
that second visit to Brent.
"Was I thinking?" she countered.
"You certainly were not listening. You haven't a notion what
I was talking about."
"About your play."
"Of course. You know I talk nothing else," laughed he. "I
must bore you horribly."
"No, indeed," protested she.
"No, I suppose not. You're not bored because you don't listen."
He was cheerful about it. He talked merely to arrange his
thoughts, not because he expected Susan to understand matters
far above one whom nature had fashioned and experience had
trained to minister satisfyingly to the physical and
sentimental needs of man. He assumed that she was as
worshipful before his intellect as in the old days. He would
have been even more amazed than enraged had he known that she
regarded his play as mediocre claptrap, false to life, fit
only for the unthinking, sloppily sentimental crowd that could
not see the truth about even their own lives, their own
thoughts and actions.
"There you go again!" cried he, a few minutes later. "What
_are_ you thinking about? I forgot to ask how you got on with
Brent. Poor chap--he's had several failures in the past year.
He must be horribly cut up. They say he's written out. What
does he think he's trying to get at with you?"
"Acting, as I told you," replied Susan. She felt ashamed for
him, making this pitiable exhibition of patronizing a great man.
"Sperry tells me he has had that twist in his brain for a long
time--that he has tried out a dozen girls or more--drops them
after a few weeks or months. He has a regular system about
it--runs away abroad, stops the pay after a month or so."
"Well, the forty a week's clear gain while it lasts," said
Susan. She tried to speak lightly. But she felt hurt and
uncomfortable. There had crept into her mind one of those
disagreeable ideas that skurry into some dusky corner to hide,
and reappear from time to time making every fit of the blues
so much the sadder and aggravating despondency toward despair.
"Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that _you_ wouldn't succeed,"
Spenser hastened to apologize with more or less real
kindliness. "Sperry says Brent has some good ideas about
acting. So, you'll learn something--maybe enough to enable me
to put you in a good position--if Brent gets tired and if you
still want to be independent, as you call it."
"I hope so," said Susan absently.
Spenser was no more absorbed in his career than she in hers;
only, she realized how useless it would be to try to talk it
to him--that he would not give her so much as ears in an
attitude of polite attention. If he could have looked into
her head that morning and seen what thoughts were distracting
her from hearing about the great play, he would have been more
amused and disgusted than ever with feminine frivolity of mind
and incapacity in serious matters. For, it so happened that
at the moment Susan was concentrating on a new dress. He
would have laughed in the face of anyone saying to him that
this new dress was for Susan in the pursuit of her scheme of
life quite as weighty a matter, quite as worthy of the most
careful attention, as was his play for him. Yet that would
have been the literal truth. Primarily man's appeal is to the
ear, woman's to the eye--the reason, by the way, why the
theater--preeminently the place to _see_--tends to be dominated
by woman.
Susan had made up her mind not only that she would rapidly
improve herself in every way, but also how she would go about
the improving. She saw that, for a woman at least, dress is
as much the prime essential as an arresting show window for a
dealer in articles that display well. She knew she was far
from the goal of which she dreamed--the position where she
would no longer be a woman primarily but a personage. Dress
would not merely increase her physical attractiveness; it
would achieve the far more important end of gaining her a
large measure of consideration. She felt that Brent, even
Brent, dealer in actualities and not to be fooled by
pretenses, would in spite of himself change his opinion of her
if she went to him dressed less like a middle class working
girl, more like the woman of the upper classes. At best,
using all the advantages she had, she felt there was small
enough chance of her holding his interest; for she could not
make herself believe that he was not deceiving himself about
her. However, to strengthen herself in every way with him was
obviously the wisest effort she could make. So, she must have
a new dress for the next meeting, one which would make him
better pleased to take her out to dinner. True, if she came
in rags, he would not be disturbed--for he had nothing of the
snob in him. But at the same time, if she came dressed like
a woman of his own class, he would be impressed. "He's a
man, if he is a genius," reasoned she.
Vital though the matter was, she calculated that she did not
dare spend more than twenty-five dollars on this toilet. She
must put by some of her forty a week; Brent might give her up
at any time, and she must not be in the position of having to
choose immediately between submitting to the slavery of the
kept woman as Spenser's dependent and submitting to the costly
and dangerous and repulsive freedom of the woman of the
streets. Thus, to lay out twenty-five dollars on a single
costume was a wild extravagance. She thought it over from
every point of view; she decided that she must take the risk.
Late in the afternoon she walked for an hour in Fifth Avenue.
After some hesitation she ventured into the waiting- and
dressing-rooms of several fashionable hotels. She was in
search of ideas for the dress, which must be in the prevailing
fashion. She had far too good sense and good taste to attempt
to be wholly original in dress; she knew that the woman who
understands her business does not try to create a fashion but
uses the changing and capricious fashion as the means to
express a constant and consistent style of her own. She
appreciated her limitations in such matters--how far she as
yet was from the knowledge necessary to forming a permanent
and self-expressive style. She was prepared to be most
cautious in giving play to an individual taste so imperfectly
educated as hers had necessarily been.
She felt that she had the natural instinct for the best and
could recognize it on sight--an instinct without which no one
can go a step forward in any of the arts. She had long since
learned to discriminate among the vast masses of offering,
most of them tasteless or commonplace, to select the rare and
few things that have merit. Thus, she had always stood out in
the tawdrily or drearily or fussily dressed throngs, had been
a pleasure to the eyes even of those who did not know why they
were pleased. On that momentous day, she finally saw a woman
dressed in admirable taste who was wearing a costume simple
enough for her to venture to think of copying the main points.
She walked several blocks a few yards behind this woman, then
hurried ahead of her, turned and walked toward her to inspect
the front of the dress. She repeated this several times
between the St. Regis and Sherry's. The woman soon realized,
as women always do, what the girl in the shirtwaist and short
skirt was about. But she happened to be a good-natured
person, and smiled pleasantly at Susan, and got in return a
smile she probably did not soon forget.
The next morning Susan went shopping. She had it in mind to
get the materials for a costume of a certain delicate shade of
violet. A dress of that shade, and a big hat trimmed in tulle
to match or to harmonize, with a bunch of silk violets
fastened in the tulle in a certain way.
Susan knew she had good looks, knew what was becoming to her
darkly and softly fringed violet eyes, pallid skin, to her
rather tall figure, slender, not voluptuous yet suggesting
voluptuousness. She could see herself in that violet costume.
But when she began to look at materials she hesitated. The
violet would be beautiful; but it was not a wise investment
for a girl with few clothes, with but one best dress. She did
not give it up definitely, however, until she came upon a
sixteen-yard remnant of soft gray China crepe. Gray was a
really serviceable color for the best dress of a girl of small
means. And this remnant, certainly enough for a dress, could
be had for ten dollars, where violet China crepe of the shade
she wanted would cost her a dollar a yard. She took the remnant.
She went to the millinery department and bought a large hat
frame. It was of a good shape and she saw how it could be
bent to suit her face. She paid fifty cents for this, and two
dollars and seventy cents for four yards of gray tulle. She
found that silk flowers were beyond her means; so she took a
bunch of presentable looking violets of the cheaper kind at
two dollars and a half. She happened to pass a counter
whereon were displayed bargains in big buckles and similar
odds and ends of steel and enamel. She fairly pounced upon a
handsome gray buckle with violet enamel, which cost but
eighty-nine cents. For a pair of gray suede ties she paid two
dollars; for a pair of gray silk stockings, ninety cents.
These matters, with some gray silk net for the collar, gray
silk for a belt, linings and the like, made her total bill
twenty-three dollars and sixty-seven cents. She returned home
content and studied "Cavalleria" until her purchases arrived.
Spenser was out now, was working all day and in the evenings
at Sperry's office high up in the Times Building. So, Susan
had freedom for her dressmaking operations. To get them off
her mind that she might work uninterruptedly at learning
_Lola's_ part in "Cavalleria," she toiled all Saturday, far into
Sunday morning, was astir before Spenser waked, finished the
dress soon after breakfast and the hat by the middle of the
afternoon. When Spenser returned from Sperry's office to take
her to dinner, she was arrayed. For the first time he saw her
in fashionable attire and it was really fashionable, for
despite all her disadvantages she, who had real and rare
capacity for learning, had educated herself well in the chief
business of woman the man-catcher in her years in New York.
He stood rooted to the threshold. It would have justified a
vanity less vigorous than Susan or any other normal human
being possessed, to excite such a look as was in his eyes. He
drew a long breath by way of breaking the spell over speech.
"You are _beautiful!_" he exclaimed.
And his eyes traveled from the bewitching hat, set upon her
head coquettishly yet without audacity, to the soft crepe
dress, its round collar showing her perfect throat, its
graceful lines subtly revealing her alluring figure, to the
feet that men always admired, whatever else of beauty or charm
they might fail to realize.
"How you have grown!" he ejaculated. Then, "How did you do it?"
"By all but breaking myself."
"It's worth whatever it cost. If I had a dress suit, we'd go
to Sherry's or the Waldorf. I'm willing to go, without the
dress suit."
"No. I've got everything ready for dinner at home."
"Then, why on earth did you dress? To give me a treat?"
"Oh, I hate to go out in a dress I've never worn. And a woman
has to wear a hat a good many times before she knows how."
"What a lot of fuss you women do make about clothes."
"You seem to like it, all the same."
"Of course. But it's a trifle."
"It has got many women a good provider for life. And not
paying attention to dress or not knowing how has made most of
the old maids. Are those things trifles?"
Spenser laughed and shifted his ground without any sense of
having been pressed to do so. "Men are fools where women
are concerned."
"Or women are wise where men are concerned."
"I guess they do know their business--some of them," he
confessed. "Still, it's a silly business, you must admit."
"Nothing is silly that's successful," said Susan.
"Depends on what you mean by success," argued he.
"Success is getting what you want."
"Provided one wants what's worth while," said he.
"And what's worth while?" rejoined she. "Why, whatever one
happens to want."
To avoid any possible mischance to the _grande toilette_
he served the dinner and did the dangerous part of the
clearing up. They went to the theater, Rod enjoying even more
than she the very considerable admiration she got. When she
was putting the dress away carefully that night, Rod inquired
when he was to be treated again.
"Oh--I don't know," replied she. "Not soon."
She was too wise to tell him that the dress would not be worn
again until Brent was to see it. The hat she took out of the
closet from time to time and experimented with it, reshaping
the brim, studying the different effects of different angles.
It delighted Spenser to catch her at this "foolishness"; he
felt so superior, and with his incurable delusion of the
shallow that dress is an end, not merely a means, he felt more
confident than ever of being able to hold her when he should
have the money to buy her what her frivolous and feminine
nature evidently craved beyond all else in the world. But----
When he bought a ready-to-wear evening suit, he made more stir
about it than had Susan about her costume--this, when dress to
him was altogether an end in itself and not a shrewd and
useful means. He spent more time in admiring himself in it
before the mirror, and looked at it, and at himself in it,
with far more admiration and no criticism at all. Susan noted
this--and after the manner of women who are wise or
indifferent--or both--she made no comment.
At the studio floor of Brent's house the door of the elevator
was opened for Susan by a small young man with a notably large
head, bald and bulging. His big smooth face had the
expression of extreme amiability that usually goes with
weakness and timidity. "I am Mr. Brent's secretary, Mr.
Garvey," he explained. And Susan--made as accurate as quick
in her judgments of character by the opportunities and the
necessities of her experience--saw that she had before her one
of those nice feeble folk who either get the shelter of some
strong personality as a bird hides from the storm in the thick
branches of a great tree or are tossed and torn and ruined by
life and exist miserably until rescued by death. She knew the
type well; it had been the dominant type in her surroundings
ever since she left Sutherland. Indeed, is it not the
dominant type in the whole ill-equipped, sore-tried human
race? And does it not usually fail of recognition because so
many of us who are in fact weak, look--and feel--strong
because we are sheltered by inherited money or by powerful
friends or relatives or by chance lodgment in a nook unvisited
of the high winds of life in the open? Susan liked Garvey at
once; they exchanged smiles and were friends.
She glanced round the room. At the huge open window Brent,
his back to her, was talking earnestly to a big hatchet-faced
man with a black beard. Even as Susan glanced Brent closed
the interview; with an emphatic gesture of fist into palm he
exclaimed, "And that's final. Good-by." The two men came
toward her, both bowed, the hatchet-faced man entered the
elevator and was gone. Brent extended his hand with a smile.
"You evidently didn't come to work today," said he with a
careless, fleeting glance at the _grande toilette_. "But we
are prepared against such tricks. Garvey, take her down to
the rear dressing-room and have the maid lay her out a simple
costume." To Susan, "Be as quick as you can." And he seated
himself at his desk and was reading and signing letters.
Susan, crestfallen, followed Garvey down the stairway. She
had confidently expected that he would show some appreciation
of her toilette. She knew she had never in her life looked so
well. In the long glass in the dressing-room, while Garvey
was gone to send the maid, she inspected herself again.
Yes--never anything like so well. And Brent had noted her
appearance only to condemn it. She was always telling herself
that she wished him to regard her as a working woman, a pupil
in stagecraft. But now that she had proof that he did so
regard her, she was depressed, resentful. However, this did
not last long. While she was changing to linen skirt and
shirtwaist, she began to laugh at herself. How absurd she had
been, thinking to impress this man who had known so many
beautiful women, who must have been satiated long ago with
beauty--she thinking to create a sensation in such a man, with
a simple little costume of her own crude devising. She
reappeared in the studio, laughter in her eyes and upon her
lips. Brent apparently did not glance at her; yet he said,
"What's amusing you?"
She confessed all, on one of her frequent impulses to
candor--those impulses characteristic both of weak natures
unable to exercise self-restraint and of strong natures,
indifferent to petty criticism and misunderstanding, and
absent from vain mediocrity, which always has itself--that is,
appearances--on its mind. She described in amusing detail how
she had planned and got together the costume how foolish his
reception of it had made her feel. "I've no doubt you guessed
what was in my head," concluded she. "You see everything."
"I did notice that you were looking unusually well, and that
you felt considerably set up over it," said he. "But why not?
Vanity's an excellent thing. Like everything else it's got to
be used, not misused. It can help us to learn instead of
preventing."
"I had an excuse for dressing up," she reminded him. "You
said we were to dine together. I thought you wouldn't want
there to be too much contrast between us. Next time I'll be
more sensible."
"Dress as you like for the present," said he. "You can always
change here. Later on dress will be one of the main things,
of course. But not now. Have you learned the part?"
And they began. She saw at the far end of the room a platform
about the height of a stage. He explained that Garvey, with
the book of the play, would take the other parts in _Lola's_
scenes, and sent them both to the stage. "Don't be nervous,"
Garvey said to her in an undertone. "He doesn't expect
anything of you. This is simply to get started." But she
could not suppress the trembling in her legs and arms, the
hysterical contractions of her throat. However, she did
contrive to go through the part--Garvey prompting. She knew
she was ridiculous; she could not carry out a single one of
the ideas of "business" which had come to her as she studied;
she was awkward, inarticulate, panic-stricken.
"Rotten!" exclaimed Brent, when she had finished. "Couldn't
be worse therefore, couldn't be better."
She dropped to a chair and sobbed hysterically.
"That's right--cry it out," said Brent. "Leave us alone, Garvey."
Brent walked up and down smoking until she lifted her head and
glanced at him with a pathetic smile. "Take a cigarette," he
suggested. "We'll talk it over. Now, we've got something to
talk about."
She found relief from her embarrassment in the cigarette.
"You can laugh at me now," she said. "I shan't mind. In
fact, I didn't mind, though I thought I did. If I had, I'd
not have let you see me cry."
"Don't think I'm discouraged," said Brent. "The reverse. You
showed that you have nerve a very different matter from
impudence. Impudence fails when it's most needed. Nerve
makes one hang on, regardless. In such a panic as yours was,
the average girl would have funked absolutely. You stuck it
out. Now, you and I will try _Lola's_ first entrance. No,
don't throw away your cigarette. _Lola_ might well come in
smoking a cigarette." She did better. What Burlingham had
once thoroughly drilled into her now stood her in good stead,
and Brent's sympathy and enthusiasm gave her the stimulating
sense that he and she were working together. They spent the
afternoon on the one thing--_Lola_ coming on, singing her gay
song, her halt at sight of _Santuzza_ and _Turiddu_, her look at
_Santuzza_, at _Turiddu_, her greeting. for each. They tried it
twenty different ways. They discussed what would have been in
the minds of all three. They built up "business" for _Lola_, and
for the two others to increase the significance of _Lola's_ actions.
"As I've already told you," said he, "anyone with a voice and
a movable body can learn to act. There's no question about
your becoming a good actress. But it'll be some time before
I can tell whether you can be what I hope--an actress who
shows no sign that she's acting."
Susan showed the alarm she felt. "I'm afraid you'll find at
the end that you've been wasting your time," said she.
"Put it straight out of your head," replied he. "I never
waste time. To live is to learn. Already you've given me a
new play--don't forget that. In a month I'll have it ready for
us to use. Besides, in teaching you I teach myself. Hungry?"
"No--that is, yes. I hadn't thought of it, but I'm starved."
"This sort of thing gives one an appetite like a field hand."
He accompanied her to the door of the rear dressing-room on
the floor below. "Go down to the reception room when you're
ready," said he, as he left her to go on to his own suite to
change his clothes. "I'll be there."
The maid came immediately, drew a bath for her, afterward
helped her to dress. It was Susan's first experience with a
maid, her first realization how much time and trouble one
saves oneself if free from the routine, menial things. And
then and there a maid was set down upon her secret list of the
luxurious comforts to which she would treat herself--_when?_
The craving for luxury is always a part, usually a powerful
part, of an ambitious temperament. Ambition is simply a
variously manifested and variously directed impulse toward
improvement--a discomfort so keen that it compels effort to
change to a position less uncomfortable. There had never been
a time when luxury had not attracted her. At the slightest
opportunity she had always pushed out for luxuries--for better
food, better clothing, more agreeable surroundings. Even in
her worst hours of discouragement she had not really relaxed
in the struggle against rags and dirt. And when moral horror
had been blunted by custom and drink, physical horror had
remained acute. For, human nature being a development upward
through the physical to the spiritual, when a process of
degeneration sets in, the topmost layers, the spiritual, wear
away first--then those in which the spiritual is a larger
ingredient than the material--then those in which the material
is the larger--and last of all those that are purely material.
As life educated her, as her intelligence and her knowledge
grew, her appreciation of luxury had grown apace and her
desire for it. With most human beings, the imagination is a
heavy bird of feeble wing; it flies low, seeing only the
things of the earth. When they describe heaven, it has houses
of marble and streets of gold. Their pretense to sight of
higher things is either sheer pretense or sight at second
hand. Susan was of the few whose fancy can soar. She saw the
earthy things; she saw the things of the upper regions also.
And she saw the lower region from the altitudes of the
higher--and in their perspective.
As she and Brent stood together on the sidewalk before his
house, about to enter his big limousine, his smile told her
that he had read her thought--her desire for such an
automobile as her very own. "I can't help it," said she.
"It's my nature to want these things."
"And to want them intelligently," said he. "Everybody wants,
but only the few want intelligently--and they get. The three
worst things in the world are sickness, poverty and obscurity.
Your splendid health safeguards you against sickness. Your
looks and your brains can carry you far away from the other
two. Your one danger is of yielding to the temptation to
become the wife or the mistress of some rich man. The
prospect of several years of heart-breaking hard work isn't
wildly attractive at twenty-two."
"You don't know me," said Susan--but the boast was uttered
under her breath.
The auto rushed up to Delmonico's entrance, came to a halt
abruptly yet gently. The attentiveness of the personnel, the
staring and whispering of the people in the palm room showed
how well known Brent was. There were several women--handsome
women of what is called the New York type, though it certainly
does not represent the average New York woman, who is poorly
dressed in flimsy ready-made clothes and has the mottled skin
that indicates bad food and too little sleep. These handsome
women were dressed beautifully as well as expensively, in
models got in--not from--Paris. One of them smiled sweetly at
Brent, who responded, so Susan thought, rather formally. She
felt dowdy in her home-made dress. All her pride in it
vanished; she saw only its defects. And the gracefully
careless manner of these women--the manners of those who feel
sure of themselves--made her feel "green" and out of place.
She was disgusted with the folly that had caused her to thrill
with pleasure when his order to his chauffeur at his door told
her she was actually to be taken to one of the restaurants in
which she had wished to exhibit herself with him. She
heartily wished she had insisted on going where she would have
been as well dressed and as much at home as anyone there.
She lifted her eyes, to distract her mind from these
depressing sensations. Brent was looking at her with that
amused, mocking yet sympathetic expression which was most
characteristic of him. She blushed furiously.
He laughed. "No, I'm not ashamed of your homemade dress,"
said he. "I don't care what is thought of me by people who
don't give me any money. And, anyhow, you are easily the most
unusual looking and the most tastefully dressed woman here.
The rest of these women are doomed for life to commonplace
obscurity. You----
"We'll see your name in letters of fire on the Broadway
temples of fame."
"I know you're half laughing at me," said Susan. "But I feel
a little better."
"Then I'm accomplishing my object. Let's not think about
ourselves. That makes life narrow. Let's keep the thoughts
on our work--on the big splendid dreams that come to us and
invite us to labor and to dare."
And as they lingered over the satisfactory dinner he had
ordered, they talked of acting--of the different roles of
"Cavalleria" as types of fundamental instincts and actions--of
how best to express those meanings--how to fill out the
skeletons of the dramatist into personalities actual and
vivid. Susan forgot where she was, forgot to be reserved with
him. In her and Rod's happiest days she had never been free
from the constraint of his and her own sense of his great
superiority. With Brent, such trifles of the petty personal
disappeared. And she talked more naturally than she had since
a girl at her uncle's at Sutherland. She was amazed by the
fountain that had suddenly gushed forth in her mind at the
conjuring of Brent's sympathy. She did not recognize herself
in this person so open to ideas, so eager to learn, so clear
in the expression of her thoughts. Not since the Burlingham
days had she spent so long a time with a man in absolute
unconsciousness of sex.
They were interrupted by the intrusion of a fashionable young
man with the expression of assurance which comes from the
possession of wealth and the knowledge that money will buy
practically everything and everybody. Brent received him so
coldly that, after a smooth sentence or two, he took himself
off stammering and in confusion. "I suppose," said Brent when
he was gone, "that young ass hoped I would introduce him to
you and invite him to sit. But you'll be tempted often enough
in the next few years by rich men without my helping to put
temptation in your way,"
"I've never been troubled thus far," laughed Susan.
"But you will, now. You have developed to the point where
everyone will soon be seeing what it took expert eyes to see
heretofore."
"If I am tempted," said Susan, "do you think I'll be able
to resist?"
"I don't know," confessed Brent. "You have a strong sense of
honesty, and that'll keep you at work with me for a while.
Then----
"If you have it in you to be great, you'll go on. If you're
merely the ordinary woman, a little more intelligent, you'll
probably--sell out. All the advice I have to offer is, don't
sell cheap. As you're not hampered by respectability or by
inexperience, you needn't." He reflected a moment, then
added, "And if you ever do decide that you don't care to go on
with a career, tell me frankly. I may be able to help you in
the other direction."
"Thank you," said Susan, her strange eyes fixed upon him.
"Why do you put so much gratitude in your tone and in your
eyes?" asked he.
"I didn't put it there," she answered. "It--just came. And
I was grateful because--well, I'm human, you know, and it was
good to feel--that--that----"
"Go on," said he, as she hesitated.
"I'm afraid you'll misunderstand."
"What does it matter, if I do?"
"Well--you've acted toward me as if I were a mere machine that
you were experimenting with."
"And so you are."
"I understand that. But when you offered to help me, if I
happened to want to do something different from what you want
me to do, it made me feel that you thought of me as a human
being, too."
The expression of his unseeing eyes puzzled her. She became
much embarrassed when he said, "Are you dissatisfied with
Spenser? Do you want to change lovers? Are you revolving me
as a possibility?"
"I haven't forgotten what you said," she protested.
"But a few words from me wouldn't change you from a woman into
a sexless ambition."
An expression of wistful sadness crept into the violet-gray eyes,
in contrast to the bravely smiling lips. She was thinking of
her birth that had condemned her to that farmer Ferguson, full
as much as of the life of the streets, when she said:
"I know that a man like you wouldn't care for a woman of my sort."
"If I were you," said he gently, "I'd not say those things
about myself. Saying them encourages you to think them. And
thinking them gives you a false point of view. You must learn
to appreciate that you're not a sheltered woman, with
reputation for virtue as your one asset, the thing that'll
enable you to get some man to undertake your support. You are
dealing with the world as a man deals with it. You must
demand and insist that the world deal with you on that
basis." There came a wonderful look of courage and hope into
the eyes of Lorella's daughter.
"And the world will," he went on. "At least, the only part of
it that's important to you--or really important in any way.
The matter of your virtue or lack of it is of no more
importance than is my virtue or lack of it."
"Do you _really_ believe that way?" asked Susan, earnestly.
"It doesn't in the least matter whether I do or not," laughed
he. "Don't bother about what I think--what anyone thinks--of
you. The point here, as always, is that you believe it,
yourself. There's no reason why a woman who is making a
career should not be virtuous. She will probably not get far
if she isn't more or less so. Dissipation doesn't help man or
woman, especially the ruinous dissipation of license in
passion. On the other hand, no woman can ever hope to make a
career who persists in narrowing and cheapening herself with
the notion that her virtue is her all. She'll not amount to
much as a worker in the fields of action."
Susan reflected, sighed. "It's very, very hard to get rid of
one's sex."
"It's impossible," declared he. "Don't try. But don't let it
worry you, either."
"Everyone can't be as strong as you are--so absorbed in a
career that they care for nothing else."
This amused him. With forearms on the edge of the table he
turned his cigarette slowly round between his fingers,
watching the smoke curl up from it. She observed that there
was more than a light sprinkle of gray in his thick, carefully
brushed hair. She was filled with curiosity as to the
thoughts just then in that marvelous brain of his; nor did it
lessen her curiosity to know that never would those thoughts
be revealed to her. What women had he loved? What women had
loved him? What follies had he committed? From how many
sources he must have gathered his knowledge of human nature
of--woman nature! And no doubt he was still gathering.
What woman was it now?
When he lifted his glance from the cigarette, it was to call
the waiter and get the bill. "I've a supper engagement," he
said, "and it's nearly eleven o'clock."
"Eleven o'clock!" she exclaimed.
"Times does fly--doesn't it?--when a man and a woman, each an
unexplored mystery to the other, are dining alone and talking
about themselves."
"It was my fault," said Susan.
His quizzical eyes looked into hers--uncomfortably far.
She flushed. "You make me feel guiltier than I am," she
protested, under cover of laughing glance and tone of raillery.
"Guilty? Of what?"
"You think I've been trying to--to `encourage' you," replied
she frankly.
"And why shouldn't you, if you feel so inclined?" laughed he.
"That doesn't compel me to be--encouraged."
"Honestly I haven't," said she, the contents of seriousness
still in the gay wrapper of raillery. "At least not any more
than----"
"You know, a woman feels bound to `encourage' a man who piques
her by seeming--difficult."
"Naturally, you'd not have objected to baptizing the new hat
and dress with my heart's blood." She could not have helped
laughing with him. "Unfortunately for you--or rather for the
new toilette--my poor heart was bled dry long, long ago. I'm
a busy man, too--busy and a little tired."
"I deserve it all," said she. "I've brought it on myself.
And I'm not a bit sorry I started the subject. I've found out
you're quite human--and that'll help me to work better."
They separated with the smiling faces of those who have added
an evening altogether pleasant to memory's store of the past's
happy hours--that roomy storehouse which is all too empty even
where the life has been what is counted happy. He insisted on
sending her home in his auto, himself taking a taxi to the
Players' where the supper was given. The moment she was alone
for the short ride home, her gayety evaporated like a
delicious but unstable perfume.
Why? Perhaps it was the sight of the girls on the stroll.
Had she really been one of them?--and only a few days ago?
Impossible! Not she not the real self . . . and perhaps she
would be back there with them before long. No--never, never,
in any circumstances!. . . She had said, "Never!" the first
time she escaped from the tenements, yet she had gone back. . .
were any of those girls strolling along--were, again, any of
them Freddie Palmer's? At the thought she shivered and
quailed. She had not thought of him, except casually, in many
months. What if he should see her, should still feel
vengeful--he who never forgot or forgave--who would dare
anything! And she would be defenseless against him. . . . She
remembered what she had last read about him in the newspaper.
He had risen in the world, was no longer in the criminal class
apparently, had moved to the class of semi-criminal wholly
respectable contractor-politician. No, he had long since
forgotten her, vindictive Italian though he was.
The auto set her down at home. Her tremors about Freddie
departed; but the depression remained. She felt physically as
if she had been sitting all evening in a stuffy room with a
dull company after a heavy, badly selected dinner. She fell
easy prey to one of those fits of the blues to which all
imaginative young people are at least occasional victims, and
by which those cursed and hampered with the optimistic
temperament are haunted and harassed and all but or quite
undone. She had a sense of failure, of having made a bad
impression. She feared he, recalling and reinspecting what
she had said, would get the idea that she was not in earnest,
was merely looking for a lover--for a chance to lead a life of
luxurious irresponsibility. Would it not be natural for him,
who knew women well, to assume from her mistakenly candid
remarks, that she was like the rest of the women, both the
respectable and the free? Why should he believe in her, when
she did not altogether believe in herself but suspected
herself of a secret hankering after something more immediate,
more easy and more secure than the stage career? The longer
she thought of it the clearer it seemed to her to be that she
had once more fallen victim to too much hope, too much
optimism, too much and too ready belief in her
fellow-beings--she who had suffered so much from these
follies, and had tried so hard to school herself against them.
She fought this mood of depression--fought alone, for Spenser
did not notice and she would not annoy him. She slept little
that night; she felt that she could not hope for peace until
she had seen Brent again.
XVI
TOWARD half-past ten the next day, a few minutes after Rod
left for the theater, she was in the bathroom cleaning the
coffee machine. There came a knock at the door of the
sitting-room bedroom. Into such disorder had her mood of
depression worried her nerves that she dropped the coffee
machine into the washbowl and jumped as if she were seeing a
ghost. Several dire calamities took vague shape in her mind,
then the image of Freddie Palmer, smiling sweetly, cruelly.
She wavered only a moment, went to the door, and after a brief
hesitation that still further depressed her about herself she
opened it. The maid--a good-natured sloven who had become
devoted to Susan because she gave her liberal fees and made
her no extra work--was standing there, in an attitude of
suppressed excitement. Susan laughed, for this maid was a
born agitator, a person who is always trying to find a thrill
or to put a thrill into the most trivial event.
"What is it now, Annie?" Susan asked.
"Mr. Spenser--he's gone, hasn't he?"
"Yes--a quarter of an hour ago."
Annie drew a breath of deep relief. "I was sure he had went,"
said she, producing from under her apron a note. "I saw it
was in a gentleman's writing, so I didn't come up with it till
he was out of the way, though the boy brought it a little
after nine."
"Oh, bother!" exclaimed Susan, taking the note.
"Well, Mrs. Spenser, I've had my lesson," replied Annie,
apologetic but firm. "When I first came to New York, green as
the grass that grows along the edge of the spring, what does
I do but go to work and take up a note to a lady when her
husband was there! Next thing I knew he went to work and
hauled her round the floor by the hair and skinned out--yes,
beat it for good. And my madam says to me, `Annie, you're
fired. Never give a note to a lady when her gent is by or to
a gent when his lady's by. That's the first rule of life in gay
New York.' And you can bet I never have since--nor never will."
Susan had glanced at the address on the note, had recognized
the handwriting of Brent's secretary. Her heart had
straightway sunk as if the foreboding of calamity had been
realized. As she stood there uncertainly, Annie seized the
opportunity to run on and on. Susan now said absently, "Thank
you. Very well," and closed the door. It was a minute or so
before she tore open the envelope with an impatient gesture
and read:
DEAR MRS. SPENSER:
Mr. Brent requests me to ask you not to come until further
notice. It may be sometime before he will be free to resume.
Yours truly,
JOHN C. GARVEY.
It was a fair specimen of Garvey's official style, with which
she had become acquainted--the style of the secretary who has
learned by experience not to use frills or flourishes but to
convey his message in the fewest and clearest words. Had it
been a skillfully worded insult Susan, in this mood of
depression and distorted mental vision, could not have
received it differently. She dropped to a chair at the table
and stared at the five lines of neat handwriting until her
eyes became circled and her face almost haggard. Precisely as
Rod had described! After a long, long time she crumpled the
paper and let it fall into the waste-basket. Then she walked
up and down the room--presently drifted into the bathroom and
resumed cleaning the coffee machine. Every few moments she
would pause in the task--and in her dressing afterwards--would
be seized by the fear, the horror of again being thrust into
that hideous underworld. What was between her and it, to save
her from being flung back into its degradation? Two men on
neither of whom she could rely. Brent might drop her at any
time--perhaps had already dropped her. As for Rod--vain,
capricious, faithless, certain to become an unendurable
tyrant if he got her in his power--Rod was even less of a
necessity than Brent. What a dangerous situation was hers!
How slender her chances of escape from another catastrophe.
She leaned against wall or table and was shaken by violent
fits of shuddering. She felt herself slipping--slipping. It
was all she could do to refrain from crying out. In those
moments, no trace of the self-possessed Susan the world always
saw. Her fancy went mad and ran wild. She quivered under the
actuality of coarse contacts--Mrs. Tucker in bed with her--the
men who had bought her body for an hour--the vermin of the
tenements--the brutal hands of policemen.
Then with an exclamation of impatience or of anger she would
shake herself together and go resolutely on--only again to
relapse. "Because I so suddenly cut off the liquor and the
opium," she said. It was the obvious and the complete
explanation. But her heart was like lead, and her sky like
ink. This note, the day after having tried her out as a
possibility for the stage and as a woman. She stared down at
the crumpled note in the wast-basket. That note--it was
herself. He had crumpled her up and thrown her into the
waste-basket, where she no doubt belonged.
It was nearly noon before she, dressed with unconscious care,
stood in the street doorway looking about uncertainly as if
she did not know which way to turn. She finally moved in the
direction of the theater where Rod's play was rehearsing. She
had gone to none of the rehearsals because Rod had requested
it. "I want you to see it as a total surprise the first
night," explained he. "That'll give you more pleasure, and
also it will make your criticism more valuable to us." And
she had acquiesced, not displeased to have all her time for
her own affairs. But now she, dazed, stunned almost,
convinced that it was all over for her with Brent,
instinctively turned to Rod to get human help--not to ask for
it, but in the hope that somehow he would divine and would say
or do something that would make the way ahead a little less
forbidding--something that would hearten her for the few first
steps, anyhow. She turned back several times--now, because
she feared Rod wouldn't like her coming; again because her
experience--enlightened good sense----told her that Rod
would--could--not help her, that her sole reliance was
herself. But in the end, driven by one of those spasms of
terror lest the underworld should be about to engulf her
again, she stood at the stage door.
As she was about to negotiate the surly looking man on guard
within, Sperry came rushing down the long dark passageway. He
was brushing past her when he saw who it was. "Too late!" he
cried. "Rehearsal's over."
"I didn't come to the rehearsal," explained Susan. "I thought
perhaps Rod would be going to lunch."
"So he is. Go straight back. You'll find him on the stage.
I'll join you if you'll wait a minute or so." And Sperry
hurried on into the street.
Susan advanced along the passageway cautiously as it was but
one remove from pitch dark. Perhaps fifty feet, and she came
to a cross passage. As she hesitated, a door at the far end
of it opened and she caught a glimpse of a dressing-room and,
in the space made by the partly opened door, a woman
half-dressed--an attractive glimpse. The woman--who seemed
young--was not looking down the passage, but into the room.
She was laughing in the way a woman laughs only when it is for
a man, for _the_ man--and was saying, "Now, Rod, you must go,
and give me a chance to finish dressing." A man's arm--Rod's
arm--reached across the opening in the doorway. A hand--Susan
recognized Rod's well-shaped hand--was laid strongly yet
tenderly upon the pretty bare arm of the struggling, laughing
young woman--and the door closed--and the passage was soot-dark
again. All this a matter of less than five seconds. Susan,
ashamed at having caught him, frightened lest she should be
found where she had no business to be, fled back along the
main passage and jerked open the street door. She ran
squarely into Sperry.
"I--I beg your pardon," stammered he. "I was in such a
rush--I ought to have been thinking where I was going. Did I
hurt you?" This last most anxiously. "I'm so sorry----"
"It's nothing--nothing," laughed Susan. "You are the one
that's hurt."
And in fact she had knocked Sperry breathless. "You don't
look anything like so strong," gasped he.
"Oh, my appearance is deceptive--in a lot of ways."
For instance, he could have got from her face just then no
hint of the agony of fear torturing her--fear of the drop into
the underworld.
"Find Rod?" asked he.
"He wasn't on the stage. So--I came out again."
"Wait here," said Sperry. "I'll hunt him up."
"Oh, no--please don't. I stopped on impulse. I'll not bother
him." She smiled mischievously. "I might be interrupting."
Sperry promptly reddened. She had no difficulty in reading
what was in his mind--that her remark had reminded him of
Rod's "affair," and he was cursing himself for having been so
stupid as to forget it for the moment and put his partner in
danger of detection.
"I--I guess he's gone," stammered Sperry. "Lord, but that was
a knock you gave me! Better come to lunch with me."
Susan hesitated, a wistful, forlorn look in her eyes. "Do you
really want me?" asked she.
"Come right along," said Sperry in a tone that left no doubt
of his sincerity. "We'll go to the Knickerbocker and have
something good to eat."
"Oh, no--a quieter place," urged Susan.
Sperry laughed. "You mean less expensive. There's one of the
great big differences between you and the make-believe ladies
one bumps into in this part of town. _You_ don't like to be
troublesome or expensive. But we'll go to the Knickerbocker.
I feel 'way down today, and I intended to treat myself. You
don't look any too gay-hearted yourself."
"I'll admit I don't like the way the cards are running," said
Susan. "But--they'll run better--sooner or later."
"Sure!" cried Sperry. "You needn't worry about the play.
That's all right. How I envy women!"
"Why?"
"Oh--you have Rod between you and the fight. While I--I've
got to look out for myself."
"So have I," said Susan. "So has everyone, for that matter."
"Believe me, Mrs. Spenser," cried Sperry, earnestly, "you can
count on Rod. No matter what----"
"Please!" protested Susan. "I count on nobody. I learned
long ago not to lean."
"Well, leaning isn't exactly a safe position," Sperry
admitted. "There never was a perfectly reliable crutch.
Tell me your troubles."
Susan smilingly shook her head. "That'd be leaning. . . . No,
thank you. I've got to think it out for myself. I believed
I had arranged for a career for myself. It seems to have gone
to pieces That's all. Something else will turn up--after lunch."
"Not a doubt in the world," replied he confidently.
"Meanwhile--there's Rod."
Susan's laugh of raillery made him blush guiltily. "Yes,"
said she, "there's Rod." She laughed again, merrily.
"There's Rod--but where is there?"
"You're the only woman in the world he has any real liking
for," said Sperry, earnest and sincere. "Don't you ever doubt
that, Mrs. Spenser."
When they were seated in the cafe and he had ordered, he
excused himself and Susan saw him make his way to a table
where sat Fitzalan and another man who looked as if he too had
to do with the stage. It was apparent that Fitzalan was
excited about something; his lips, his arms, his head were in
incessant motion. Susan noted that he had picked up many of
Brent's mannerisms; she had got the habit of noting this
imitativeness in men--and in women, too--from having seen in
the old days how Rod took on the tricks of speech, manner,
expression, thought even, of whatever man he happened at the
time to be admiring. May it not have been this trait of Rod's
that gave her the clue to his character, when she was thinking
him over, after the separation?
Sperry was gone nearly ten minutes. He came, full of
apologies. "Fitz held on to me while he roasted Brent.
You've heard of Brent, of course?"
"Yes," said Susan.
"Fitz has been seeing him off. And he says it's----"
Susan glanced quickly at him. "Off?" she said.
"To Europe."
Susan had paused in removing her left glove. Rod's description
of Brent's way of sidestepping--Rod's description to the last
detail. Her hands fluttered uncertainly--fluttering fingers
like a flock of birds flushed and confused by the bang of the gun.
"And Fitz says----"
"For Europe," said Susan. She was drawing her fingers slowly
one by one from the fingers of her glove.
"Yes. He sailed, it seems, on impulse barely time to climb
aboard. Fitz always lays everything to a woman. He says
Brent has been mixed up for a year or so with---- Oh, it
doesn't matter. I oughtn't to repeat those things. I don't
believe 'em--on principle. Every man--or woman--who amounts
to anything has scandal talked about him or her all the time.
Good Lord! If Robert Brent bothered with half the affairs
that are credited to him, he'd have no time or strength--not
to speak of brains--to do plays."
"I guess even the busiest man manages to fit a woman in
somehow," observed Susan. "A woman or so."
Sperry laughed. "I guess yes," said he. "But as to Brent,
most of the scandal about him is due to a fad of his--hunting
for an undeveloped female genius who----"
"I've heard of that," interrupted Susan. "The service is
dreadfully slow here. How long is it since you ordered?"
"Twenty minutes--and here comes our waiter." And then, being
one of those who must finish whatever they have begun, he went
on. "Well, it's true Brent does pick up and drop a good many
ladies of one kind and another. And naturally, every one of
them is good-looking and clever or he'd not start in.
But--you may laugh at me if you like--I think he's strictly
business with all of them. He'd have got into trouble if he
hadn't been. And Fitz admits this one woman--she's a society
woman--is the only one there's any real basis for talk about
in connection with Brent."
Susan had several times lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips
and had every time lowered it untasted.
"And Brent's mighty decent to those he tries and has to give
up. I know of one woman he carried on his pay roll for nearly
two years----"
"Let's drop Mr. Brent," cried Susan. "Tell me about--about
the play."
"Rod must be giving you an overdose of that."
"I've not seen much of him lately. How was the rehearsal?"
"Fair--fair." And Sperry forgot Brent and talked on and on
about the play, not checking himself until the coffee was
served. He had not observed that Susan was eating nothing.
Neither had he observed that she was not listening; but there
was excuse for this oversight, as she had set her expression
at absorbed attention before withdrawing within herself to
think--and to suffer. She came to the surface again when
Sperry, complaining of the way the leading lady was doing her
part, said: "No wonder Brent drops one after another. Women
aren't worth much as workers. Their real mind's always
occupied with the search for a man to support 'em."
"Not always," cried Susan, quivering with sudden pain. "Oh,
no, Mr. Sperry--not always."
"Yes--there are exceptions," said Sperry, not noting how he had
wounded her. "But--well, I never happened to run across one."
"Can you blame them?" mocked Susan. She was ashamed that she
had been stung into crying out.
"To be honest--no," said Sperry. "I suspect I'd throw up the
sponge and sell out if I had anything a lady with cash wanted
to buy. I only _suspect_ myself. But I _know_ most men would.
No, I don't blame the ladies. Why not have a nice easy time?
Only one short life--and then--the worms."
She was struggling with the re-aroused insane terror of a fall
back to the depths whence she had once more just come--and she
felt that, if she fell again, it would mean the very end of
hope. It must have been instinct or accident, for it
certainly was not any prompting from her calm expression, that
moved him to say:
"Now, tell me _your_ troubles. I've told you mine. . . . You
surely must have some?"
Susan forced a successful smile of raillery. "None to speak
of," evaded she.
When she reached home there was a telegram--from Brent:
Compelled to sail suddenly. Shall be back in a few weeks.
Don't mind this annoying interruption. R. B.
A very few minutes after she read these words, she was at work
on the play. But--a very few minutes thereafter she was
sitting with the play in her lap, eyes gazing into the black
and menacing future. The misgivings of the night before had
been fed and fattened into despairing certainties by the
events of the day. The sun was shining, never more brightly;
but it was not the light of her City of the Sun. She stayed
in all afternoon and all evening. During those hours before
she put out the light and shut herself away in the dark a
score of Susans, every one different from every other, had
been seen upon the little theater of that lodging house
parlor-bedroom. There had been a hopeful Susan, a sad but
resolved Susan, a strong Susan, a weak Susan; there had been
Susans who could not have shed a tear; there had been Susans
who shed many tears--some of them Susans all bitterness,
others Susans all humility and self-reproach. Any spectator
would have been puzzled by this shifting of personality.
Susan herself was completely confused. She sought for her
real self among this multitude so contradictory. Each
successive one seemed the reality; yet none persisted. When
we look in at our own souls, it is like looking into a
many-sided room lined with mirrors. We see
reflections--re-reflections--views at all angles--but we
cannot distinguish the soul itself among all these
counterfeits, all real yet all false because partial.
"What shall I do? What can I do? What will I do?"--that was
her last cry as the day ended. And it was her first cry as
her weary brain awakened for the new day.
At the end of the week came the regular check with a note from
Garvey--less machine-like, more human. He apologized for not
having called, said one thing and another had prevented, and
now illness of a near relative compelled him to leave town for
a few days, but as soon as he came back he would immediately
call. It seemed to Susan that there could be but one reason
why he should call--the reason that would make a timid,
soft-hearted man such as he put off a personal interview as
long as he could find excuses. She flushed hot with rage and
shame as she reflected on her position. Garvey pitying her!
She straightway sat down and wrote:
DEAR MR. GARVEY: Do not send me any more checks until Mr.
Brent comes back and I have seen him. I am in doubt whether
I shall be able to go on with the work he and I had arranged.
She signed this "Susan Lenox" and dispatched it. At once she
felt better in spite of the fact that she had, with
characteristic and fatal folly, her good sense warned her, cut
herself off from all the income in sight or in prospect. She
had debated sending back the check, but had decided that if
she did she might give the impression of pique or anger. No,
she would give him every chance to withdraw from a bargain
with which he was not content; and he would get the idea that
it was she who was ending the arrangement, would therefore
feel no sense of responsibility for her. She would save her
pride; she would spare his feelings. She was taking counsel
of Burlingham these days--was recalling the lesson he had
taught her, was getting his aid in deciding her course.
Burlingham protested vehemently against this sending back of
the check; but she let her pride, her aversion to being an
object of pity, overrule him.
A few days more, and she was so desperate, so harassed that
she altogether lost confidence in her own judgment. While
outwardly she seemed to be the same as always with Rod, she
had a feeling of utter alienation. Still, there was no one
else to whom she could turn. Should she put the facts before
him and ask his opinion? Her intelligence said no; her heart
said perhaps. While she was hesitating, he decided for her.
One morning at breakfast he stopped talking about himself long
enough to ask carelessly:
"About you and Brent--he's gone away. What are you doing?"
"Nothing," said she.
"Going to take that business up again, when he comes back?"
"I don't know."
"I wouldn't count on it, if I were you. . . . You're so
sensitive that I've hesitated to say anything. But I think
that chap was looking for trouble, and when he found you were
already engaged, why, he made up his mind to drop it."
"Do you think so?" said Susan indifferently. "More coffee?"
"Yes--a little. If my play's as good as your coffee----
That's enough, thanks. . . . Do you still draw your--your----"
His tone as he cast about for a fit word made her flush
scarlet. "No--I stopped it until we begin work again."
He did not conceal his thorough satisfaction. "That's right!"
he cried. "The only cloud on our happiness is gone. You
know, a man doesn't like that sort of thing."
"I know," said Susan drily.
And she understood why that very night he for the first time
asked her to supper after the rehearsal with Sperry and
Constance Francklyn, the leading lady, with whom he was having
one of those affairs which as he declared to Sperry were
"absolutely necessary to a man of genius to keep him freshened
up--to keep the fire burning brightly." He had carefully
coached Miss Francklyn to play the part of unsuspected
"understudy"--Susan saw that before they had been seated in
Jack's ten minutes. And she also saw that he was himself
resolved to conduct himself "like a gentleman." But after he
had taken two or three highballs, Susan was forced to engage
deeply in conversation with the exasperated and alarmed Sperry
to avoid seeing how madly Rod and Constance were flirting.
She, however, did contrive to see nothing--at least, the other
three were convinced that she had not seen. When they were
back in their rooms, Rod--whether through pretense or through
sidetracked amorousness or from simple intoxication--became
more demonstrative than he had been for a long time.
"No, there's nobody like you," he declared. "Even if I
wandered I'd always come back to you."
"Really?" said Susan with careless irony. "That's good. No,
I can unhook my blouse."
"I do believe you're growing cold."
"I don't feel like being messed with tonight."
"Oh, very well," said he sulkily. Then, forgetting his ill
humor after a few minutes of watching her graceful movements
and gestures as she took off her dress and made her beautiful
hair ready for the night, he burst out in a very different
tone: "You don't know how glad I am that you're dependent on
me again. You'll not be difficult any more."
A moment's silence, then Susan, with a queer little laugh,
"Men don't in the least mind--do they?"
"Mind what?"
"Being loved for money." There was a world of sarcasm in her
accent on that word loved.
"Oh, nonsense. You don't understand yourself," declared he
with large confidence. "Women never grow up. They're like
babies--and babies, you know, love the person that feeds them."
"And dogs--and cats--and birds--and all the lower orders."
She took a book and sat in a wrapper under the light.
"Come to bed--please, dear," pleaded he.
"No, I'll read a while."
And she held the book before her until he was asleep. Then
she sat a long time, her elbows on her knees, her chin
supported by her hands, her gaze fixed upon his face--the face
of the man who was her master now. She must please him, must
accept what treatment he saw fit to give, must rein in her
ambitions to suit the uncertain gait and staying power of his
ability to achieve. She could not leave him; he could leave
her when he might feel so inclined. Her master--capricious,
tyrannical, a drunkard. Her sole reliance--and the first
condition of his protection was that she should not try to do
for herself. A dependent, condemned to become even more dependent.
XVII
SHE now spent a large part of every day in wandering, like a
derelict, drifting aimlessly this way or that, up into the
Park or along Fifth Avenue. She gazed intently into shop
windows, apparently inspecting carefully all the articles on
display; but she passed on, unconscious of having seen
anything. If she sat at home with a book she rarely turned a
page, though her gaze was fastened upon the print as if she
were absorbingly interested.
What was she feeling? The coarse contacts of street life and
tenement life--the choice between monstrous defilements from
human beings and monstrous defilements from filth and vermin.
What was she seeing? The old women of the slums--the forlorn,
aloof figures of shattered health and looks--creeping along
the gutters, dancing in the barrel houses, sleeping on the
floor in some vile hole in the wall--sleeping the sleep from
which one awakes bitten by mice and bugs, and swarming with lice.
She had entire confidence in Brent's judgment. Brent must
have discovered that she was without talent for the stage--for
if he had thought she had the least talent, would he not in
his kindness have arranged or offered some sort of place in
some theater or other? Since she had no stage
talent--then--what should she do? What _could_ she do? And so
her mind wandered as aimlessly as her wandering steps. And
never before had the sweet melancholy of her eyes been so moving.
But, though she did not realize it, there was a highly
significant difference between this mood of profound
discouragement and all the other similar moods that had
accompanied and accelerated her downward plunges. Every time
theretofore, she had been cowed by the crushing mandate of
destiny--had made no struggle against it beyond the futile
threshings about of aimless youth. This time she lost neither
strength nor courage. She was no longer a child; she was no
longer mere human flotsam and jetsam. She did not know which
way to turn; but she did know, with all the certainty of a
dauntless will, that she would turn some way--and that it
would not be a way leading back to the marshes and caves of
the underworld. She wandered--she wandered aimlessly; but not
for an instant did she cease to keep watch for the right
direction--the direction that would be the best available in
the circumstances. She did not know or greatly care which way
it led, so long as it did not lead back whence she had come.
In all her excursions she had--not consciously but by
instinct--kept away from her old beat. Indeed, except in the
company of Spenser or Sperry she had never ventured into the
neighborhood of Long Acre. But one day she was deflected by
chance at the Forty-second Street corner of Fifth Avenue and
drifted westward, pausing at each book stall to stare at the
titles of the bargain offerings in literature. As she stood
at one of these stalls near Sixth Avenue, she became conscious
that two men were pressing against her, one on either side.
She moved back and started on her way. One of the men was
standing before her. She lifted her eyes, was looking into
the cruel smiling eyes of a man with a big black mustache and
the jaws of a prizefighter. His smile broadened.
"I thought it was you, Queenie," said he. "Delighted to see you."
She recognized him as a fly cop who had been one of Freddie
Palmer's handy men. She fell back a step and the other
man--she knew him instantly as also a policeman--lined up
beside him of the black mustache. Both men were laughing.
"We've been on the lookout for you a long time, Queenie," said
the other. "There's a friend of yours that wants to see you
mighty bad."
Susan glanced from one to the other, her face pale but calm,
in contrast to her heart where was all the fear and horror of
the police which long and savage experience had bred. She
turned away without speaking and started toward Sixth Avenue.
"Now, what d'ye think of that?" said Black Mustache to his
"side kick." "I thought she was too much of a lady to cut an
old friend. Guess we'd better run her in, Pete."
"That's right," assented Pete. "Then we can keep her safe
till F. P. can get the hooks on her."
Black Mustache laughed, laid his hand on her arm. "You'll
come along quietly," said he. "You don't want to make a
scene. You always was a perfect lady."
She drew her arm away. "I am a married woman--living with
my husband."
Black Mustache laughed. "Think of that, Pete! And she
soliciting us. That'll be good news for your loving husband.
Come along, Queenie. Your record's against you. Everybody'll
know you've dropped back to your old ways."
"I am going to my husband," said she quietly. "You had better
not annoy me."
Pete looked uneasy, but Black Mustache's sinister face became
more resolute. "If you wanted to live respectable, why did
you solicit us two? Come along--or do you want me and Pete to
take you by the arms?"
"Very well," said she. "I'll go." She knew the police, knew
that Palmer's lieutenant would act as he said--and she also
knew what her "record" would do toward carrying through the plot.
She walked in the direction of the station house, the two
plain clothes men dropping a few feet behind and rejoining her
only when they reached the steps between the two green lamps.
In this way they avoided collecting a crowd at their heels.
As she advanced to the desk, the sergeant yawning over the
blotter glanced up.
"Bless my soul!" cried he, all interest at once. "If it ain't
F. P.'s Queenie!"
"And up to her old tricks, sergeant," said Black Mustache.
"She solicited me and Pete."
Susan was looking the sergeant straight in the eyes. "I am a
married woman," said she. "I live with my husband. I was
looking at some books in Forty-second Street when these two
came up and arrested me."
The sergeant quailed, glanced at Pete who was guiltily hanging
his head--glanced at Black Mustache. There he got the support
he was seeking. "What's your husband's name?" demanded Black
Mustache roughly. "What's your address?"
And Rod's play coming on the next night but one! She shrank,
collected herself. "I am not going to drag him into this, if
I can help it," said she. "I give you a chance to keep
yourselves out of trouble." She was gazing calmly at the
sergeant again. "You know these men are not telling the
truth. You know they've brought me here because of Freddie
Palmer. My husband knows all about my past. He will stand by
me. But I wish to spare him."
The sergeant's uncertain manner alarmed Black Mustache.
"She's putting up a good, bluff" scoffed he. "The truth is
she ain't got no husband. She'd not have solicited us if she
was living decent."
"You hear what the officer says," said the sergeant, taking
the tone of great kindness. "You'll have to give your name
and address--and I'll leave it to the judge to decide between
you and the officers." He took up his pen. "What's your name?"
Susan, weak and trembling, was clutching the iron rail before
the desk--the rail worn smooth by the nervous hands of ten
thousand of the social system's sick or crippled victims.
"Come--what's your name?" jeered Black Mustache.
Susan did not answer.
"Put her down Queenie Brown," cried he, triumphantly.
The sergeant wrote. Then he said: "Age?"
No answer from Susan. Black Mustache answered for her:
"About twenty-two now."
"She don't look it," said the sergeant, almost at ease once
more. "But brunettes stands the racket better'n blondes.
Native parents?"
No answer.
"Native. You don't look Irish or Dutch or Dago--though you
might have a dash of the Spinnitch or the Frog-eaters. Ever
arrested before?"
No answer from the girl, standing rigid at the bar. Black
Mustache said:
"At least oncet, to my knowledge. I run her in myself."
"Oh, she's got a record?" exclaimed the sergeant, now wholly
at ease. "Why the hell didn't you say so?"
"I thought you remembered. You took her pedigree."
"I do recollect now," said the sergeant. "Take my advice,
Queenie, and drop that bluff about the officers lying.
Swallow your medicine--plead guilty--and you'll get off with a
fine. If you lie about the police, the judge'll soak it to
you. It happens to be a good judge--a friend of Freddie's."
Then to the policemen: "Take her along to court, boys, and
get back here as soon as you can."
"I want her locked up," objected Black Mustache. "I want F. P.
to see her. I've got to hunt for him."
"Can't do it," said the sergeant. "If she makes a yell about
police oppression, our holding on to her would look bad. No,
put her through."
Susan now straightened herself and spoke. "I shan't make any
complaint," said she. "Anything rather than court. I can't
stand that. Keep me here."
"Not on your life!" cried the sergeant. "That's a trick.
She'd have a good case against us."
"F. P.'ll raise the devil if----" began Black Mustache.
"Then hunt him up right away. To court she's got to go. I
don't want to get broke."
The two men fell afoul each other with curse and abuse. They
were in no way embarrassed by the presence of Susan. Her
"record" made her of no account either as a woman or as a
witness. Soon each was so well pleased with the verbal wounds
he had dealt the other that their anger evaporated. The
upshot of the hideous controversy was that Black Mustache said:
"You take her to court, Pete. I'll hunt up F. P. Keep her
till the last."
In after days she could recall starting for the street car
with the officer, Pete; then memory was a blank until she was
sitting in a stuffy room with a prison odor--the anteroom to
the court. She and Pete were alone. He was walking nervously
up and down pulling his little fair mustache. It must have
been that she had retained throughout the impassive features
which, however stormy it was within, gave her an air of
strength and calm. Otherwise Pete would not presently have
halted before her to say in a low, agitated voice:
"If you can make trouble for us, don't do it. I've got a
wife, and three babies--one come only last week--and my old
mother paralyzed. You know how it is with us fellows--that
we've got to do what them higher up says or be broke."
Susan made no reply.
"And F. P.--he's right up next the big fellows nowadays. What
he says goes. You can see for yourself how much chance
against him there'd be for a common low-down cop."
She was still silent, not through anger as he imagined but
because she had no sense of the reality of what was happening.
The officer, who had lost his nerve, looked at her a moment,
in his animal eyes a humble pleading look; then he gave a
groan and turned away. "Oh, hell!" he muttered.
Again her memory ceased to record until--the door swung open;
she shivered, thinking it was the summons to court. Instead,
there stood Freddie Palmer. The instant she looked into his
face she became as calm and strong as her impassive expression
had been falsely making her seem. Behind him was Black
Mustache, his face ghastly, sullen, cowed. Palmer made a
jerky motion of head and arm. Pete went; and the door closed
and she was alone with him.
"I've seen the Judge and you're free," said Freddie.
She stood and began to adjust her hat and veil.
"I'll have those filthy curs kicked off the force."
She was looking tranquilly at him.
"You don't believe me? You think I ordered it done?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "No matter," she said. "It's
undone now. I'm much obliged. It's more than I expected."
"You don't believe me--and I don't blame you. You think I'm
making some sort of grandstand play."
"You haven't changed--at least not much."
"I'll admit, when you left I was wild and did tell 'em to take
you in as soon as they found you. But that was a long time
ago. And I never meant them to disturb a woman who was living
respectably with her husband. There may have been--yes, there
was a time when I'd have done that--and worse. But not any
more. You say I haven't changed. Well, you're wrong. In
some ways I have. I'm climbing up, as I always told you I
would--and as a man gets up he sees things differently. At
least, he acts differently. I don't do _that_ kind of dirty
work, any more."
"I'm glad to hear it," murmured Susan for lack of anything
else to say.
He was as handsome as ever, she saw--had the same charm of
manner--a charm owing not a little of its potency to the
impression he made of the man who would dare as far as any
man, and then go on to dare a step farther--the step from
which all but the rare, utterly unafraid man shrinks. His
look at her could not but appeal to her vanity as woman, and
to her woman's craving for being loved; at the same time it
agitated her with specters of the days of her slavery to him.
He said:
"_You_'ve changed--a lot. And all to the good. The only sign
is rouge on your lips and that isn't really a sign nowadays.
But then you never did look the professional--and you weren't."
His eyes were appealingly tender as he gazed at her sweet,
pensive face, with its violet-gray eyes full of mystery and
sorrow and longing. And the clear pallor of her skin, and
the slender yet voluptuous lines of her form suggested a pale,
beautiful rose, most delicate of flowers yet about the hardiest.
"So--you've married and settled down?"
"No," replied Susan. "Neither the one nor the other."
"Why, you told----"
"I'm supposed to be a married woman."
"Why didn't you give your name and address at the police
station?" said he. "They'd have let you go at once."
"Yes, I know," replied she. "But the newspapers would
probably have published it. So--I couldn't. As it is I've
been worrying for fear I'd be recognized, and the man would
get a write-up."
"That was square," said he. "Yes, it'd have been a dirty
trick to drag him in."
It was the matter-of-course to both of them that she should
have protected her "friend." She had simply obeyed about the
most stringent and least often violated article in the moral
code of the world of outcasts. If Freddie's worst enemy in
that world had murdered him, Freddie would have used his last
breath in shielding him from the common foe, the law.
"If you're not married to him, you're free," said Freddie with
a sudden new kind of interest in her.
"I told you I should always be free."
They remained facing each other a moment. When she moved to
go, he said:
"I see you've still got your taste in dress--only more so."
She smiled faintly, glanced at his clothing. He was dressed
with real fashion. He looked Fifth Avenue at its best, and
his expression bore out the appearance of the well-bred man of
fortune. "I can return the compliment," said she. "And you
too have improved."
At a glance all the old fear of him had gone beyond the
possibility of return. For she instantly realized that, like
all those who give up war upon society and come in and
surrender, he was enormously agitated about his new status,
was impressed by the conventionalities to a degree that made
him almost weak and mildly absurd. He was saying:
"I don't think of anything else but improving--in every way.
And the higher I get the higher I want to go. . . . That was a
dreadful thing I did to you. I wasn't to blame. It was part
of the system. A man's got to do at every stage whatever's
necessary. But I don't expect you to appreciate that. I know
you'll never forgive me."
"I'm used to men doing dreadful things."
"_You_ don't do them."
"Oh, I was brought up badly--badly for the game, I mean. But
I'm doing better, and I shall do still better. I can't
abolish the system. I can't stand out against it--and live.
So, I'm yielding--in my own foolish fashion."
"You don't lay up against me the--the--you know what I mean?"
The question surprised her, so far as it aroused any emotion.
She answered indifferently:
"I don't lay anything up against anybody. What's the use? I
guess we all do the best we can--the best the system'll let us."
And she was speaking the exact truth. She did not reason out
the causes of a state of mind so alien to the experiences of
the comfortable classes that they could not understand it,
would therefore see in it hardness of heart. In fact, the
heart has nothing to do with this attitude in those who are
exposed to the full force of the cruel buffetings of the
storms that incessantly sweep the wild and wintry sea of
active life. They lose the sense of the personal. Where they
yield to anger and revenge upon the instrument the blow fate
has used it to inflict, the resentment is momentary. The mood
of personal vengeance is characteristic of stupid people
leading uneventful lives--of comfortable classes, of remote
rural districts. She again moved to go, this time putting out
her hand with a smile. He said, with an awkwardness most
significant in one so supple of mind and manner:
"I want to talk to you. I've got something to
propose--something that'll interest you. Will you give
me--say, about an hour?"
She debated, then smiled. "You will have me arrested if I refuse?"
He flushed scarlet. "You're giving me what's coming to me,"
said he. "The reason--one reason--I've got on so well is that
I've never been a liar."
"No--you never were that."
"You, too. It's always a sign of bravery, and bravery's the
one thing I respect. Yes, what I said I'd do always I did.
That's the only way to get on in politics--and the crookeder
the politics the more careful a man has to be about acting on
the level. I can borrow a hundred thousand dollars without
signing a paper--and that's more than the crooks in Wall
Street can do--the biggest and best of them. So, when I told
you how things were with me about you, I was on the level."
"I know it," said Susan. "Where shall we go? I can't ask you
to come home with me."
"We might go to tea somewhere----"
Susan laughed outright. Tea! Freddie Palmer proposing tea!
What a changed hooligan--how ridiculously changed! The other
Freddie Palmer--the real one--the fascinating repelling
mixture of all the barbaric virtues and vices must still be
there. But how carefully hidden--and what strong provocation
would be needed to bring that savage to the surface again.
The Italian in him, that was carrying him so far so cleverly,
enabled him instantly to understand her amusement. He echoed
her laugh. Said he:
"You've no idea the kind of people I'm traveling with--not
political swells, but the real thing. What do you say to
the Brevoort?"
She hesitated.
"You needn't be worried about being seen with me, no matter
how high you're flying," he hastened to say. "I always did
keep myself in good condition for the rise. Nothing's known
about me or ever will be."
The girl was smiling at him again. "I wasn't thinking of
those things," said she. "I've never been to the Brevoort."
"It's quiet and respectable."
Susan's eyes twinkled. "I'm glad it's respectable," said she.
"Are you quite sure _you_ can afford to be seen with _me?_ It's
true they don't make the fuss about right and wrong side of
the line that they did a few years ago. They've gotten a
metropolitan morality. Still--I'm not respectable and never
shall be."
"Don't be too hasty about that," protested he, gravely. "But
wait till you hear my proposition."
As they walked through West Ninth Street she noted that there
was more of a physical change in him than she had seen at
first glance. He was less athletic, heavier of form and his
face was fuller. "You don't keep in as good training as you
used," said she.
"It's those infernal automobiles," cried he. "They're death
to figure--to health, for that matter. But I've got the
habit, and I don't suppose I'll ever break myself of it. I've
taken on twenty pounds in the past year, and I've got myself
so upset that the doctor has ordered me abroad to take a cure.
Then there's champagne. I can't let that alone, either,
though I know it's plain poison."
And when they were in the restaurant of the Brevoort he
insisted on ordering champagne--and left her for a moment to
telephone for his automobile. It amused her to see a man so
masterful thus pettily enslaved. She laughed at him, and he
again denounced himself as a weak fool. "Money and luxury are
too much for me. They are for everybody. I'm not as strong
willed as I used to be," he said. "And it makes me uneasy.
That's another reason for my proposition."
"Well--let's hear it," said she. "I happen to be in a
position where I'm fond of hearing propositions--even if I
have no intention of accepting."
She was watching him narrowly. The Freddie Palmer he was
showing to her was a surprising but perfectly logical
development of a side of his character with which she had been
familiar in the old days; she was watching for that other
side--the sinister and cruel side. "But first," he went on,
"I must tell you a little about myself. I think I told you
once about my mother and father?"
"I remember," said Susan.
"Well, honestly, do you wonder that I was what I used to be?"
"No," she answered. "I wonder that you are what you _seem_ to be."
"What I come pretty near being," cried he. "The part that's
more or less put on today is going to be the real thing
tomorrow. That's the way it is with life--you put on a thing,
and gradually learn to wear it. And--I want you to help me."
There fell silence between them, he gazing at his glass of
champagne, turning it round and round between his long
white fingers and watching the bubbles throng riotously up
from the bottom. "Yes," he said thoughtfully, "I want you to
help me. I've been waiting for you. I knew you'd turn up
again." He laughed. "I've been true to you in a way--a man's
way. I've hunted the town for women who suggested you--a poor
sort of makeshift--but--I had to do something."
"What were you going to tell me?"
Her tone was business-like. He did not resent it, but
straightway acquiesced. "I'll plunge right in. I've been, as
you know, a bad one--bad all my life. I was born bad. You
know about my mother and father. One of my sisters died in a
disreputable resort. The other--well, the last I heard of
her, she was doing time in an English pen. I've got a
brother--he's a degenerate. Well!--not to linger over rotten
smells, I was the only one of the family that had brains. I
soon saw that everybody who gets on in the world is bad--which
simply means doing disturbing things of one kind and another.
And I saw that the ordinary crooks let their badness run their
brains, while the get-on kind of people let their brains run
their badness. You can be rotten--and sink lower and lower
every day. Or you can gratify your natural taste for
rottenness and at the same time get up in the world. I made up
my mind to do the rotten things that get a man money and power."
"Respectability," said Susan.
"Respectability exactly. So I set out to improve my brains.
I went to night school and read and studied. And I didn't
stay a private in the gang of toughs. I had the brains to be
leader, but the leader's got to be a fighter too. I took up
boxing and made good in the ring. I got to be leader. Then
I pushed my way up where I thought out the dirty work for the
others to do, and I stayed under cover and made 'em bring the
big share of the profits to me. And they did it because I had
the brains to think out jobs that paid well and that could be
pulled off without getting pinched--at least, not always
getting pinched."
Palmer sipped his champagne, looked at her to see if she was
appreciative. "I thought you'd understand," said he. "I
needn't go into details. You remember about the women?"
"Yes, I remember," said Susan. "That was one step in the
ladder up?"
"It got me the money to make my first play for respectability.
I couldn't have got it any other way. I had extravagant
tastes--and the leader has to be always giving up to help this
fellow and that out of the hole. And I never did have luck
with the cards and the horses."
"Why did you want to be respectable?" she asked.
"Because that's the best graft," explained he. "It means the
most money, and the most influence. The coyotes that raid the
sheep fold don't get the big share--though they may get a good
deal. No, it's the shepherds and the owners that pull off the
most. I've been leader of coyotes. I'm graduating into
shepherd and proprietor."
"I see," said Susan. "You make it beautifully clear."
He bowed and smiled. "Thank you, kindly. Then, I'll go on.
I'm deep in the contracting business now. I've got a pot of
money put away. I've cut out the cards--except a little
gentlemen's game now and then, to help me on with the right
kind of people. Horses, the same way. I've got my political
pull copper-riveted. It's as good with the Republicans as
with Democrats, and as good with the reform crowd as with
either. My next move is to cut loose from the gang. I've put
a lot of lieutenants between me and them, instead of dealing
with them direct. I'm putting in several more fellows I'm not
ashamed to be seen with in Delmonico's."
"What's become of Jim?" asked Susan.
"Dead--a kike shot him all to pieces in a joint in Seventh
Avenue about a month ago. As I was saying, how do these big
multi-millionaires do the trick? They don't tell somebody to
go steal what they happen to want. They tell somebody they
want it, and that somebody else tells somebody else to get it,
and that somebody else passes the word along until it reaches
the poor devils who must steal it or lose their jobs. I
studied it all out, and I've framed up my game the same way.
Nowadays, every dollar that comes to me has been thoroughly
cleaned long before it drops into my pocket. But you're
wondering where _you_ come in."
"Women are only interested in what's coming to them," said Susan.
"Sensible men are the same way. The men who aren't--they work
for wages and salaries. If you're going to live off of other
people, as women and the rich do, you've got to stand steady,
day and night, for Number One. And now, here's where _you_
come in. You've no objection to being respectable?"
"I've no objection to not being disreputable."
"That's the right way to put it," he promptly agreed.
"Respectable, you know, doesn't mean anything but appearances.
People who are really respectable, who let it strike in,
instead of keeping it on the outside where it belongs--they
soon get poor and drop down and out."
Palmer's revelation of himself and of a philosophy which life
as it had revealed itself to her was incessantly urging her to
adopt so grappled her attention that she altogether forgot
herself. A man on his way to the scaffold who suddenly sees
and feels a cataclysm rocking the world about him forgets his
own plight. Unconsciously he was epitomizing, unconsciously
she was learning, the whole story of the progress of the race
upward from beast toward intellect--the brutal and bloody
building of the highway from the caves of darkness toward the
peaks of light. The source from which springs, and ever has
sprung, the cruelty of man toward man is the struggle of the
ambition of the few who see and insist upon better conditions,
with the inertia and incompetence of the many who have little
sight and less imagination. Ambition must use the inert
mass--must persuade it, if possible, must compel it by trick
or force if persuasion fails. But Palmer and Susan Lenox
were, naturally, not seeing the thing in the broad but only as
it applied to themselves.
"I've read a whole lot of history and biography, " Freddie
went on, "and I've thought about what I read and about what's
going on around me. I tell you the world's full of cant. The
people who get there don't act on what is always preached.
The preaching isn't all lies--at least, I think not. But it
doesn't fit the facts a man or a woman has got to meet."
"I realized that long ago," said Susan.
"There's a saying that you can't touch pitch without being
defiled. Well--you can't build without touching pitch--at
least not in a world where money's king and where those with
brains have to live off of those without brains by making 'em
work and showing 'em what to work at. It's a hell of a world,
but __I__ didn't get it up."
"And we've got to live in it," said she, "and get out of it
the things we want and need."
"That's the talk!" cried Palmer. "I see you're `on.' Now--to
make a long story short--you and I can get what we want. We
can help each other. You were better born than I am--you've
had a better training in manners and dress and all the classy
sort of things. I've got the money--and brains enough to
learn with--and I can help you in various ways. So--I propose
that we go up together."
"We've got--pasts," said Susan.
"Who hasn't that amounts to anything? Mighty few. No one
that's made his own pile, I'll bet you.
I'm in a position to do favors for people--the people we'd
need. And I'll get in a position to do more and more. As
long as they can make something out of us--or hope to--do you
suppose they'll nose into our pasts and root things up that'd
injure them as much as us?"
"It would be an interesting game, wouldn't it?" said Susan.
She was reflectively observing the handsome, earnest face
before her--an incarnation of intelligent ambition, a Freddie
Palmer who was somehow divesting himself of himself--was
growing up--away from the rotten soil that had nourished
him--up into the air--was growing strongly--yes, splendidly!
"And we've got everything to gain and nothing to lose,"
pursued he. "We'd not be adventurers, you see. Adventurers
are people who haven't any money and are looking round to try
to steal it. We'd have money. So, we'd be building solid,
right on the rock." The handsome young man--the strongest,
the most intelligent, the most purposeful she had ever met,
except possibly Brent--looked at her with an admiring
tenderness that moved her, the forlorn derelict adrift on the
vast, lonely, treacherous sea. "The reason I've waited for
you to invite you in on this scheme is that I tried you out
and I found that you belong to the mighty few people who do
what they say they'll do, good bargain or bad. It'd never
occur to you to shuffle out of trying to keep your word."
"It hasn't--so far," said Susan.
"Well--that's the only sort of thing worth talking about as
morality. Believe me, for I've been through the whole game
from chimney pots to cellar floor."
"There's another thing, too," said the girl.
"What's that?"
"Not to injure anyone else."
Palmer shook his head positively. "It's believing that and
acting on it that has kept you down in spite of your brains
and looks."
"That I shall never do," said the girl. "It may be
weakness--I guess it is weakness. But--I draw the line there."
"But I'm not proposing that you injure anyone--or proposing to
do it myself. As I said, I've got up where I can afford to be
good and kind and all that. And I'm willing to jump you up
over the stretch of the climb that can't be crossed without
being--well, anything but good and kind."
She was reflecting.
"You'll never get over that stretch by yourself. It'll always
turn you back."
"Just what do you propose?" she asked.
It gave her pleasure to see the keen delight her question,
with its implication of hope, aroused in him. Said he:
"That we go to Europe together and stay over there several
years--as long as you like as long as it's necessary. Stay
till our pasts have disappeared--work ourselves in with the
right sort of people. You say you're not married?"
"Not to the man I'm with."
"To somebody else?"
"I don't know. I was."
"Well--that'll be looked into and straightened out. And then
we'll quietly marry."
Susan laughed. "You're too fast," said she. "I'll admit I'm
interested. I've been looking for a road--one that doesn't
lead toward where we've come from. And this is the first road
that has offered. But I haven't agreed to go in with you
yet--haven't even begun to think it over. And if I did
agree--which I probably won't--why, still I'd not be willing
to marry. That's a serious matter. I'd want to be very, very
sure I was satisfied."
Palmer nodded, with a return of the look of admiration. "I
understand. You don't promise until you intend to stick, and
once you've promised all hell couldn't change you."
"Another thing--very unfortunate, too. It looks to me as if
I'd be dependent on you for money."
Freddie's eyes wavered. "Oh, we'd never quarrel about that,"
said he with an attempt at careless confidence.
"No," replied she quietly. "For the best of reasons. I'd not
consider going into any arrangement where I'd be dependent on
a man for money. I've had my experience. I've learned my
lesson. If I lived with you several years in the sort of
style you've suggested--no, not several years but a few
months--you'd have me absolutely at your mercy. You'd
thought of that, hadn't you?"
His smile was confession.
"I'd develop tastes for luxuries and they'd become
necessities." Susan shook her head. "No--that would be
foolish--very foolish."
He was watching her so keenly that his expression was covert
suspicion. "What do you suggest?" he asked.
"Not what you suspect," replied she, amused. "I'm not making
a play for a gift of a fortune. I haven't anything to suggest."
There was a long silence, he turning his glass slowly and from
time to time taking a little of the champagne thoughtfully.
She observed him with a quizzical expression. It was apparent
to her that he was debating whether he would be making a fool
of himself if he offered her an independence outright.
Finally she said:
"Don't worry, Freddie. I'd not take it, even if you screwed
yourself up to the point of offering it."
He glanced up quickly and guiltily. "Why not?" he said.
"You'd be practically my wife. I can trust you. You've had
experience, so you can't blame me for hesitating. Money puts
the devil in anybody who gets it--man or woman. But I'll
trust you----" he laughed--"since I've got to."
"No. The most I'd take would be a salary. I'd be a sort
of companion."
"Anything you like," cried he. This last suspicion born of a
life of intimate dealings with his fellow-beings took flight.
"It'd have to be a big salary because you'd have to dress and
act the part. What do you say? Is it a go?"
"Oh, I can't decide now."
"When?"
She reflected. "I can tell you in a week."
He hesitated, said, "All right--a week."
She rose to go. "I've warned you the chances are against my
accepting."
"That's because you haven't looked the ground over," replied
he, rising. Then, after a nervous moment, "Is the--is the----"
He stopped short.
"Go on," said she. "We must be frank with each other."
"If the idea of living with me is--is disagreeable----" And
again he stopped, greatly embarrassed--an amazing indication
of the state of mind of such a man as he--of the depth of his
infatuation, of his respect, of his new-sprung awe of
conventionality.
"I hadn't given it a thought," replied she. "Women are not
especially sensitive about that sort of thing."
"They're supposed to be. And I rather thought you were."
She laughed mockingly. "No more than other women," said she.
"Look how they marry for a home--or money--or social
position--and such men! And look how they live with men year
after year, hating them. Men never could do that."
"Don't you believe it," replied he. "They can, and they do.
The kept man--in and out of marriage--is quite a feature of
life in our chaste little village."
Susan looked amused. "Well--why not?" said she. "Everybody's
simply got to have money nowadays."
"And working for it is slow and mighty uncertain."
Her face clouded. She was seeing the sad wretched past from
filthy tenement to foul workshop. She said:
"Where shall I send you word?"
"I've an apartment at Sherry's now."
"Then--a week from today."
She put out her hand. He took it, and she marveled as she
felt a tremor in that steady hand of his. But his voice was
resolutely careless as he said, "So long. Don't forget how
much I want or need you. And if you do forget that, think of
the advantages--seeing the world with plenty of money--and all
the rest of it. Where'll you get such another chance? You'll
not be fool enough to refuse."
She smiled, said as she went, "You may remember I used to be
something of a fool."
"But that was some time ago. You've learned a lot since
then--surely."
"We'll see. I've become--I think--a good deal of a--of a New Yorker."
"That means frank about doing what the rest of the world does
under a stack of lies. It's a lovely world, isn't it?"
"If I had made it," laughed Susan, "I'd not own up to the fact."
She laughed; but she was seeing the old women of the
slums--was seeing them as one sees in the magic mirror the
vision of one's future self. And on the way home she said to
herself, "It was a good thing that I was arrested today. It
reminded me. It warned me. But for it, I might have gone on
to make a fool of myself." And she recalled how it had been
one of Burlingham's favorite maxims that everything is for the
best, for those who know how to use it.
XVIII
SHE wrote Garvey asking an appointment. The reply should have
come the next day or the next day but one at the farthest; for
Garvey had been trained by Brent to the supreme courtesy of
promptness. It did not come until the fourth day; before she
opened it Susan knew about what she would read--the stupidly
obvious attempt to put off facing her--the cowardice of a
kind-hearted, weak fellow. She really had her answer--was
left without a doubt for hope to perch upon. But she wrote
again, insisting so sharply that he came the following day.
His large, tell-tale face was a restatement of what she had
read in his delay and between the lines of his note. He was
effusively friendly with a sort of mortuary suggestion, like
one bearing condolences, that tickled her sense of humor, far
though her heart was from mirth.
"Something has happened," began she, "that makes it necessary
for me to know when Mr. Brent is coming back."
"Really, Mrs. Spencer----"
"Miss Lenox," she corrected.
"Yes--Miss Lenox, I beg your pardon. But really--in my
position--I know nothing of Mr. Brent's plans--and if I did,
I'd not be at liberty to speak of them. I have written him
what you wrote me about the check--and--and--that is all."
"Mr. Garvey, is he ever--has he----" Susan, desperate, burst
out with more than she intended to say: "I care nothing about
it, one way or the other. If Mr. Brent is politely hinting
that I won't do, I've a right to know it. I have a chance at
something else. Can't you tell me?"
"I don't know anything about it--honestly I don't, Miss
Lenox," cried he, swearing profusely.
"You put an accent on the `know,'" said Susan. "You suspect
that I'm right, don't you?"
"I've no ground for suspecting--that is--no, I haven't. He
said nothing to me--nothing. But he never does. He's very
peculiar and uncertain . . . and I don't understand him at all."
"Isn't this his usual way with the failures--his way of
letting them down easily?"
Susan's manner was certainly light and cheerful, an assurance
that he need have no fear of hysterics or despair or any sort
of scene trying to a soft heart. But Garvey could take but
the one view of the favor or disfavor of the god of his
universe. He looked at her like a dog that is getting a
whipping from a friend. "Now, Miss Lenox, you've no right to
put me in this painful----"
"That's true," said Susan, done since she had got what she
sought. "I shan't say another word. When Mr. Brent comes
back, will you tell him I sent for you to ask you to thank him
for me--and say to him that I found something else for which
I hope I'm better suited?"
"I'm so glad," said Garvey, hysterically. "I'm delighted.
And I'm sure he will be, too. For I'm sure he liked you,
personally--and I must say I was surprised when he went. But
I must not say that sort of thing. Indeed, I know nothing,
Miss Lenox--I assure you----"
"And please tell him," interrupted Susan, "that I'd have
written him myself, only I don't want to bother him."
"Oh, no--no, indeed. Not that, Miss Lenox. I'm so sorry.
But I'm only the secretary. I can't say anything."
It was some time before Susan could get rid of him, though he
was eager to be gone. He hung in the doorway, ejaculating
disconnectedly, dropping and picking up his hat, perspiring
profusely, shaking hands again and again, and so exciting her
pity for his misery of the good-hearted weak that she was for
the moment forgetful of her own plight. Long before he went,
he had greatly increased her already strong belief in Brent's
generosity of character--for, thought she, he'd have got
another secretary if he hadn't been too kind to turn adrift so
helpless and foolish a creature. Well--he should have no
trouble in getting rid of her.
She was seeing little of Spenser and they were saying almost
nothing to each other. When he came at night, always very
late, she was in bed and pretended sleep. When he awoke, she
got breakfast in silence; they read the newspapers as they
ate. And he could not spare the time to come to dinner. As
the decisive moment drew near, his fears dried up his
confident volubility. He changed his mind and insisted on her
coming to the theater for the final rehearsals. But
"Shattered Lives" was not the sort of play she cared for, and
she was wearied by the profane and tedious wranglings of the
stage director and the authors, by the stupidity of the actors
who had to be told every little intonation and gesture again
and again. The agitation, the labor seemed grotesquely out of
proportion to the triviality of the matter at issue. At the
first night she sat in a box from which Spenser, in a high
fever and twitching with nervousness, watched the play,
gliding out just before the lights were turned up for the
intermission. The play went better than she had expected, and
the enthusiasm of the audience convinced her that it was a
success before the fall of the curtain on the second act.
With the applause that greeted the chief climax--the end of
the third act--Spenser, Sperry and Fitzalan were convinced.
All three responded to curtain calls. Susan had never seen
Spenser so handsome, and she admired the calmness and the
cleverness of his brief speech of thanks. That line of
footlights between them gave her a new point of view on him,
made her realize how being so close to his weaknesses had
obscured for her his strong qualities--for, unfortunately,
while a man's public life is determined wholly by his strong
qualities, his intimate life depends wholly on his weaknesses.
She was as fond of him as she had ever been; but it was
impossible for her to feel any thrill approaching love. Why?
She looked at his fine face and manly figure; she recalled how
many good qualities he had. Why had she ceased to love him?
She thought perhaps some mystery of physical lack of sympathy
was in part responsible; then there was the fact that she
could not trust him. With many women, trust is not necessary
to love; on the contrary, distrust inflames love. It happened
not to be so with Susan Lenox. "I do not love him. I can
never love him again. And when he uses his power over me, I
shall begin to dislike him." The lost illusion! The dead
love! If she could call it back to life! But no--there it lay,
coffined, the gray of death upon its features. Her heart ached.
After the play Fitzalan took the authors and the leading lady,
Constance Francklyn, and Miss Lenox to supper in a private
room at Rector's. This was Miss Francklyn's first trial in a
leading part. She had small ability as an actress, having
never risen beyond the primer stage of mere posing and
declamation in which so many players are halted by their
vanity--the universal human vanity that is content with small
triumphs, or with purely imaginary triumphs. But she had a
notable figure of the lank, serpentine kind and a bad, sensual
face that harmonized with it. Especially in artificial light
she had an uncanny allure of the elemental, the wild animal in
the jungle. With every disposition and effort to use her
physical charms to further herself she would not have been
still struggling at twenty-eight, had she had so much as a
thimbleful of intelligence.
"Several times," said Sperry to Susan as they crossed Long
Acre together on the way to Rector's, "yes, at least half a
dozen times to my knowledge, Constance had had success right
in her hands. And every time she has gone crazy about some
cheap actor or sport and has thrown it away."
"But she'll get on now," said Susan.
"Perhaps," was Sperry's doubting reply. "Of course, she's got
no brains. But it doesn't take brains to act--that is, to act
well enough for cheap machine-made plays like this. And
nowadays playwrights have learned that it's useless to try to
get actors who can act. They try to write parts that are
actor-proof."
"You don't like your play?" said Susan.
"Like it? I love it. Isn't it going to bring me in a pot of
money? But as a play"--Sperry laughed. "I know Spenser
thinks it's great, but--there's only one of us who can write
plays, and that's Brent. It takes a clever man to write a
clever play. But it takes a genius to write a clever play
that'll draw the damn fools who buy theater seats. And Robert
Brent now and then does the trick. How are you getting on
with your ambition for a career?"
Susan glanced nervously at him. The question, coming upon the
heels of talk about Brent, filled her with alarm lest Rod had
broken his promise and had betrayed her confidence. But
Sperry's expression showed that she was probably mistaken.
"My ambition?" said she. "Oh--I've given it up."
"The thought of work was too much for you--eh?"
Susan shrugged her shoulders.
A sardonic grin flitted over Sperry's Punch-like face. "The
more I see of women, the less I think of 'em," said he. "But
I suppose the men'd be lazy and worthless too, if nature had
given 'em anything that'd sell or rent. . . . Somehow I'm
disappointed in _you_, though."
That ended the conversation until they were sitting down at
the table. Then Sperry said:
"Are you offended by my frankness a while ago?"
"No," replied Susan. "The contrary. Some day your saying
that may help me."
"It's quite true, there's something about you--a look--a
manner--it makes one feel you could do things if you tried."
"I'm afraid that `something' is a fraud," said she. No doubt
it was that something that had misled Brent--that had always
deceived her about herself. No, she must not think herself a
self-deceived dreamer. Even if it was so, still she must not
think it. She must say to herself over and over again "Brent
or no Brent, I shall get on--I shall get on" until she had
silenced the last disheartening doubt.
Miss Francklyn, with Fitzalan on her left and Spenser on her
right, was seated opposite Susan. About the time the third
bottle was being emptied the attempts of Spenser and Constance
to conceal from her their doings became absurd. Long before
the supper was over there had been thrust at her all manner of
proofs that Spenser was again untrue, that he was whirling
madly in one of those cyclonic infatuations which soon wore
him out and left him to return contritely to her. Sperry
admired Susan's manners as displayed in her unruffled
serenity--an admiration which she did not in the least
deserve. She was in fact as deeply interested as she seemed
in his discussion of plays and acting, illustrated by Brent's
latest production. By the time the party broke up, Susan had
in spite of herself collected a formidable array of
incriminating evidence, including the stealing of one of
Constance's jeweled show garters by Spenser under cover of the
tablecloth and a swift kiss in the hall when Constance went
out for a moment and Spenser presently suspended his drunken
praises of himself as a dramatist, and appointed himself a
committee to see what had become of her.
At the door of the restaurant, Spenser said:
"Susan, you and Miss Francklyn take a taxicab. She'll drop
you at our place on her way home. Fitz and Sperry and I want
one more drink."
"Not for me," said Sperry savagely, with a scowl at Constance.
But Fitzalan, whose arm Susan had seen Rod press, remained silent.
"Come on, my dear," cried Miss Francklyn, smiling sweet
insolent treachery into Susan's face.
Susan smiled sweetly back at her. As she was leaving the
taxicab in Forty-fifth Street, she said:
"Send Rod home by noon, won't you? And don't tell him I know."
Miss Francklyn, who had been drinking greedily, began to cry.
Susan laughed. "Don't be a silly," she urged. "If I'm not
upset, why should you be? And how could I blame you two for
getting crazy about each other? I wouldn't spoil it for
worlds. I want to help it on."
"Don't you love him--really?" cried Constance, face and voice
full of the most thrilling theatricalism.
"I'm very fond of him," replied Susan. "We're old, old
friends. But as to love--I'm where you'll be a few months
from now."
Miss Francklyn dried her eyes. "Isn't it the devil!" she
exclaimed. "Why _can't_ it last?"
"Why, indeed," said Susan. "Good night--and don't forget to
send him by twelve o'clock." And she hurried up the steps
without waiting for a reply.
She felt that the time for action had again come--that critical
moment which she had so often in the past seen come and had
let pass unheeded. He was in love with another woman; he was
prosperous, assured of a good income for a long time, though
he wrote no more successes. No need to consider him. For
herself, then--what? Clearly, there could be no future for
her with Rod. Clearly, she must go.
Must go--must take the only road that offered. Up before
her--as in every mood of deep depression--rose the vision of
the old women of the slums--the solitary, bent, broken forms,
clad in rags, feet wrapped in rags--shuffling along in the
gutters, peering and poking among filth, among garbage, to get
together stuff to sell for the price of a drink. The old
women of the tenements, the old women of the gutters, the old
women drunk and dancing as the lecherous-eyed hunchback played
the piano.
She must not this time wait and hesitate and hope; this time
she must take the road that offered--and since it must be
taken she must advance along it as if of all possible roads it
was the only one she would have freely chosen.
Yet after she had written and sent off the note to Palmer, a
deep sadness enveloped her--a grief, not for Rod, but for the
association, the intimacy, their life together, its sorrows
and storms perhaps more than the pleasures and the joys. When
she left him before, she had gone sustained by the feeling
that she was doing it for him, was doing a duty. Now, she was
going merely to save herself, to further herself. Life, life
in that great and hard school of practical living, New York,
had given her the necessary hardiness to go, aided by Rod's
unfaithfulness and growing uncongeniality. But not while she
lived could she ever learn to be hard. She would do what she
must--she was no longer a fool. But she could not help
sighing and crying a little as she did it.
It was not many minutes after noon when Spenser came. He
looked so sheepish and uncomfortable that Susan thought
Constance had told him. But his opening sentence of apology was:
"I took too many nightcaps and Fitz had to lug me home with him."
"Really?" said Susan. "How disappointed Constance must have been!"
Spenser was not a good liar. His face twisted and twitched so
that Susan laughed outright. "Why, you look like a caught
married man," cried she. "You forget we're both free."
"Whatever put that crazy notion in your head--about Miss
Francklyn?" demanded he.
"When you take me or anyone for that big a fool, Rod, you only
show how foolish you yourself are," said she with the utmost
good humor. "The best way to find out how much sense a person has
is to see what kind of lies he thinks'll deceive another person."
"Now--don't get jealous, Susie," soothed he. "You know how a
man is."
The tone was correctly contrite, but Susan felt underneath the
confidence that he would be forgiven--the confidence of the
egotist giddied by a triumph. Said she:
"Don't you think mine's a strange way of acting jealous?"
"But you're a strange woman."
Susan looked at him thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose I am," said
she. "And you'll think me stranger when I tell you what I'm
going to do."
He started up in a panic. And the fear in his eyes pleased
her, at the same time that it made her wince.
She nodded slowly. "Yes, Rod--I'm leaving."
"I'll drop Constance," cried he. "I'll have her put out of
the company."
"No--go on with her till you've got enough--or she has."
"I've got enough, this minute," declared he with convincing
energy and passion. "You must know, dearest, that to me
Constance--all the women I've ever seen--aren't worth your
little finger. You're all that they are, and a whole lot more
besides." He seized her in his arms. "You wouldn't leave
me--you couldn't! You understand how men are--how they get
these fits of craziness about a pair of eyes or a figure or
some trick of voice or manner. But that doesn't affect the
man's heart. I love you, Susan. I adore you."
She did not let him see how sincerely he had touched her. Her
eyes were of their deepest violet, but he had never learned
that sign. She smiled mockingly; the fingers that caressed
his hair were trembling. "We've tided each other over, Rod.
The play's a success. You're all right again--and so am I.
Now's the time to part."
"Is it Brent, Susie?"
"I quit him last week."
"There's no one else. You're going because of Constance!"
She did not deny. "You're free and so am I," said she
practically. "I'm going. So--let's part sensibly. Don't
make a silly scene."
She knew how to deal with him--how to control him through his
vanity. He drew away from her, chilled and sullen. "If you
can live through it, I guess I can," said he. "You're making
a damn fool of yourself--leaving a man that's fond of you--and
leaving when he's successful."
"I always was a fool, you know," said she. She had decided
against explaining to him and so opening up endless and vain
argument. It was enough that she saw it was impossible to
build upon or with him, saw the necessity of trying
elsewhere--unless she would risk--no, invite--finding herself
after a few months, or years, back among the drift, back in
the underworld.
He gazed at her as she stood smiling gently at him--smiling to
help her hide the ache at her heart, the terror before the
vision of the old women of the tenement gutters, earning the
wages, not of sin, not of vice, not of stupidity, but of
indecision, of over-hopefulness--of weakness. Here was the
kind of smile that hurts worse than tears, that takes the
place of tears and sobs and moans. But he who had never
understood her did not understand her now. Her smile
infuriated his vanity. "You can _laugh!_" he sneered.
"Well--go to the filth where you belong! You were born for
it." And he flung out of the room, went noisily down the
stairs. She heard the front door's distant slam; it seemed to
drop her into a chair. She sat there all crouched together
until the clock on the mantel struck two. This roused her
hastily to gather into her trunk such of her belongings as she
had not already packed. She sent for a cab. The man of all
work carried down the trunk and put it on the box. Dressed in
a simple blue costume as if for traveling, she entered the cab
and gave the order to drive to the Grand Central Station.
At the corner she changed the order and was presently entering
the Beaux Arts restaurant where she had asked Freddie to meet
her. He was there, smoking calmly and waiting. At sight of
her he rose. "You'll have lunch?" said he.
"No, thanks."
"A small bottle of champagne?"
"Yes--I'm rather tired."
He ordered the champagne. "And," said he, "it'll be the real
thing--which mighty few New Yorkers get even at the best
places." When it came he sent the waiter away and filled the
glasses himself. He touched the brim of his glass to the
bottom of hers. "To the new deal," said he.
She smiled and nodded, and emptied the glass. Suddenly it
came to her why she felt so differently toward him. She saw
the subtle, yet radical change that always transforms a man of
force of character when his position in the world notably
changes. This man before her, so slightly different in
physical characteristics from the man she had fled, was wholly
different in expression.
"When shall we sail?" asked he. "Tomorrow?"
"First--there's the question of money," said she.
He was much amused. "Still worrying about your independence."
"No," replied she. "I've been thinking it out, and I don't
feel any anxiety about that. I've changed my scheme of life.
I'm going to be sensible and practice what life has taught me.
It seems there's only one way for a woman to get up. Through
some man."
Freddie nodded. "By marriage or otherwise, but always through
a man."
"So I've discovered," continued she. "So, I'm going to play
the game. And I think I can win now. With the aid of what
I'll learn and with the chances I'll have, I can keep my
feeling of independence. You see, if you and I don't get on
well together, I'll be able to look out for myself.
Something'll turn up."
"Or--_somebody_--eh?"
"Or somebody."
"That's candid."
"Don't you want me to be candid? But even if you don't, I've
got to be."
"Yes--truth--especially disagreeable truth--is your long
suit," said he. "Not that I'm kicking. I'm glad you went
straight at the money question. We can settle it and never
think of it again. And neither of us will be plotting to take
advantage of the other, or fretting for fear the other is
plotting. Sometimes I think nearly all the trouble in this
world comes through failure to have a clear understanding
about money matters."
Susan nodded. Said she thoughtfully, "I guess that's why I
came--one of the main reasons. You are wonderfully sensible
and decent about money."
"And the other chap isn't?"
"Oh, yes--and no. He likes to make a woman feel dependent.
He thinks--but that doesn't matter. He's all right."
"Now--for our understanding with each other," said Palmer.
"You can have whatever you want. The other day you said you
wanted some sort of a salary. But if you've changed----"
"No--that's what I want."
"So much a year?"
"So much a week," replied she. "I want to feel, and I want
you to feel, that we can call it off at any time on seven
days' notice."
"But that isn't what I want," said he--and she, watching him
closely if furtively, saw the strong lines deepen round his mouth.
She hesitated. She was seeing the old woman's dance hall, was
hearing the piano as the hunchback played and the old horrors
reeled about, making their palsy rhythmic. She was seeing
this, yet she dared. "Then you don't want me," said she, so
quietly that he could not have suspected her agitation. Never
had her habit of concealing her emotion been so useful to her.
He sat frowning at his glass--debating. Finally he said:
"I explained the other day what I was aiming for. Such an
arrangement as you suggest wouldn't help. You see that?"
"It's all I can do--at present," replied she firmly. And she
was now ready to stand or fall by that decision. She had
always accepted the other previous terms--or whatever terms
fate offered. Result--each time, disaster. She must make no
more fatal blunders. This time, her own terms or not at all.
He was silent a long time. She knew she had convinced him
that her terms were final. So, his delay could only mean that
he was debating whether to accept or to go his way and leave
her to go hers. At last he laughed and said:
"You've become a true New Yorker. You know how to drive a
hard bargain." He looked at her admiringly. "You certainly
have got courage. I happen to know a lot about your affairs.
I've ways of finding out things. And I know you'd not be here
if you hadn't broken with the other fellow first. So, if I
turned your proposition down you'd be up against it--wouldn't you?"
"Yes," said she. "But--I won't in any circumstances tie
myself. I must be free."
"You're right," said he. "And I'll risk your sticking. I'm
a good gambler."
"If I were bound, but didn't want to stay, would I be of much use?"
"Of no use. You can quit on seven minutes' notice, instead of
seven days."
"And you, also," said she.
Laughingly they shook hands. She began to like him in a new
and more promising way. Here was a man, who at least was cast
in a big mold. Nothing small and cheap about him--and Brent
had made small cheap men forever intolerable to her. Yes,
here was a man of the big sort; and a big man couldn't
possibly be a bad man. No matter how many bad things he might
do, he would still be himself, at least, a scorner of the
pettiness and sneakiness and cowardice inseparable from villainy.
"And now," said he, "let's settle the last detail. How much
a week? How would five hundred strike you?"
"That's more than twelve times the largest salary I ever got.
It's many times as much as I made in the----"
"No matter," he hastily interposed. "It's the least you can
hold down the job on. You've got to spend money--for clothes
and so on."
"Two hundred is the most I can take," said she. "It's the
outside limit."
He insisted, but she remained firm. "I will not accustom
myself to much more than I see any prospect of getting
elsewhere," explained she. "Perhaps later on I'll ask for an
increase--later on, when I see how things are going and what
my prospects elsewhere would be. But I must begin modestly."
"Well, let it go at two hundred for the present. I'll deposit
a year's salary in a bank, and you can draw against it. Is
that satisfactory? You don't want me to hand you two hundred
dollars every Saturday, do you?"
"No. That would get on my nerves," said she.
"Now--it's all settled. When shall we sail?"
"There's a girl I've got to look up before I go."
"Maud? You needn't bother about her. She's married to a
piker from up the state--a shoe manufacturer. She's got
a baby, and is fat enough to make two or three like what
she used to be."
"No, not Maud. One you don't know."
"I hoped we could sail tomorrow. Why not take a taxi and go
after her now?"
"It may be a long search."
"She's a----?" He did not need to finish his sentence in order
to make himself understood.
Susan nodded.
"Oh, let her----"
"I promised," interrupted she.
"Then--of course." Freddie drew from his trousers pocket a
huge roll of bills. Susan smiled at this proof that he still
retained the universal habit of gamblers, politicians and
similar loose characters of large income, precariously
derived. He counted off three hundreds and four fifties and
held them out to her. "Let me in on it," said he.
Susan took the money without hesitation. She was used to
these careless generosities of the men of that
class--generosities passing with them and with the unthinking
for evidences of goodness of heart, when in fact no generosity
has any significance whatever beyond selfish vanity unless it
is a sacrifice of necessities--real necessities.
"I don't think I'll need money," said she. "But I may."
"You've got a trunk and a bag on the cab outside," he went on.
"I've told them at Sherry's that I'm to be married."
Susan flushed. She hastily lowered her eyes. But she need
not have feared lest he should suspect the cause of the
blush . . . a strange, absurd resentment of the idea that she
could be married to Freddie Palmer. Live with him--yes. But
marry--now that it was thus squarely presented to her, she
found it unthinkable. She did not pause to analyze this
feeling, indeed could not have analyzed it, had she tried. It
was, however, a most interesting illustration of how she had
been educated at last to look upon questions of sex as a man
looks on them. She was like the man who openly takes a
mistress whom he in no circumstances would elevate to the
position of wife.
"So," he proceeded, "you might as well move in at Sherry's."
"No," objected she. "Let's not begin the new deal until we sail."
The wisdom of this was obvious. "Then we'll take your things
over to the Manhattan Hotel," said he. "And we'll start the
search from there."
But after registering at the Manhattan as Susan Lenox, she
started out alone. She would not let him look in upon any
part of her life which she could keep veiled.
XIX
SHE left the taxicab at the corner of Grand Street and the
Bowery, and plunged into her former haunts afoot. Once again
she had it forced upon her how meaningless in the life history
are the words "time" and "space." She was now hardly any
distance, as measurements go, from her present world, and she
had lived here only a yesterday or so ago. Yet what an
infinity yawned between! At the Delancey Street apartment
house there was already a new janitress, and the kinds of
shops on the ground floor had changed. Only after two hours
of going up and down stairs, of knocking at doors, of
questioning and cross-questioning, did she discover that Clara
had moved to Allen Street, to the tenement in which Susan
herself had for a few weeks lived--those vague, besotted weeks
of despair.
When we go out into the streets with bereavement in mind, we
see nothing but people dressed in mourning. And a similar
thing occurs, whatever the emotion that oppresses us. It
would not have been strange if Susan, on the way to Allen
Street afoot, had seen only women of the streets, for they
swarm in every great thoroughfare of our industrial cities.
They used to come out only at night. But with the passing of
the feeling against them that existed when they were a rare,
unfamiliar, mysteriously terrible minor feature of life, they
issue forth boldly by day, like all the other classes, making
a living as best they can. But on that day Susan felt as if
she were seeing only the broken down and cast-out creatures of
the class--the old women, old in body rather than in years,
picking in the gutters, fumbling in the garbage barrels,
poking and peering everywhere for odds and ends that might
pile up into the price of a glass of the poison sold in the
barrel houses. The old women--the hideous, lonely old
women--and the diseased, crippled children, worse off than the
cats and the dogs, for cat and dog were not compelled to wear
filth-soaked rags. Prosperous, civilized New York!
A group of these children were playing some rough game, in
imitation of their elders, that was causing several to howl
with pain. She heard a woman, being shown about by a
settlement worker or some such person, say:
"Really, not at all badly dressed--for street games. I must
confess I don't see signs of the misery they talk so much about."
A wave of fury passed through Susan. She felt like striking
the woman full in her vain, supercilious, patronizing
face--striking her and saying: "You smug liar! What if you
had to wear such clothes on that fat, overfed body of yours!
You'd realize then how filthy they are!"
She gazed in horror at the Allen Street house. Was it
possible that _she_ had lived there? In the filthy doorway sat
a child eating a dill pickle--a scrawny, ragged little girl
with much of her hair eaten out by the mange. She recalled
this little girl as the formerly pretty and lively youngster,
the daughter of the janitress. She went past the child
without disturbing her, knocked at the janitress' door. It
presently opened, disclosing in a small and foul room four
prematurely old women, all in the family way, two with babies
in arms. One of these was the janitress. Though she was not
a Jewess, she was wearing one of the wigs assumed by orthodox
Jewish women when they marry. She stared at Susan with not a
sign of recognition.
"I am looking for Miss Clara," said Susan.
The janitress debated, shifted her baby from one arm to the
other, glanced inquiringly at the other women. They shook
their heads; she looked at Susan and shook her head. "There
ain't a Clara," said she. "Perhaps she's took another name?"
"Perhaps," conceded Susan. And she described Clara and the
various dresses she had had. At the account of one with
flounces on the skirts and lace puffs in the sleeves, the
youngest of the women showed a gleam of intelligence. "You
mean the girl with the cancer of the breast," said she.
Susan remembered. She could not articulate; she nodded.
"Oh, yes," said the janitress. "She had the third floor back,
and was always kicking because Mrs. Pfister kept a guinea pig
for her rheumatism and the smell came through."
"Has she gone?" asked Susan.
"Couple of weeks."
"Where?"
The janitress shrugged her shoulders. The other women
shrugged their shoulders. Said the janitress:
"Her feller stopped coming. The cancer got awful bad. I've
saw a good many--they're quite plentiful down this way. I
never see a worse'n hers. She didn't have no money. Up to
the hospital they tried a new cure on her that made her
gallopin' worse. The day before I was going to have to go to
work and put her out--she left."
"Can't you give me any idea?" urged Susan.
"She didn't take her things," said the janitress meaningly.
"Not a stitch."
"The--the river?"
The janitress shrugged her shoulders. "She always said she
would, and I guess----"
Again the fat, stooped shoulders lifted and lowered. "She was
most crazy with pain."
There was a moment's silence, then Susan murmured, "Thank
you," and went back to the hall. The house was exhaling a
frightful stench--the odor of cheap kerosene, of things that
passed there for food, of animals human and lower, of death
and decay. On her way out she dropped a dollar into the lap
of the little girl with the mange. A parrot was shrieking
from an upper window. On the topmost fire escape was a row of
geraniums blooming sturdily. Her taxicab had moved up the
street, pushed out of place by a hearse--a white hearse, with
polished mountings, the horses caparisoned in white netting,
and tossing white plumes. A baby's funeral--this mockery of
a ride in state after a brief life of squalor. It was summer,
and the babies were dying like lambs in the shambles. In
winter the grown people were slaughtered; in summer the
children. Across the street, a few doors up, the city dead
wagon was taking away another body--in a plain pine box--to
the Potter's Field where find their way for the final rest one
in every ten of the people of the rich and splendid city of
New York.
Susan hurried into her cab. "Drive fast," she said.
When she came back to sense of her surroundings she was flying
up wide and airy Fifth Avenue with gorgeous sunshine bathing
its palaces, with wealth and fashion and ease all about her.
Her dear City of the Sun! But it hurt her now, was hateful to
look upon. She closed her eyes; her life in the slums, her
life when she was sharing the lot that is really the lot of
the human race as a race, passed before her--its sights and
sounds and odors, its hideous heat, its still more hideous
cold, its contacts and associations, its dirt and disease and
degradation. And through the roar of the city there came to
her a sound, faint yet intense--like the still, small voice
the prophet heard--but not the voice of God, rather the voice
of the multitude of aching hearts, aching in hopeless
poverty--hearts of men, of women, of children----
The children! The multitudes of children with hearts that no
sooner begin to beat than they begin to ache. She opened her
eyes to shut out these sights and that sound of heartache.
She gazed round, drew a long breath of relief. She had almost
been afraid to look round lest she should find that her escape
had been only a dream. And now the road she had chosen--or,
rather, the only road she could take--the road with Freddie
Palmer--seemed attractive, even dazzling. What she could not
like, she would ignore--and how easily she, after her
experience, could do that! What she could not ignore she
would tolerate would compel herself to like.
Poor Clara!--Happy Clara!--better off in the dregs of the
river than she had ever been in the dregs of New York. She
shuddered. Then, as so often, the sense of the grotesque
thrust in, as out of place as jester in cap and bells at a
bier--and she smiled sardonically. "Why," thought she,
"in being squeamish about Freddie I'm showing that I'm more
respectable than the respectable women. There's hardly one
of them that doesn't swallow worse doses with less excuse or
no excuse at all--and without so much as a wry face."
XX
IN the ten days on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Mr. and
Mrs. Palmer, as the passenger list declared them, planned the
early stages of their campaign. They must keep to themselves,
must make no acquaintances, no social entanglements of any
kind, until they had effected the exterior transformation
which was to be the first stride--and a very long one, they
felt--toward the conquest of the world that commands all the
other worlds. Several men aboard knew Palmer slightly--knew
him vaguely as a big politician and contractor. They had a
hazy notion that he was reputed to have been a thug and a
grafter. But New Yorkers have few prejudices except against
guilelessness and failure. They are well aware that the
wisest of the wise Hebrew race was never more sagacious than
when he observed that "he who hasteth to be rich shall not be
innocent." They are too well used to unsavory pasts to bother
much about that kind of odor; and where in the civilized
world--or in that which is not civilized--is there an odor
from reputation--or character--whose edge is not taken off by
the strong, sweet, hypnotic perfume of money? Also, Palmer's
appearance gave the lie direct to any scandal about him. It
could not be--it simply could not be--that a man of such
splendid physical build, a man with a countenance so handsome,
had ever been a low, wicked fellow! Does not the devil always
at once exhibit his hoofs, horns, tail and malevolent smile,
that all men may know who and what he is? A frank, manly
young leader of men--that was the writing on his countenance.
And his Italian blood put into his good looks an ancient and
aristocratic delicacy that made it incredible that he was of
low origin. He spoke good English, he dressed quietly; he
did not eat with his knife; he did not retire behind a napkin
to pick his teeth, but attended to them openly, if necessity
compelled--and splendid teeth they were, set in a wide, clean
mouth, notably attractive for a man's. No, Freddie Palmer's
past would not give him any trouble whatever; in a few years
it would be forgotten, would be romanced about as the heroic
struggles of a typical American rising from poverty.
"Thank God," said Freddie, "I had sense enough not to get a
jail smell on me!"
Susan colored painfully--and Palmer, the sensitive, colored
also. But he had the tact that does not try to repair a
blunder by making a worse one; he pretended not to see Susan's
crimson flush.
_Her_ past would not be an easy matter--if it should ever rise
to face her publicly. Therefore it must not rise till Freddie
and she were within the walls of the world they purposed to
enter by stealth, and had got themselves well intrenched.
Then she would be Susan Lenox of Sutherland, Indiana, who had
come to New York to study for the stage and, after many trials
from all of which she had emerged with unspotted virtue,
whatever vicious calumny might in envy say, had captured the
heart and the name of the handsome, rich young contractor.
There would be nasty rumors, dreadful stories, perhaps. But
in these loose and cynical days, with the women more and more
audacious and independent, with the universal craving for
luxury beyond the reach of laboriously earned incomes, with
marriage decaying in city life among the better classes--in
these easy-going days, who was not suspected, hinted about,
attacked? And the very atrociousness of the stories would
prevent their being believed. One glance at Susan would be
enough to make doubters laugh at their doubts.
The familiar types of fast women of all degrees come from the
poorest kinds of farms and from the tenements. In America,
practically not until the panics and collapses of recent years
which have tumbled another and better section of the middle
class into the abyss of the underworld--not until then did
there appear in the city streets and houses of ill repute any
considerable number of girls from good early surroundings.
Before that time, the clamor for luxury--the luxury that
civilization makes as much a necessity as food--had been
satisfied more or less by the incomes of the middle class; and
any girl of that class, with physical charm and shrewdness
enough to gain a living as outcast woman, was either supported
at home or got a husband able to give her at least enough of
what her tastes craved to keep her in the ranks of the
reputable. Thus Susan's beauty of refinement, her speech and
manner of the lady, made absurd any suggestion that she could
ever have been a fallen woman. The crimson splash of her
rouged lips did not suggest the _cocotte_, but the lady with a
dash of gayety in her temperament. This, because of the
sweet, sensitive seriousness of her small, pallid face with
its earnest violet-gray eyes and its frame of abundant dark
hair, simply and gracefully arranged. She was of the advance
guard of a type which the swift downfall of the middle class,
the increasing intelligence and restlessness and love of
luxury among women, and the decay of formal religion with its
exactions of chastity as woman's one diamond-fine jewel, are
now making familiar in every city. The demand for the
luxurious comfort which the educated regard as merely decent
existence is far outstripping the demand for, and the
education of, women in lucrative occupations other than
prostitution.
Luckily Susan had not been arrested under her own name; there
existed no court record which could be brought forward as
proof by some nosing newspaper.
Susan herself marveled that there was not more trace of her
underworld experience in her face and in her mind. She could
not account for it. Yet the matter was simple enough to one
viewing it from the outside. It is what we think, what we
feel about ourselves, that makes up our expression of body and
soul. And never in her lowest hour had her soul struck its
flag and surrendered to the idea that she was a fallen
creature. She had a temperament that estimated her acts not
as right and wrong but as necessity. Men, all the rest of the
world, might regard her as nothing but sex symbol; she
regarded herself as an intelligence. And the filth slipped
from her and could not soak in to change the texture of her
being. She had no more the feeling or air of the _cocotte_
than has the married woman who lives with her husband for a
living. Her expression, her way of looking at her fellow
beings and of meeting their looks, was that of the woman of
the world who is for whatever reason above that slavery to
opinion, that fear of being thought bold or forward which
causes women of the usual run to be sensitive about staring or
being stared at. Sometimes--in _cocottes_, in stage women, in
fashionable women--this expression is self-conscious, or
supercilious. It was not so with Susan, for she had little
self-consciousness and no snobbishness at all. It merely gave
the charm of worldly experience and expertness to a beauty
which, without it, might have been too melancholy.
Susan, become by sheer compulsion philosopher about the
vagaries of fat, did not fret over possible future dangers.
She dismissed them and put all her intelligence and energy to
the business in hand--to learning and to helping Palmer learn
the ways of that world which includes all worlds.
Toward the end of the voyage she said to him:
"About my salary--or allowance--or whatever it is---- I've
been thinking things over. I've made up my mind to save some
money. My only chance is that salary. Have you any objection
to my saving it--as much of it as I can?"
He laughed. "Tuck away anything and everything you can lay
your hands on," said he. "I'm not one of those fools who
try to hold women by being close and small with them.
I'd not want you about if you were of the sort that
could be held that way."
"No--I'll put by only from my salary," said she. "I admit
I've no right to do that. But I've become sensible enough to
realize that I mustn't ever risk being out again with no
money. It has got on my mind so that I'd not be able to think
of much else for worrying--unless I had at least a little."
"Do you want me to make you independent?"
"No," replied she. "Whatever you gave me I'd have to give
back if we separated."
"_That_ isn't the way to get on, my dear," said he.
"It's the best I can do--as yet," replied she. "And it's
quite an advance on what I was. Yes, I _am_ learning--slowly."
"Save all your salary, then," said Freddie. "When you buy
anything charge it, and I'll attend to the bill."
Her expression told him that he had never made a shrewder
move in his life. He knew he had made himself secure against
losing her; for he knew what a force gratitude was in her
character.
Her mind was now free--free for the educational business in
hand. She appreciated that he had less to learn than she.
Civilization, the science and art of living, of extracting all
possible good from the few swift years of life, has
been--since the downfall of woman from hardship, ten or
fifteen thousand years ago--the creation of the man almost
entirely. Until recently among the higher races such small
development of the intelligence of woman as her seclusion and
servitude permitted was sporadic and exotic. Nothing
intelligent was expected of her--and it is only under the
compulsion of peremptory demand that any human being ever is
roused from the natural sluggishness. But civilization,
created _by_ man, was created _for_ woman. Woman has to learn
how to be the civilized being which man has ordained that she
shall be--how to use for man's comfort and pleasure the
ingenuities and the graces he has invented.
It is easy for a man to pick up the habits, tastes, manners
and dress of male citizens of the world, if he has as keen
eyes and as discriminating taste as had Palmer, clever
descendant of the supple Italian. But to become a female
citizen of the world is not so easy. For Susan to learn to be
an example of the highest civilization, from her inmost
thoughts to the outermost penumbra of her surroundings--that
would be for her a labor of love, but still a labor. As her
vanity was of the kind that centers on the advantages she
actually had, instead of being the more familiar kind that
centers upon non-existent charms of mind and person, her task
was possible of accomplishment--for those who are sincerely
willing to learn, who sincerely know wherein they lack, can
learn, can be taught. As she had given these matters of
civilization intelligent thought she knew where to begin--at
the humble, material foundation, despised and neglected by
those who talk most loudly about civilization, art, culture,
and so on. They aspire to the clouds and the stars at
once--and arrive nowhere except in talk and pretense and
flaunting of ill-fitting borrowed plumage. They flap their
gaudy artificial wings; there is motion, but no ascent. Susan
wished to build--and build solidly. She began with the
so-called trifles.
When they had been at Naples a week Palmer said:
"Don't you think we'd better push on to Paris?"
"I can't go before Saturday," replied she. "I've got several
fittings yet."
"It's pretty dull here for me--with you spending so much time
in the shops. I suppose the women's shops are
good"--hesitatingly--"but I've heard those in Paris are better."
"The shops here are rotten. Italian women have no taste in
dress. And the Paris shops are the best in the world."
"Then let's clear out," cried he. "I'm bored to death. But
I didn't like to say anything, you seemed so busy."
"I am busy. And--can you stand it three days more?"
"But you'll only have to throw away the stuff you buy here.
Why buy so much?"
"I'm not buying much. Two ready-to-wear Paris dresses--models
they call them--and two hats."
Palmer looked alarmed. "Why, at that rate," protested he,
"it'll take you all winter to get together your winter
clothes, and no time left to wear 'em."
"You don't understand," said she. "If you want to be treated
right in a shop--be shown the best things--have your orders
attended to, you've got to come looking as if you knew what
the best is. I'm getting ready to make a good first
impression on the dressmakers and milliners in Paris."
"Oh, you'll have the money, and that'll make 'em step round."
"Don't you believe it," replied she. "All the money in the
world won't get you _fashionable_ clothes. at the most
fashionable place. It'll only get you _costly_ clothes."
"Maybe that's so for women's things. It isn't for men's."
"I'm not sure of that. When we get to Paris, we'll see. But
certainly it's true for women. If I went to the places in the
rue de la Paix dressed as I am now, it'd take several years to
convince them that I knew what I wanted and wouldn't be
satisfied with anything but the latest and best. So I'm
having these miserable dressmakers fit those dresses on me
until they're absolutely perfect. It's wearing me out, but
I'll be glad I did it."
Palmer had profound respect for her as a woman who knew what
she was about. So he settled himself patiently and passed
the time investigating the famous Neapolitan political machine
with the aid of an interpreter guide whom he hired by the day.
He was enthusiastic over the dresses and the hats when Susan
at last had them at the hotel and showed herself to him in
them. They certainly did work an amazing change in her. They
were the first real Paris models she had ever worn.
"Maybe it's because I never thought much about women's clothes
before," said Freddie, "but those things seem to be the best
ever. How they do show up your complexion and your figure!
And I hadn't any idea your hair was as grand as all that. I'm
a little afraid of you. We've got to get acquainted all over
again. These clothes of mine look pretty poor, don't they?
Yet I paid all kinds of money for 'em at the best place in
Fifth Avenue."
He examined her from all points of view, going round and round
her, getting her to walk up and down to give him the full
effect of her slender yet voluptuous figure in that
beautifully fitted coat and skirt. He felt that his dreams
were beginning to come true.
"We'll do the trick!" cried he. "Don't you think about money
when you're buying clothes. It's a joy to give up for clothes
for you. You make 'em look like something."
"Wait till I've shopped a few weeks in Paris," said Susan.
"Let's start tonight," cried he. "I'll telegraph to the Ritz
for rooms."
When she began to dress in her old clothes for the journey, he
protested. "Throw all these things away," he urged. "Wear
one of the new dresses and hats."
"But they're not exactly suitable for traveling."
"People'll think you lost your baggage. I don't want ever to
see you again looking any way except as you ought to look."
"No, I must take care of those clothes," said she firmly.
"It'll be weeks before I can get anything in Paris, and I must
keep up a good front."
He continued to argue with her until it occurred to him that
as his own clothes were not what they should be, he and she
would look much better matched if she dressed as she wished.
He had not been so much in jest as he thought when he said to
her that they would have to get acquainted all over again.
Those new clothes of hers brought out startlingly--so clearly
that even his vanity was made uneasy--the subtle yet profound
difference of class between them. He had always felt this
difference, and in the old days it had given him many a savage
impulse to degrade her, to put her beneath him as a punishment
for his feeling that she was above him. Now he had his
ambition too close at heart to wish to rob her of her chief
distinction; he was disturbed about it, though, and looked
forward to Paris with uneasiness.
"You must help me get my things," said he.
"I'd be glad to," said she. "And you must be frank with me,
and tell me where I fall short of the best of the women we see."
He laughed. The idea that he could help her seemed fantastic.
He could not understand it--how this girl who had been brought
up in a jay town away out West, who had never had what might
be called a real chance to get in the know in New York, could
so quickly pass him who had been born and bred in New York,
had spent the last ten years in cultivating style and all the
other luxurious tastes. He did not like to linger on this
puzzle; the more he worked at it, the farther away from him
Susan seemed to get. Yet the puzzle would not let him drop it.
They came in at the Gare de Lyon in the middle of a beautiful
October afternoon. Usually, from late September or earlier
until May or later, Paris has about the vilest climate that
curses a civilized city. It is one of the bitterest ironies
of fate that a people so passionately fond of the sun, of the
outdoors, should be doomed for two-thirds of the year to live
under leaden, icily leaking skies with rarely a ray of real
sunshine. And nothing so well illustrates the exuberant
vitality, the dauntless spirit of the French people, as the
way they have built in preparation for the enjoyment of every
bit of the light and warmth of any chance ray of sunshine.
That year it so fell that the winter rains did not close in
until late, and Paris reveled in a long autumn of almost New
York perfection. Susan and Palmer drove to the Ritz through
Paris, the lovely, the gay.
"This is the real thing--isn't it?" said he, thrilled into
speech by that spectacle so inspiring to all who have the joy
of life in their veins--the Place de l'Opera late on a bright
afternoon.
"It's the first thing I've ever seen that was equal to what I
had dreamed about it," replied she.
They had chosen the Ritz as their campaign headquarters
because they had learned that it was the most fashionable
hotel in Paris--which meant in the world. There were hotels
more grand, the interpreter-guide at Naples had said; there
were hotels more exclusive. There were even hotels more
comfortable. "But for fashion," said he, "it is the summit.
There you see the most beautiful ladies, most beautifully
dressed. There you see the elegant world at tea and at dinner."
At first glance they were somewhat disappointed in the quiet,
unostentatious general rooms. The suite assigned them--at a
hundred and twenty francs a day--was comfortable, was the most
comfortable assemblage of rooms either had ever seen. But
there was nothing imposing. This impression did not last
long, however. They had been misled by their American passion
for looks. They soon discovered that the guide at Naples had
told the literal truth. They went down for tea in the garden,
which was filled as the day was summer warm. Neither spoke as
they sat under a striped awning umbrella, she with tea
untasted before her, he with a glass of whiskey and soda he
did not lift from the little table. Their eyes and their
thoughts were too busy for speech; one cannot talk when one is
thinking. About them were people of the world of which
neither had before had any but a distant glimpse. They heard
English, American, French, Italian. They saw men and women
with that air which no one can define yet everyone knows on
sight--the assurance without impertinence, the politeness
without formality, the simplicity that is more complex than
the most elaborate ornamentation of dress or speech or manner.
Susan and Freddie lingered until the departure of the last
couple--a plainly dressed man whose clothes on inspection
revealed marvels of fineness and harmonious color; a quietly
dressed woman whose costume from tip of plume to tip of suede
slipper was a revelation of how fine a fine art the toilet can
be made.
"Well--we're right in it, for sure," said Freddie, dropping to
a sofa in their suite and lighting a cigarette.
"Yes," said Susan, with a sigh. "In it--but not of it."
"I almost lost my nerve as I sat there. And for the life of
me I can't tell why."
"Those people know how," replied Susan. "Well--what they've
learned we can learn."
"Sure," said he energetically. "It's going to take a lot of
practice--a lot of time. But I'm game." His expression, its
suggestion of helplessness and appeal, was a clear confession
of a feeling that she was his superior.
"We're both of us ignorant," she hastened to say. "But when
we get our bearings--in a day or two--we'll be all right."
"Let's have dinner up here in the sitting-room. I haven't got
the nerve to face that gang again today"
"Nonsense!" laughed she. "We mustn't give way to our
feelings--not for a minute. There'll be a lot of people as
badly off as we are. I saw some this afternoon--and from the
way the waiters treated them, I know they had money or
something. Put on your evening suit, and you'll be all right.
I'm the one that hasn't anything to wear. But I've got to go
and study the styles. I must begin to learn what to wear and
now to wear it. We've come to the right place, Freddie.
Cheer up!"
He felt better when he was in evening clothes which made him
handsome indeed, bringing out all his refinement of feature
and coloring. He was almost cheerful when Susan came into the
sitting-room in the pale gray of her two new toilettes. It
might be, as she insisted, that she was not dressed properly
for fashionable dining; but there would be no more delicate,
no more lady-like loveliness. He quite recovered his nerve
when they faced the company that had terrified him in
prospect. He saw many commonplace looking people, not a few
who were downright dowdy. And presently he had the
satisfaction of realizing that not only Susan but he also was
getting admiring attention. He no longer floundered
panic-stricken; his feet touched bottom and he felt foolish
about his sensations of a few minutes before.
After all, the world over, dining in a restaurant is nothing
but dining in a restaurant. The waiter and the head waiter
spoke English, were gracefully, tactfully, polite; and as he
ordered he found his self-confidence returning with the
surging rush of a turned tide on a low shore. The food was
wonderful, and the champagne, "English taste," was the best he
had ever drunk. Halfway through dinner both he and Susan were
in the happiest frame of mind. The other people were drinking
too, were emerging from caste into humanness. Women gazed
languorously and longingly at the handsome young American; men
sent stealthy or open smiles of adoration at Susan whenever
Freddie's eyes were safely averted. But Susan was more
careful than a woman of the world to which she aspired would
have been; she ignored the glances and without difficulty
assumed the air of wife.
"I don't believe we'll have any trouble getting acquainted
with these people," said Freddie.
"We don't want to, yet," replied she.
"Oh, I feel we'll soon be ready for them," said he.
"Yes--that," said she. "But that amounts to nothing. This
isn't to be merely a matter of clothes and acquaintances--at
least, not with me."
"What then?" inquired he.
"Oh--we'll see as we get our bearings." She could not have
put into words the plans she was forming--plans for educating
and in every way developing him and herself. She was not sure
at what she was aiming, but only of the direction. She had no
idea how far she could go herself--or how far he would consent
to go. The wise course was just to work along from day to
day--keeping the direction.
"All right. I'll do as you say. You've got this game sized
up better than I."
Is there any other people that works as hard as do the
Parisians? Other peoples work with their bodies; but the
Parisians, all classes and masses too, press both mind and
body into service. Other peoples, if they think at all, think
how to avoid work; the Parisians think incessantly, always,
how to provide themselves with more to do. Other peoples
drink to stupefy themselves lest peradventure in a leisure
moment they might be seized of a thought; Parisians drink to
stimulate themselves, to try to think more rapidly, to attract
ideas that might not enter and engage a sober and therefore
somewhat sluggish brain. Other peoples meet a new idea as if
it were a mortal foe; the Parisians as if it were a long-lost
friend. Other peoples are agitated chiefly, each man or
woman, about themselves; the Parisians are full of their work,
their surroundings, bother little about themselves except as
means to what they regard as the end and aim of life--to make
the world each moment as different as possible from what it
was the moment before, to transform the crass and sordid
universe of things with the magic of ideas. Being
intelligent, they prefer good to evil; but they have God's own
horror of that which is neither good nor evil, and spew it out
of their mouths.
At the moment of the arrival of Susan and Palmer the world
that labors at amusing itself was pausing in Paris on its way
from the pleasures of sea and mountains to the pleasures of
the Riviera and Egypt. And as the weather held fine, day
after day the streets, the cafes, the restaurants, offered the
young adventurers an incessant dazzling panorama of all they
had come abroad to seek. A week passed before Susan permitted
herself to enter any of the shops where she intended to buy
dresses, hats and the other and lesser paraphernalia of the
woman of fashion.
"I mustn't go until I've seen," said she. "I'd yield to the
temptation to buy and would regret it."
And Freddie, seeing her point, restrained his impatience for
making radical changes in himself and in her. The fourth day
of their stay at Paris he realized that he would buy, and
would wish to buy, none of the things that had tempted him the
first and second days. Secure in the obscurity of the crowd
of strangers, he was losing his extreme nervousness about
himself. That sort of emotion is most characteristic of
Americans and gets them the reputation for profound
snobbishness. In fact, it is not snobbishness at all. In no
country on earth is ignorance in such universal disrepute as
in America. The American, eager to learn, eager to be abreast
of the foremost, is terrified into embarrassment and awe when
he finds himself in surroundings where are things that he
feels he ought to know about--while a stupid fellow, in such
circumstances, is calmly content with himself, wholly unaware
of his own deficiencies.
Susan let full two weeks pass before she, with much
hesitation, gave her first order toward the outfit on which
Palmer insisted upon her spending not less than five thousand
dollars. Palmer had been going to the shops with her. She
warned him it would make prices higher if she appeared with a
prosperous looking man; but he wanted occupation and
everything concerning her fascinated him now. His ignorance
of the details of feminine dress was giving place rapidly to
a knowledge which he thought profound--and it was profound,
for a man. She would not permit him to go with her to order,
however, or to fittings. All she would tell him in advance
about this first dress was that it was for evening wear and
that its color was green. "But not a greeny green," said she.
"I understand. A green something like the tint in your skin
at the nape of your neck."
"Perhaps," admitted she. "Yes."
"We'll go to the opera the evening it comes home. I'll have
my new evening outfit from Charvet's by that time."
It was about ten days after this conversation that she told
him she had had a final fitting, had ordered the dress sent
home. He was instantly all excitement and rushed away to
engage a good box for the opera. With her assistance he had
got evening clothes that sent through his whole being a glow
of self-confidence--for he knew that in those clothes, he
looked what he was striving to be. They were to dine at
seven. He dressed early and went into their sitting-room.
He was afraid he would spoil his pleasure of complete surprise
by catching a glimpse of the _grande toilette_ before it was
finished. At a quarter past seven Susan put her head into the
sitting-room--only her head. At sight of his anxious face,
his tense manner, she burst out laughing. It seemed, and was,
grotesque that one so imperturbable of surface should be so upset.
"Can you stand the strain another quarter of an hour?" said she.
"Don't hurry," he urged. "Take all the time you want. Do the
thing up right." He rose and came toward her with one hand
behind him. "You said the dress was green, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well--here's something you may be able to fit in somewhere."
And he brought the concealed hand into view and held a jewel
box toward her.
She reached a bare arm through the crack in the door and took
it. The box, the arm, the head disappeared. Presently there
was a low cry of delight that thrilled him. The face
reappeared. "Oh--Freddie!" she exclaimed, radiant. "You must
have spent a fortune on them."
"No. Twelve thousand--that's all. It was a bargain. Go on
dressing. We'll talk about it afterward." And he gently
pushed her head back--getting a kiss in the palm of his
hand--and drew the door to.
Ten minutes later the door opened part way again. "Brace
yourself," she called laughingly. "I'm coming."
A breathless pause and the door swung wide. He stared with
eyes amazed and bewitched. There is no more describing the
effects of a harmonious combination of exquisite dress and
exquisite woman than there is reproducing in words the magic
and the thrill of sunrise or sunset, of moonlight's fanciful
amorous play, or of starry sky. As the girl stood there, her
eyes starlike with excitement, her lips crimson and sensuous
against the clear old-ivory pallor of her small face in its
frame of glorious dark hair, it seemed to him that her soul,
more beautiful counterpart of herself, had come from its
dwelling place within and was hovering about her body like an
aureole. Round her lovely throat was the string of emeralds.
Her shoulders were bare and also her bosom, over nearly half
its soft, girlish swell. And draped in light and clinging
grace about her slender, sensuous form was the most wonderful
garment he had ever seen. The great French designers of
dresses and hats and materials have a genius for taking an
idea--a pure poetical abstraction--and materializing it,
making it visible and tangible without destroying its
spirituality. This dress of Susan's did not suggest matter
any more than the bar of music suggests the rosined string
that has given birth to it. She was carrying the train and a
pair of long gloves in one hand. The skirt, thus drawn back,
revealed her slim, narrow foot, a slender slipper of pale
green satin, a charming instep with a rosiness shimmering
through the gossamer web of pale green silk, the outline of a
long, slender leg whose perfection was guaranteed by the
beauty of her bare arm.
His expression changed slowly from bedazzlement to the nearest
approach to the old slumbrous, smiling wickedness she had seen
since they started. And her sensitive instinct understood; it
was the menace of an insane jealousy, sprung from fear--fear of
losing her. The look vanished, and once again he was Freddie
Palmer the delighted, the generous and almost romantically
considerate, because everything was going as he wished.
"No wonder I went crazy about you," he said.
"Then you're not disappointed?"
He came to her, unclasped the emeralds, stood off and viewed
her again. "No--you mustn't wear them," said he.
"Oh!" she cried, protesting. "They're the best of all."
"Not tonight," said he. "They look cheap. They spoil the
effect of your neck and shoulders. Another time, when you're
not quite so wonderful, but not tonight."
As she could not see herself as he saw her, she pleaded for
the jewels. She loved jewels and these were the first she had
ever had, except two modest little birthday rings she had left
in Sutherland. But he led her to the long mirror and
convinced her that he was right. When they descended to the
dining-room, they caused a stir. It does not take much to
make fashionable people stare; but it does take something to
make a whole room full of them quiet so far toward silence
that the discreet and refined handling of dishes in a
restaurant like the Ritz sounds like a vulgar clatter. Susan
and Palmer congratulated themselves that they had been at the
hotel long enough to become acclimated and so could act as if
they were unconscious of the sensation they were creating.
When they finished dinner, they found all the little tables in
the long corridor between the restaurant and the entrance
taken by people lingering over coffee to get another and
closer view. And the men who looked at her sweet dreaming
violet-gray eyes said she was innocent; those who looked at
her crimson lips said she was gay; those who saw both eyes and
lips said she was innocent--as yet. A few very dim-sighted,
and very wise, retained their reason sufficiently to say that
nothing could be told about a woman from her looks--especially
an American woman. She put on the magnificent cloak, white
silk, ermine lined, which he had seen at Paquin's and had
insisted on buying. And they were off for the opera in the
aristocratic looking auto he was taking by the week.
She had a second triumph at the opera--was the center that
drew all glasses the instant the lights went up for the
intermission. There were a few minutes when her head was
quite turned, when it seemed to her that she had arrived very
near to the highest goal of human ambition--said goal being
the one achieved and so self-complacently occupied by these
luxurious, fashionable people who were paying her the tribute
of interest and admiration. Were not these people at the top
of the heap? Was she not among them, of them, by right of
excellence in the things that made them, distinguished them?
Ambition, drunk and heavy with luxury, flies sluggishly and low.
And her ambition was--for the moment--in danger of that fate.
During the last intermission the door of their box opened. At
once Palmer sprang up and advanced with beaming face and
extended hand to welcome the caller.
"Hello, Brent, I _am_ glad to see you! I want to introduce you
to Mrs. Palmer"--that name pronounced with the unconscious
pride of the possessor of _the_ jewel.
Brent bowed. Susan forced a smile.
"We," Palmer hastened on, "are on a sort of postponed
honeymoon. I didn't announce the marriage--didn't want to have
my friends out of pocket for presents. Besides, they'd have
sent us stuff fit only to furnish out a saloon or a hotel--and
we'd have had to use it or hurt their feelings. My wife's a
Western girl--from Indiana. She came on to study for the
stage. But"--he laughed delightedly--"I persuaded her to
change her mind."
"You are from the West?" said Brent in the formal tone one
uses in addressing a new acquaintance. "So am I. But that's
more years ago than you could count. I live in New York--when
I don't live here or in the Riviera."
The moment had passed when Susan could, without creating an
impossible scene, admit and compel Brent to admit that they
knew each other. What did it matter? Was it not best to
ignore the past? Probably Brent had done this deliberately,
assuming that she was beginning a new life with a clean slate.
"Been here long?" said Brent to Palmer.
As he and Palmer talked, she contrasted the two men. Palmer
was much the younger, much the handsomer. Yet in the
comparison Brent had the advantage. He looked as if he
amounted to a great deal, as if he had lived and had
understood life as the other man could not. The physical
difference between them was somewhat the difference between
look of lion and look of tiger. Brent looked strong; Palmer,
dangerous. She could not imagine either man failing of a
purpose he had set his heart upon. She could not imagine
Brent reaching for it in any but an open, direct, daring way.
She knew that the descendant of the supple Italians, the
graduate of the street schools of stealth and fraud, would not
care to have anything unless he got it by skill at subtlety.
She noted their dress. Brent was wearing his clothes in that
elegantly careless way which it was one of Freddie's
dreams--one of the vain ones--to attain. Brent's voice was
much more virile, was almost harsh, and in pronouncing some
words made the nerves tingle with a sensation of mingled
irritation and pleasure. Freddie's voice was manly enough,
but soft and dangerous, suggestive of hidden danger. She
compared the two men, as she knew them. She wondered how they
would seem to a complete stranger. Palmer, she thought, would
be able to attract almost any woman he might want; it seemed
to her that a woman Brent wanted would feel rather helpless
before the onset he would make.
It irritated her, this untimely intrusion of Brent who had the
curious quality of making all other men seem less in the
comparison. Not that he assumed anything, or forced
comparisons; on the contrary, no man could have insisted less
upon himself. Not that he compelled or caused the transfer of
all interest to himself. Simply that, with him there, she
felt less hopeful of Palmer, less confident of his ability to
become what he seemed--and go beyond it. There are occasional
men who have this same quality that Susan was just then
feeling in Brent--men whom women never love yet who make it
impossible for them to begin to love or to continue to love
the other men within their range.
She was not glad to see him. She did not conceal it. Yet she
knew that he would linger--and that she would not oppose. She
would have liked to say to him: "You lost belief in me and
dropped me. I have begun to make a life for myself. Let me
alone. Do not upset me--do not force me to see what I must
not see if I am to be happy. Go away, and give me a chance."
But we do not say these frank, childlike things except in
moments of closest intimacy--and certainly there was no
suggestion of intimacy, no invitation to it, but the reverse,
in the man facing her at the front of the box.
"Then you are to be in Paris some time?" said Brent,
addressing her.
"I think so," said Susan.
"Sure," cried Palmer. "This is the town the world revolves
round. I felt like singing `Home, Sweet Home' as we drove
from the station."
"I like it better than any place on earth," said Brent.
"Better even than New York. I've never been quite able to
forgive New York for some of the things it made me suffer
before it gave me what I wanted."
"I, too," said Freddie. "My wife can't understand that. She
doesn't know the side of life we know. I'm going to smoke a
cigarette. I'll leave you here, old man, to entertain her."
When he disappeared, Susan looked out over the house with an
expression of apparent abstraction. Brent--she was
conscious--studied her with those seeing eyes--hazel eyes
with not a bit of the sentimentality and weakness of brown in
them. "You and Palmer know no one here?"
"Not a soul."
"I'll be glad to introduce some of my acquaintances to
you--French people of the artistic set. They speak English.
And you'll soon be learning French."
"I intend to learn as soon as I've finished my fall shopping."
"You are not coming back to America?"
"Not for a long time."
"Then you will find my friends useful."
She turned her eyes upon his. "You are very kind," said she.
"But I'd rather--we'd rather--not meet anyone just yet."
His eyes met hers calmly. It was impossible to tell whether
he understood or not. After a few seconds he glanced out over
the house. "That is a beautiful dress," said he. "You have
real taste, if you'll permit me to say so. I was one of those
who were struck dumb with admiration at the Ritz tonight."
"It's the first grand dress I ever possessed," said she.
"You love dresses--and jewels--and luxury?"
"As a starving man loves food."
"Then you are happy?"
"Perfectly so--for the first time in my life."
"It is a kind of ecstasy--isn't it? I remember how it was
with me. I had always been poor--I worked my way through prep
school and college. And I wanted _all_ the luxuries. The more
I had to endure--the worse food and clothing and lodgings--the
madder I became about them, until I couldn't think of anything
but getting the money to buy them. When I got it, I gorged
myself. . . . It's a pity the starving man can't keep on loving
food--keep on being always starving and always having his
hunger satisfied."
"Ah, but he can."
He smiled mysteriously. "You think so, now. Wait till you
are gorged."
She laughed. "You don't know! I could never get enough--never!"
His smile became even more mysterious. As he looked away, his
profile presented itself to her view--an outline of sheer
strength, of tragic sadness--the profile of those who have
dreamed and dared and suffered. But the smile, saying no to
her confident assertion, still lingered.
"Never!" she repeated. She must compel that smile to take
away its disquieting negation, its relentless prophecy of the
end of her happiness. She must convince him that he had come
back in vain, that he could not disturb her.
"You don't suggest to me the woman who can be content with
just people and just things. You will always insist on
luxury. But you will demand more." He looked at her again.
"And you will get it," he added, in a tone that sent a wave
through her nerves.
Her glance fell. Palmer came in, bringing an odor of cologne
and of fresh cigarette fumes. Brent rose. Palmer laid a
detaining hand on his shoulder. "Do stay on, Brent, and go to
supper with us."
"I was about to ask you to supper with me. Have you been to
the Abbaye?"
"No. We haven't got round to that yet. Is it lively?"
"And the food's the best in Paris. You'll come?"
Brent was looking at Susan. Palmer, not yet educated in the
smaller--and important--refinements of politeness, did not
wait for her reply or think that she should be consulted.
"Certainly," said he. "On condition that you dine with us
tomorrow night."
"Very well," agreed Brent. And he excused himself to take
leave of his friends. "Just tell your chauffeur to go to the
Abbaye--he'll know," he said as he bowed over Susan's hand.
"I'll be waiting. I wish to be there ahead and make sure of
a table."
As the door of the box closed upon him Freddie burst out with
that enthusiasm we feel for one who is in a position to render
us good service and is showing a disposition to do so. "I've
known him for years," said he, "and he's the real thing. He
used to spend a lot of time in a saloon I used to keep in
Allen Street."
"Allen Street?" ejaculated Susan, shivering.
"I was twenty-two then. He used to want to study types, as he
called it. And I gathered in types for him--though really my
place was for the swell crooks and their ladies. How long ago
that seems--and how far away!"
"Another life," said Susan.
"That's a fact. This is my second time on earth. _Our_ second time.
I tell you it's fighting for a foothold that makes men and women
the wretches they are. Nowadays, I couldn't hurt a fly--could you?
But then you never were cruel. That's why you stayed down so long."
Susan smiled into the darkness of the auditorium--the curtain was
up, and they were talking in undertones. She said, as she smiled:
"I'll never go down and stay down for that reason again."
Her tone arrested his attention; but he could make nothing of
it or of her expression, though her face was clear enough in
the reflection from the footlights.
"Anyhow, Brent and I are old pals," continued he, "though we
haven't seen so much of each other since he made a hit with
the plays. He always used to predict I'd get to the top and
be respectable. Now that it's come true, he'll help me.
He'll introduce us, if we work it right."
"But we don't want that yet," protested Susan.
"You're ready and so am I," declared Palmer in the tone she
knew had the full strength of his will back of it.
Faint angry hissing from the stalls silenced them, but as
soon as they were in the auto Susan resumed. "I have told Mr.
Brent we don't want to meet his friends yet."
"Now what the hell did you do that for?" demanded Freddie. It
was the first time she had crossed him; it was the first time
he had been reminiscent of the Freddie she used to know.
"Because," said she evenly, "I will not meet people under
false pretenses."
"What rot!"
"I will not do it," replied she in the same quiet way.
He assumed that she meant only one of the false pretenses--the
one that seemed the least to her. He said:
"Then we'll draw up and sign a marriage contract and date it
a couple of years ago, before the new marriage law was passed
to save rich men's drunken sons from common law wives."
"I am already married," said Susan. "To a farmer out in Indiana."
Freddie laughed. "Well, I'll be damned! You! You!" He
looked at her ermine-lined cloak and laughed again. "An
Indiana farmer!" Then he suddenly sobered. "Come to think of
it," said he, "that's the first thing you ever told me about
your past."
"Or anybody else," said Susan. Her body was quivering, for we
remember the past events with the sensations they made upon us
at the time. She could smell that little room in the
farmhouse. Allen Street and all the rest of her life in the
underworld had for her something of the vagueness of
dreams--not only now but also while she was living that life.
But not Ferguson, not the night when her innocent soul was
ravished as a wolf rips up and munches a bleating lamb. No
vagueness of dreams about that, but a reality to make her
shudder and reel whenever she thought of it--a reality vivider
now that she was a woman grown in experiences and understanding.
"He's probably dead--or divorced you long ago."
"I do not know."
"I can find out--without stirring things up. What was his name?"
"Ferguson."
"What was his first name?"
She tried to recall. "I think--it was Jim. Yes, it was Jim."
She fancied she could hear the voice of that ferocious sister
snapping out that name in the miserable little coop of a
general room in that hot, foul, farm cottage.
"Where did he live?"
"His farm was at the edge of Zeke Warham's place--not far from
Beecamp, in Jefferson County."
She lapsed into silence, seemed to be watching the gay night
streets of the Montmartre district--the cafes, the music
halls, the sidewalk shows, the throngs of people every man and
woman of them with his or her own individual variation upon
the fascinating, covertly terrible face of the Paris mob.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, when a remark brought
no answer.
"The past," said she. "And the future."
"Well--we'll find out in a few days that your farmer's got no
claim on you--and we'll attend to that marriage contract and
everything'll be all right."
"Do you want to marry me?" she asked, turning on him suddenly.
"We're as good as married already," replied he. "Your tone
sounds as if _you_ didn't want to marry _me_." And he laughed
at the absurdity of such an idea.
"I don't know whether I do or not," said she slowly.
He laid a gentle strong hand on her knee. Gentle though it
was, she felt its strength through the thickness of her cloak.
"When the time comes," said he in the soft voice with the
menace hidden in it, "you'll know whether you do or don't.
You'll know you _do_--Queenie."
The auto was at the curb before the Abbaye. And on the steps,
in furs and a top hat, stood the tall, experienced looking,
cynical looking playwright. Susan's eyes met his, he lifted
his hat, formal, polite.
"I'll bet he's got the best table in the place," said Palmer,
before opening the door, "and I'll bet it cost him a bunch."
XXI
BRENT had an apartment in the rue de Rivoli, near the Hotel
Meurice and high enough to command the whole Tuileries garden.
From his balcony he could see to the east the ancient courts
of the Louvre, to the south the varied, harmonious facades of
the Quay d'Orsay with the domes and spires of the Left Bank
behind, to the west the Obelisque, the long broad reaches of
the Champs Elysees with the Arc de Triomphe at the boundary of
the horizon. On that balcony, with the tides of traffic far
below, one had a sense of being at the heart of the world,
past, present, and to come. Brent liked to feel at home
wherever he was; it enabled him to go tranquilly to work
within a few minutes after his arrival, no matter how far he
had journeyed or how long he had been away. So he regarded it
as an economy, an essential to good work, to keep up the house
in New York, a villa in Petite Afrique, with the Mediterranean
washing its garden wall, this apartment at Paris; and a
telegram a week in advance would reserve him the same quarters
in the quietest part of hotels at Luzerne, at St. Moritz and
at Biarritz.
Susan admired, as he explained his scheme of life to her and
Palmer when they visited his apartment. Always profound
tranquillity in the midst of intense activity. He could shut
his door and he as in a desert; he could open it, and the most
interesting of the sensations created by the actions and
reactions of the whole human race were straightway beating
upon his senses. As she listened, she looked about, her eyes
taking in impressions to be studied at leisure. These
quarters of his in Paris were fundamentally different from
those in New York, were the expression of a different side of
his personality. It was plain that he loved them, that they
came nearer to expressing his real--that is, his inmost--self.
"Though I work harder in Paris than in New York," he
explained, "I have more leisure because it is all one kind of
work--writing--at which I'm never interrupted. So I have time
to make surroundings for myself. No one has time for
surroundings in New York."
She observed that of the scores of pictures on the walls,
tables, shelves of the three rooms they were shown, every one
was a face--faces of all nationalities, all ages, all
conditions--faces happy and faces tragic, faces homely, faces
beautiful, faces irradiating the fascination of those abnormal
developments of character, good and bad, which give the
composite countenance of the human race its distinction, as
the characteristics themselves give it intensities of light
and shade. She saw angels, beautiful and ugly, devils
beautiful and ugly.
When she began to notice this peculiarity of those rooms, she
was simply interested. What an amazing collection! How much
time and thought it must have taken! How he must have
searched--and what an instinct he had for finding the unusual,
the significant! As she sat there and then strolled about and
then sat again, her interest rose into a feverish excitement.
It was as if the ghosts of all these personalities, not one of
them commonplace, were moving through the rooms, were pressing
upon her. She understood why Brent had them there--that they
were as necessary to him as cadavers and skeletons and
physiological charts to an anatomist. But they oppressed,
suffocated her; she went out on the balcony and watched the
effects of the light from the setting sun upon and around the
enormously magnified Arc.
"You don't like my rooms," said Brent.
"They fascinate me," replied she. "But I'd have to get used to
these friends of yours. You made their acquaintance one or a few
at a time. It's very upsetting, being introduced to all at once."
She felt Brent's gaze upon her--that unfathomable look which
made her uneasy, yet was somehow satisfying, too. He said, after
a while, "Palmer is to give me his photograph. Will you give me
yours?" He was smiling. "Both of you belong in my gallery."
"Of course she will," said Palmer, coming out on the balcony
and standing beside her. "I want her to have some taken right
away--in the evening dress she wore to the Opera last week.
And she must have her portrait painted."
"When we are settled," said Susan. "I've no time for anything
now but shopping."
They had come to inspect the apartment above Brent's, and had
decided to take it; Susan saw possibilities of making it over
into the sort of environment of which she had dreamed. In
novels the descriptions of interiors, which weary most
readers, interested her more than story or characters. In her
days of abject poverty she used these word paintings to
construct for herself a room, suites of rooms, a whole house,
to replace, when her physical eyes closed and her eyes of
fancy opened wide, the squalid and nauseous cell to which
poverty condemned her. In the streets she would sometimes
pause before a shop window display of interior furnishings; a
beautiful table or chair, a design in wall or floor covering
had caught her eyes, had set her to dreaming--dreaming on and
on--she in dingy skirt and leaky shoes. Now--the chance to
realize her dreams had come. Palmer had got acquainted with
some high-class sports, American, French and English, at an
American bar in the rue Volney. He was spending his
afternoons and some of his evenings with them--in the
evenings winning large sums from them at cards at which he
was now as lucky as at everything else. Palmer, pleased by
Brent's manner toward Susan--formal politeness, indifference to
sex--was glad to have him go about with her. Also Palmer was
one of those men who not merely imagine they read human nature
but actually can read it. He _knew_ he could trust Susan. And
it had been his habit--as it is the habit of all successful
men--to trust human beings, each one up to his capacity for
resisting temptation to treachery.
"Brent doesn't care for women--as women," said he. "He never
did. Don't you think he's queer?"
"He's different," replied Susan. "He doesn't care much for
people--to have them as intimates. I understand why. Love
and friendship bore one--or fail one--and are
unsatisfactory--and disturbing. But if one centers one's life
about things--books, pictures, art, a career--why, one is
never bored or betrayed. He has solved the secret of
happiness, I think."
"Do you think a woman could fall in love with him?" he asked,
with an air of the accidental and casual.
"If you mean, could I fall in love with him," said she, "I
should say no. I think it would either amuse or annoy him to
find that a woman cared about him."
"Amuse him most of all," said Palmer. "He knows the
ladies--that they love us men for what we can give them."
"Did you ever hear of anyone, man or woman, who cared about a
person who couldn't give them anything?"
Freddie's laugh was admission that he thought her right. "The
way to get on in politics," observed he, "is to show men that
it's to their best interest to support you. And that's the
way to get on in everything else--including love."
Susan knew that this was the truth about life, as it appeared
to her also. But she could not divest herself of the human
aversion to hearing the cold, practical truth. She wanted
sugar coating on the pill, even though she knew the sugar made
the medicine much less effective, often neutralized it
altogether. Thus Palmer's brutally frank cynicism got upon
her nerves, whereas Brent's equally frank cynicism attracted
her because it was not brutal. Both men saw that life was a
coarse practical joke. Palmer put the stress on the
coarseness, Brent upon the humor.
Brent recommended and introduced to her a friend of his, a
young French Jew named Gourdain, an architect on the way up to
celebrity. "You will like his ideas and he will like yours,"
said Brent.
She had acquiesced in his insistent friendship for Palmer and
her, but she had not lowered by an inch the barrier of her
reserve toward him. His speech and actions at all times,
whether Palmer was there or not; suggested that he respected
the barrier, regarded it as even higher and thicker than it
was. Nevertheless she felt that he really regarded the
barrier as non-existent. She said:
"But I've never told you my ideas."
"I can guess what they are. Your surroundings will simply be
an extension of your dress."
She would not have let him see--she would not have admitted to
herself--how profoundly the subtle compliment pleased her.
Because a man's or a woman's intimate personal taste is good
it by no means follows that he or she will build or decorate
or furnish a house well. In matters of taste, the greater
does not necessarily include the less, nor does the less imply
the greater. Perhaps Susan would have shown she did not
deserve Brent's compliment, would have failed ignominiously in
that first essay of hers, had she not found a Gourdain,
sympathetic, able to put into the concrete the rather vague
ideas she had evolved in her dreaming. An architect is like
a milliner or a dressmaker. He supplies the model, product of
his own individual taste. The person who employs him must
remold that form into an expression of his own
personality--for people who deliberately live in surroundings
that are not part of themselves are on the same low level with
those who utter only borrowed ideas. That is the object and
the aim of civilization--to encourage and to compel each
individual to be frankly himself--herself. That is the
profound meaning of freedom. The world owes more to bad
morals and to bad taste that are spontaneous than to all the
docile conformity to the standards of morals and of taste,
however good. Truth--which simply means an increase of
harmony, a decrease of discord, between the internal man and
his environment--truth is a product, usually a byproduct, of
a ferment of action.
Gourdain--chiefly, no doubt, because Susan's beauty of face
and figure and dress fascinated him--was more eager to bring
out her individuality than to show off his own talents. He
took endless pains with her, taught her the technical
knowledge and vocabulary that would enable her to express
herself, then carried out her ideas religiously. "You are
right, _mon ami_," said he to Brent. "She is an orchid, and of
a rare species. She has a glorious imagination, like a bird
of paradise balancing itself into an azure sky, with every
plume raining color and brilliancy."
"Somewhat exaggerated," was Susan's pleased, laughing comment
when Brent told her.
"Somewhat," said Brent. "But my friend Gourdain is stark mad
about women's dressing well. That lilac dress you had on
yesterday did for him. He _was_ your servant; he _is_ your slave."
Abruptly--for no apparent cause, as was often the case--Susan
had that sickening sense of the unreality of her luxurious
present, of being about to awaken in Vine Street with Etta--or
in the filthy bed with old Mrs. Tucker. Absently she glanced
down at her foot, holding it out as if for inspection. She
saw Brent's look of amusement at her seeming vanity.
"I was looking to see if my shoes were leaky," she explained.
A subtle change came over his face. He understood instantly.
"Have you ever been--cold?" she asked, looking at him strangely.
"One cold February--cold and damp--I had no underclothes--and
no overcoat."
"And dirty beds--filthy rooms--filthy people?"
"A ten-cent lodging house with a tramp for bedfellow."
They were looking at each other, with the perfect understanding
and sympathy that can come only to two people of the same fiber
who have braved the same storms. Each glanced hastily away.
Her enthusiasm for doing the apartment was due full as much to
the fact that it gave her definitely directed occupation as to
its congeniality. That early training of hers from Aunt Fanny
Warham had made it forever impossible for her in any
circumstances to become the typical luxuriously sheltered
woman, whether legally or illegally kept--the lie-abed woman,
the woman who dresses only to go out and show off, the woman
who wastes her life in petty, piffling trifles--without
purpose, without order or system, without morals or personal
self-respect. She had never lost the systematic instinct--the
instinct to use time instead of wasting it--that Fanny Warham
had implanted in her during the years that determine
character. Not for a moment, even without distinctly definite
aim, was she in danger of the creeping paralysis that is
epidemic among the rich, enfeebling and slowing down mental
and physical activity. She had a regular life; she read, she
walked in the Bois; she made the best of each day. And when
this definite thing to accomplish offered, she did not have to
learn how to work before she could begin the work itself.
All this was nothing new to Gourdain. He was born and bred in
a country where intelligent discipline is the rule and the
lack of it the rare exception--among all classes--even among
the women of the well-to-do classes.
The finished apartment was a disappointment to Palmer. Its
effects were too quiet, too restrained. Within certain small
limits, those of the man of unusual intelligence but no marked
originality, he had excellent taste--or, perhaps, excellent
ability to recognize good taste. But in the large he yearned
for the grandiose. He loved the gaudy with which the rich
surround themselves because good taste forbids them to talk of
their wealth and such surroundings do the talking for them and
do it more effectively. He would have preferred even a vulgar
glitter to the unobtrusiveness of those rooms. But he knew
that Susan was right, and he was a very human arrant coward
about admitting that he had bad taste.
"This is beautiful--exquisite," said he, with feigned
enthusiasm. "I'm afraid, though, it'll be above their heads."
"What do you mean?" inquired Susan.
Palmer felt her restrained irritation, hastened to explain.
"I mean the people who'll come here. They can't appreciate
it. You have to look twice to appreciate this--and people,
the best of 'em, look only once and a mighty blind look it is."
But Susan was not deceived. "You must tell me what changes
you want," said she. Her momentary irritation had vanished.
Since Freddie was paying, Freddie must have what suited him.
"Oh, I've got nothing to suggest. Now that I've been studying
it out, I couldn't allow you to make any changes. It does
grow on one, doesn't it, Brent?"
"It will be the talk of Paris," replied Brent.
The playwright's tone settled the matter for Palmer. He was
content. Said he:
"Thank God she hasn't put in any of those dirty old tapestry
rags--and the banged up, broken furniture and the patched crockery."
At the same time she had produced an effect of long tenancy.
There was nothing that glittered, nothing with the offensive
sheen of the brand new. There was in that delicately toned
atmosphere one suggestion which gave the same impression as
the artificial crimson of her lips in contrast with the pallor
of her skin and the sweet thoughtful melancholy of her eyes.
This suggestion came from an all-pervading odor of a heavy,
languorously sweet, sensuous perfume--the same that Susan
herself used. She had it made at a perfumer's in the faubourg
St. Honore by mixing in a certain proportion several of the
heaviest and most clinging of the familiar perfumes.
"You don't like my perfume?" she said to Brent one day.
He was in the library, was inspecting her _selections_ of
books. Instead of answering her question, he said:
"How did you find out so much about books? How did you find
time to read so many?"
"One always finds time for what one likes."
"Not always," said he. "I had a hard stretch once--just after
I struck New York. I was a waiter for two months. Working
people don't find time for reading--and such things."
"That was one reason why I gave up work," said she.
"That--and the dirt--and the poor wages--and the
hopelessness--and a few other reasons," said he.
"Why don't you like the perfume I use?"
"Why do you say that?"
"You made a queer face as you came into the drawing-room."
"Do _you_ like it?"
"What a queer question!" she said. "No other man would have
asked it."
"The obvious," said he, shrugging his shoulders.
"I couldn't help knowing you didn't like it."
"Then why should I use it?"
His glance drifted slowly away from hers. He lit a cigarette
with much attention to detail.
"Why should I use perfume I don't like?" persisted she.
"What's the use of going into that?" said he.
"But I do like it--in a way," she went on after a pause. "It
is--it seems to me the odor of myself."
"Yes--it is," he admitted.
She laughed. "Yet you made a wry face."
"I did."
"At the odor?"
"At the odor."
"Do you think I ought to change to another perfume?"
"You know I do not. It's the odor of your soul. It is
different at different times--sometimes inspiringly sweet as
the incense of heaven, as my metaphoric friend Gourdain would
say--sometimes as deadly sweet as the odors of the drugs men
take to drag them to hell--sometimes repulsively sweet, making
one heart sick for pure, clean smell-less air yet without the
courage to seek it. Your perfume is many things, but
always--always strong and tenacious and individual."
A flush had overspread the pallor of her skin; her long dark
lashes hid her eyes.
"You have never been in love," he went on.
"So you told me once before." It was the first time either
had referred to their New York acquaintance.
"You did not believe me then. But you do now?"
"For me there is no such thing as love," replied she. "I
understand affection--I have felt it. I understand passion.
It is a strong force in my life--perhaps the strongest."
"No," said he, quiet but positive.
"Perhaps not," replied she carelessly, and went on, with her
more than manlike candor, and in her manner of saying the most
startling things in the calmest way:
"I understand what is called love--feebleness looking up to
strength or strength pitying feebleness. I understand because
I've felt both those things. But love--two equal people united
perfectly, merged into a third person who is neither yet is
both--that I have not felt. I've dreamed it. I've imagined
it--in some moments of passion. But"--she laughed and
shrugged her shoulders and waved the hand with the cigarette
between its fingers--"I have not felt it and I shall not feel
it. I remain I." She paused, considered, added, "And I
prefer that."
"You are strong," said he, absent and reflective. "Yes, you
are strong."
"I don't know," replied she. "Sometimes I think so.
Again----" She shook her head doubtfully.
"You would be dead if you were not. As strong in soul as in body."
"Probably," admitted she. "Anyhow, I am sure I shall always
be--alone. I shall visit--I shall linger on my threshold and
talk. Perhaps I shall wander in perfumed gardens and dream of
comradeship. But I shall return _chez moi_."
He rose--sighed--laughed--at her and at himself. "Don't delay
too long," said he.
"Delay?"
"Your career."
"My career? Why, I am in the full swing of it. I'm at work
in the only profession I'm fit for."
"The profession of woman?"
"Yes--the profession of female."
He winced--and at this sign, if she did not ask herself what
pleased her, she did not ask herself why. He said sharply, "I
don't like that."
"But _you_ have only to _hear_ it. Think of poor me who have to
_live_ it."
"Have to? No," said he.
"Surely you're not suggesting that I drop back into the
laboring classes! No, thank you. If you knew, you'd not say
anything so stupid."
"I do know, and I was not suggesting that. Under this
capitalistic system the whole working class is degraded.
They call what they do `work,' but that word ought to be
reserved for what a man does when he exercises mind and body
usefully. What the working class is condemned to by
capitalism is not work but toil."
"The toil of a slave," said Susan.
"It's shallow twaddle or sheer want to talk about the dignity
and beauty of labor under this system," he went on. "It is
ugly and degrading. The fools or hypocrites who talk that way
ought to be forced to join the gangs of slaves at their tasks
in factory and mine and shop, in the fields and the streets.
And even the easier and better paid tasks, even what the
capitalists themselves do--those things aren't dignified and
beautiful. Capitalism divides all men except those of one
class--the class to which I luckily belong--divides all other
men into three unlovely classes--slave owners, slave drivers
and slaves. But you're not interested in those questions."
"In wage slavery? No. I wish to forget about it. Any
alternative to being a wage slave or a slave driver--or a
slave owner. Any alternative."
"You don't appreciate your own good fortune," said he. "Most
human beings--all but a very few--have to be in the slave
classes, in one way or another. They have to submit to the
repulsive drudgery, with no advancement except to slave
driver. As for women--if they have to work, what can they do
but sell themselves into slavery to the machines, to the
capitalists? But you--you needn't do that. Nature endowed
you with talent--unusual talent, I believe. How lucky you
are! How superior to the great mass of your fellow beings who
must slave or starve, because they have no talent!"
"Talent?--I?" said Susan. "For what, pray?"
"For the stage."
She looked amused. "You evidently don't think me vain--or
you'd not venture that jest."
"For the stage," he repeated.
"Thanks," said she drily, "but I'll not appeal from your verdict."
"My verdict? What do you mean?"
"I prefer to talk of something else," said she coldly,
offended by his unaccountable disregard of her feelings.
"This is bewildering," said he. And his manner certainly
fitted the words.
"That I should have understood? Perhaps I shouldn't--at
least, not so quickly--if I hadn't heard how often you have
been disappointed, and how hard it has been for you to get rid
of some of those you tried and found wanting."
"Believe me--I was not disappointed in you." He spoke
earnestly, apparently with sincerity. "The contrary. Your
throwing it all up was one of the shocks of my life."
She laughed mockingly--to hide her sensitiveness.
"One of the shocks of my life," he repeated.
She was looking at him curiously--wondering why he was thus uncandid.
"It puzzled me," he went on. "I've been lingering on here,
trying to solve the puzzle. And the more I've seen of you the
less I understand. Why did you do it? How could _you_ do it?"
He was walking up and down the room in a characteristic pose--
hands clasped behind his back as if to keep them quiet, body
erect, head powerfully thrust forward. He halted abruptly and
wheeled to face her. "Do you mean to tell me you didn't get
tired of work and drop it for--" he waved his arm to indicate
her luxurious surroundings--"for this?"
No sign of her agitation showed at the surface. But she felt
she was not concealing herself from him.
He resumed his march, presently to halt and wheel again upon
her. But before he could speak, she stopped him.
"I don't wish to hear any more," said she, the strange look in
her eyes. It was all she could do to hide the wild burst of
emotion that had followed her discovery. Then she had not
been without a chance for a real career! She might have been
free, might have belonged to herself----
"It is not too late," cried he. "That's why I'm here."
"It is too late," she said.
"It is not too late," repeated he, harshly, in his way that
swept aside opposition. "I shall get you back."
Triumphantly, "The puzzle is solved!"
She faced him with a look of defiant negation. "That ocean I
crossed--it's as narrow as the East River into which I thought
of throwing myself many a time--it's as narrow as the East
River beside the ocean between what I am and what I was. And
I'll never go back. Never!"
She repeated the "never" quietly, under her breath. His eyes
looked as if they, without missing an essential detail, had swept
the whole of that to which she would never go back. He said:
"Go back? No, indeed. Who's asking you to go back? Not I.
I'm not _asking_ you to go anywhere. I'm simply saying that
you will--_must_--go forward. If you were in love, perhaps
not. But you aren't in love. I know from experience how men
and women care for each other--how they form these
relationships. They find each other convenient and
comfortable. But they care only for themselves. Especially
young people. One must live quite a while to discover that
thinking about oneself is living in a stuffy little cage with
only a little light, through slats in the top that give no
view. . . . It's an unnatural life for you. It can't last.
You--centering upon yourself--upon comfort and convenience.
Absurd!"
"I have chosen," said she.
"No--you can't do it," he went on, as if she had not spoken.
"_You_ can't spend your life at dresses and millinery, at
chattering about art, at thinking about eating and
drinking--at being passively amused--at attending to your hair
and skin and figure. You may think so, but in reality you are
getting ready for _me_ . . . for your career. You are simply
educating yourself. I shall have you back."
She held the cigarette to her lips, inhaled the smoke deeply,
exhaled it slowly.
"I will tell you why," he went on, as if he were answering a
protest. "Every one of us has an individuality of some sort.
And in spite of everything and anything, except death or
hopeless disease, that individuality will insist upon
expressing itself."
"Mine is expressing itself," said she with a light smile--the
smile of a light woman.
"You can't rest in this present life of yours. Your
individuality is too strong. It will have its way--and for all
your mocking smiling, you know I am right. I understand how
you were tempted into it----"
She opened her lips--changed her mind and stopped her lips
with her cigarette.
"I don't blame you--and it was just as well. This life has
taught you--will teach you--will advance you in your
career. . . . Tell me, what gave you the idea that I was
disappointed?"
She tossed her cigarette into the big ash tray. "As I told
you, it is too late." She rose and looked at him with a
strange, sweet smile. "I've got any quantity of faults," said
she. "But there's one I haven't got. I don't whine."
"You don't whine," assented he, "and you don't lie--and you
don't shirk. Men and women have been canonized for less.
I understand that for some reason you can't talk about----"
"Then why do you continue to press me?" said she, a little coldly.
He accepted the rebuke with a bow. "Nevertheless," said he,
with raillery to carry off his persistence, "I shall get you.
If not sooner, then when the specter of an obscure--perhaps
poor--old age begins to agitate the rich hangings of youth's
banquet hall."
"That'll be a good many years yet," mocked she. And from her
lovely young face flashed the radiant defiance of her perfect
youth and health.
"Years that pass quickly," retorted he, unmoved.
She was still radiant, still smiling, but once more she was
seeing the hideous old women of the tenements. Into her
nostrils stole the stench of the foul den in which she had
slept with Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Reardon--and she was hearing
the hunchback of the dive playing for the drunken dancing old
cronies, with their tin cups of whiskey.
No danger of that now? How little she was saving of her
salary from Palmer! She could not "work" men--she simply
could not. She would never put by enough to be independent
and every day her tastes for luxury had firmer hold upon her.
No danger? As much danger as ever--a danger postponed but
certain to threaten some day--and then, a fall from a greater
height--a certain fall. She was hearing the battered,
shattered piano of the dive.
"For pity's sake Mrs. Palmer!" cried Brent, in a low voice.
She started. The beautiful room, the environment of luxury
and taste and comfort came back.
Gourdain interrupted and then Palmer.
The four went to the Cafe Anglais for dinner. Brent announced
that he was going to the Riviera soon to join a party of
friends. "I wish you would visit me later," said he, with a
glance that included them all and rested, as courtesy
required, upon Susan. "There's room in my villa--barely room."
"We've not really settled here," said Susan. "And we've taken
up French seriously."
"The weather's frightful," said Palmer, with a meaning glance
at her. "I think we ought to go."
But her expression showed that she had no intention of going,
no sympathy with Palmer's desire to use this excellent, easy
ladder of Brent's offering to make the ascent into secure
respectability.
"Next winter, then," said Brent, who was observing her.
"Or--in the early spring, perhaps."
"Oh, we may change our minds and come," Palmer suggested
eagerly. "I'm going to try to persuade my wife."
"Come if you can," said Brent cordially. "I'll have no one
stopping with me."
When they were alone, Palmer sent his valet away and fussed
about impatiently until Susan's maid had unhooked her dress
and had got her ready for bed. As the maid began the long
process of giving her hair a thorough brushing, he said,
"Please let her go, Susan. I want to tell you something."
"She does not know a word of English."
"But these French are so clever that they understand perfectly
with their eyes."
Susan sent the maid to bed and sat in a dressing gown brushing
her hair. It was long enough to reach to the middle of her
back and to cover her bosom. It was very thick and wavy. Now
that the scarlet was washed from her lips for the night, her
eyes shone soft and clear with no relief for their almost
tragic melancholy. He was looking at her in profile. Her
expression was stern as well as sad--the soul of a woman who
has suffered and has been made strong, if not hard.
"I got a letter from my lawyers today," he began. "It was
about that marriage. I'll read."
At the word "marriage," she halted the regular stroke of the
brush. Her eyes gazed into the mirror of the dressing table
through her reflection deep into her life, deep into the
vistas of memory. As he unfolded the letter, she leaned back
in the low chair, let her hands drop to her lap.
"`As the inclosed documents show,'" he read, "`we have learned
and have legally verified that Jeb--not James--Ferguson
divorced his wife Susan Lenox about a year after their
marriage, on the ground of desertion; and two years later he
fell through the floor of an old bridge near Brooksburg and
was killed.'"
The old bridge--she was feeling its loose flooring sag and
shift under the cautious hoofs of the horse. She was seeing
Rod Spenser on the horse, behind him a girl, hardly more than
a child--under the starry sky exchanging confidences--talking
of their futures.
"So, you see, you are free," said Palmer. "I went round to an
American lawyer's office this afternoon, and borrowed an old
legal form book. And I've copied out this form----"
She was hardly conscious of his laying papers on the table
before her.
"It's valid, as I've fixed things. The lawyer gave me some
paper. It has a watermark five years old. I've dated back
two years--quite enough. So when we've signed, the marriage
never could be contested--not even by ourselves."
He took the papers from the table, laid them in her lap. She
started. "What were you saying?" she asked. "What's this?"
"What were you thinking about?" said he.
"I wasn't thinking," she answered, with her slow sweet smile
of self-concealment. "I was feeling--living--the past. I was
watching the procession."
He nodded understandingly. "That's a kind of time-wasting
that can easily be overdone."
"Easily," she agreed. "Still, there's the lesson. I have to
remind myself of it often--always, when there's anything that
has to be decided."
"I've written out two of the forms," said he. "We sign both.
You keep one, I the other. Why not sign now?"
She read the form--the agreement to take each other as lawful
husband and wife and to regard the contract as in all respects
binding and legal.
"Do you understand it?" laughed he nervously, for her manner
was disquieting.
"Perfectly."
"You stared at the paper as if it were a puzzle."
"It is," said she.
"Come into the library and we'll sign and have it over with."
She laid the papers on the dressing table, took up her brush,
drew it slowly over her hair several times.
"Wake up," cried he, good humoredly. "Come on into the
library." And he went to the threshold.
She continued brushing her hair. "I can't sign," said she.
There was the complete absence of emotion that caused her to
be misunderstood always by those who did not know her
peculiarities. No one could have suspected the vision of the
old women of the dive before her eyes, the sound of the
hunchback's piano in her ears, the smell of foul liquors and
foul bodies and foul breaths in her nostrils. Yet she repeated:
"No--I can't sign."
He returned to his chair, seated himself, a slight cloud on his
brow, a wicked smile on his lips. "Now what the devil!" said he
gently, a jeer in his quiet voice. "What's all this about?"
"I can't marry you," said she. "I wish to live on as we are."
"But if we do that we can't get up where we want to go."
"I don't wish to know anyone but interesting men of the sort
that does things--and women of my own sort. Those people have
no interest in conventionalities."
"That's not the crowd we set out to conquer," said he. "You
seem to have forgotten."
"It's you who have forgotten," replied she.
"Yes--yes--I know," he hastened to say. "I wasn't accusing
you of breaking your agreement. You've lived up to it--and
more. But, Susan, the people you care about don't especially
interest me. Brent--yes. He's a man of the world as well as
one of the artistic chaps. But the others--they're beyond me.
I admit it's all fine, and I'm glad you go in for it. But the
only crowd that's congenial to me is the crowd that we've got
to be married to get in with."
She saw his point--saw it more clearly than did he. To him
the world of fashion and luxurious amusement seemed the only
world worth while. He accepted the scheme of things as he
found it, had the conventional ambitions--to make in
succession the familiar goals of the conventional human
success--power, wealth, social position. It was impossible
for him to get any other idea of a successful life, of
ambitions worthy a man's labor. It was evidence of the
excellence of his mind that he was able to tolerate the idea
of the possibility of there being another mode of success
worth while.
"I'm helping you in your ambitions--in doing what you think is
worth while," said he. "Don't you think you owe it to me to
help me in mine?"
He saw the slight change of expression that told him how
deeply he had touched her.
"If I don't go in for the high society game," he went on,
"I'll have nothing to do. I'll be adrift--gambling, drinking,
yawning about and going to pieces. A man's got to have
something to work for--and he can't work unless it seems to
him worth doing."
She was staring into the mirror, her elbows on the table, her
chin upon her interlaced fingers. It would be difficult to
say how much of his gentleness to her was due to her physical
charm for him, and how much to his respect for her mind and
her character. He himself would have said that his weakness
was altogether the result of the spell her physical charm
cast over him. But it is probable that the other element was
the stronger.
"You'll not be selfish, Susan?" urged he. "You'll give me a
square deal."
"Yes--I see that it does look selfish," said she. "A little
while ago I'd not have been able to see any deeper than the
looks of it. Freddie, there are some things no one has a
right to ask of another, and no one has a right to grant."
The ugliness of his character was becoming less easy to
control. This girl whom he had picked up, practically out of
the gutter, and had heaped generosities upon, was trying his
patience too far. But he said, rather amiably:
"Certainly I'm not asking any such thing of you in asking you
to become a respectable married woman, the wife of a rich man."
"Yes--you are, Freddie," replied she gently. "If I married
you, I'd be signing an agreement to lead your life, to give up
my own--an agreement to become a sort of woman I've no desire
to be and no interest in being; to give up trying to become
the only sort of woman I think is worth while. When we were
discussing my coming with you, you made this same proposal in
another form. I refused it then. And I refuse it now. It's
harder to refuse now, but I'm stronger."
"Stronger, thanks to the money you've got from me--the money
and the rest of it," sneered he.
"Haven't I earned all I've got?" said she, so calmly that he
did not realize how the charge of ingratitude, unjust though
it was, had struck into her.
"You have changed!" said he. "You're getting as hard as the
rest of us. So it's all a matter of money, of give and
take--is it? None of the generosity and sentiment you used to
be full of? You've simply been using me."
"It can be put that way," replied she. "And no doubt you
honestly see it that way. But I've got to see my own interest
and my own right, Freddie. I've learned at last that I
mustn't trust to anyone else to look after them for me."
"Are you riding for a fall--Queenie?"
At "Queenie" she smiled faintly. "I'm riding the way I always
have," answered she. "It has carried me down. But--it has
brought me up again." She looked at him with eyes that
appealed, without yielding. "And I'll ride that way to the
end--up or down," said she. "I can't help it."
"Then you want to break with me?" he asked--and he began to
look dangerous.
"No," replied she. "I want to go on as we are. . . . I'll not
be interfering in your social ambitions, in any way. Over
here it'll help you to have a mistress who--" she saw her
image in the glass, threw him an arch glance--"who isn't
altogether unattractive won't it? And if you found you could
go higher by marrying some woman of the grand world--why,
you'd be free to do it."
He had a way of looking at her that gave her--and himself--the
sense of a delirious embrace. He looked at her so, now. He said:
"You take advantage of my being crazy about you--_damn_ you!"
"Heaven knows," laughed she, "I need every advantage I can find."
He touched her--the lightest kind of touch. It carried the
sense of embrace in his look still more giddily upward.
"Queenie!" he said softly.
She smiled at him through half closed eyes that with a gentle
and shy frankness confessed the secret of his attraction for
her. There was, however, more of strength than of passion in
her face as a whole. Said she:
"We're getting on well--as we are aren't we? I can meet the
most amusing and interesting people--my sort of people. You
can go with the people and to the places you like and you'll
not be bound. If you should take a notion to marry some woman
with a big position--you'd not have to regret being tied
to--Queenie."
"But--I want you--I want you," said he. "I've got to have you."
"As long as you like," said she. "But on terms I can
accept--always on terms I can accept. Never on any
others--never! I can't help it. I can yield everything
but that."
Where she was concerned he was the primitive man only. The
higher his passion rose, the stronger became his desire for
absolute possession. When she spoke of terms--of the
limitations upon his possession of her--she transformed his
passion into fury. He eyed her wickedly, abruptly demanded:
"When did you decide to make this kick-up?"
"I don't know. Simply--when you asked me to sign, I found I
couldn't."
"You don't expect _me_ to believe that."
"It's the truth." She resumed brushing her hair.
"Look at me!"
She turned her face toward him, met his gaze.
"Have you fallen in love with that young Jew?"
"Gourdain? No."
"Have you a crazy notion that your looks'll get you a better
husband? A big fortune or a title?"
"I haven't thought about a husband. Haven't I told you I wish
to be free?"
"But that doesn't mean anything."
"It might," said she absently.
"How?"
"I don't know. If one is always free--one is ready
for--whatever comes. Anyhow, I must be free--no matter what
it costs."
"I see you're bent on dropping back into the dirt I picked you
out of."
"Even that," she said. "I must be free."
"Haven't you any desire to be respectable--decent?"
"I guess not," confessed she. "What is there in that
direction for me?"
"A woman doesn't stay young and good-looking long."
"No." She smiled faintly. "But does she get old and ugly any
slower for being married?"
He rose and stood over her, looked smiling danger down at her.
She leaned back in her chair to meet his eyes without
constraint. "You're trying to play me a trick," said he.
"But you're not going to get away with the goods. I'm
astonished that you are so rotten ungrateful."
"Because I'm not for sale?"
"Queenie balking at selling herself," he jeered. "And what's
the least you ever did sell for?"
"A half-dollar, I think. No--two drinks of whiskey one cold
night. But what I sold was no more myself than--than the coat
I'd pawned and drunk up before I did it."
The plain calm way in which she said this made it so terrible
that he winced and turned away. "We have seen hell--haven't
we?" he muttered. He turned toward her with genuine passion
of feeling. "Susan," he cried, "don't be a fool. Let's push
our luck, now that things are coming our way. We need each
other--we want to stay together--don't we?"
"__I__ want to stay. I'm happy."
"Then--let's put the record straight."
"Let's keep it straight," replied she earnestly. "Don't ask
me to go where I don't belong. For I can't,
Freddie--honestly, I can't."
A pause. Then, "You will!" said he, not in blustering fury,
but in that cool and smiling malevolence which had made him
the terror of his associates from his boyhood days among the
petty thieves and pickpockets of Grand Street. He laid his
hand gently on her shoulder. "You hear me. I say you will."
She looked straight at him. "Not if you kill me," she said.
She rose to face him at his own height. "I've bought my
freedom with my body and with my heart and with my soul. It's
all I've got. I shall keep it."
He measured her strength with an expert eye. He knew that he
was beaten. He laughed lightly and went into his dressing-room.
XXII
THEY met the next morning with no sign in the manner of either
that there had been a drawn battle, that there was an armed
truce. She knew that he, like herself, was thinking of
nothing else. But until he had devised some way of certainly
conquering her he would wait, and watch, and pretend that he
was satisfied with matters as they were. The longer she
reflected the less uneasy she became--as to immediate danger.
In Paris the methods of violence he might have been tempted to
try in New York were out of the question. What remained? He
must realize that threats to expose her would be futile; also,
he must feel vulnerable, himself, to that kind of attack--a
feeling that would act as a restraint, even though he might
appreciate that she was the sort of person who could not in
any circumstances resort to it. He had not upon her a single
one of the holds a husband has upon a wife. True, he could
break with her. But she must appreciate how easy it would now
be for her in this capital of the idle rich to find some other
man glad to "protect" a woman so expert at gratifying man's
vanity of being known as the proprietor of a beautiful and
fashionable woman. She had discovered how, in the aristocracy
of European wealth, an admired mistress was as much a
necessary part of the grandeur of great nobles, great
financiers, great manufacturers, or merchants, as wife, as
heir, as palace, as equipage, as chef, as train of secretaries
and courtiers. She knew how deeply it would cut, to find
himself without his show piece that made him the envied of men
and the desired of women. Also, she knew that she had an even
stronger hold upon him--that she appealed to him as no other
woman ever had, that she had become for him a tenacious habit.
She was not afraid that he would break with her. But she
could not feel secure; in former days she had seen too far
into the mazes of that Italian mind of his, she knew too well
how patient, how relentless, how unforgetting he was. She
would have taken murder into account as more than a
possibility but for his intense and intelligent selfishness;
he would not risk his life or his liberty; he would not
deprive himself of his keenest pleasure. He was resourceful;
but in the circumstances what resources were there for him to
draw upon?
When he began to press upon her more money than ever, and to
buy her costly jewelry, she felt still further reassured.
Evidently he had been unable to think out any practicable
scheme; evidently he was, for the time, taking the course of
appeal to her generous instincts, of making her more and more
dependent upon his liberality.
Well--was he not right? Love might fail; passion might wane;
conscience, aiding self-interest with its usual servility,
might overcome the instincts of gratitude. But what power
could overcome the loyalty resting upon money interest? No
power but that of a longer purse than his. As she was not in
the mood to make pretenses about herself to herself, she
smiled at this cynical self-measuring. "But I shan't despise
myself for being so material," said she to herself, "until I
find a _genuine_ case of a woman, respectable or otherwise, who
has known poverty and escaped from it, and has then
voluntarily given up wealth to go back to it. I should not
stay on with him if he were distasteful to me. And that's
more than most women can honestly say. Perhaps even I should
not stay on if it were not for a silly, weak feeling of
obligation--but I can't be sure of that." She had seen too
much of men and women preening upon noble disinterested
motives when in fact their real motives were the most
calculatingly selfish; she preferred doing herself less than
justice rather than more.
She had fifty-five thousand francs on deposit at Munroe's--all
her very own. She had almost two hundred thousand francs'
worth of jewels, which she would be justified in keeping--at
least, she hoped she would think so--should there come a break
with Freddie. Yet in spite of this substantial prosperity--or
was it because of this prosperity?--she abruptly began again
to be haunted by the old visions, by warnings of the dangers
that beset any human being who has not that paying trade or
profession which makes him or her independent--gives him or
her the only unassailable independence.
The end with Freddie might be far away. But end, she saw,
there would be the day when he would somehow get her in his
power and so would drive her to leave him. For she could not
again become a slave. Extreme youth, utter inexperience, no
knowledge of real freedom--these had enabled her to endure in
former days. But she was wholly different now. She could not
sink back. Steadily she was growing less and less able to
take orders from anyone. This full-grown passion for freedom,
this intolerance of the least restraint--how dangerous, if she
should find herself in a position where she would have to put
up with the caprices of some man or drop down and down!
What real, secure support had she? None. Her building was
without solid foundations. Her struggle with Freddie was a
revelation and a warning. There were days when, driving about
in her luxurious car, she could do nothing but search among
the crowds in the streets for the lonely old women in rags,
picking and peering along the refuse of the cafes--weazened,
warped figures swathed in rags, creeping along, mumbling to
themselves, lips folded in and in over toothless gums.
One day Brent saw again the look she often could not keep from
her face when that vision of the dance hall in the slums was
horrifying her. He said impulsively:
"What is it? Tell me--what is it, Susan?"
It was the first and the last time he ever called her by her
only personal name. He flushed deeply. To cover his
confusion--and her own--she said in her most frivolous way:
"I was thinking that if I am ever rich I shall have more pairs
of shoes and stockings and take care of more orphans than
anyone else in the world."
"A purpose! At last a purpose!" laughed he. "Now you will go
to work."
Through Gourdain she got a French teacher--and her first woman friend.
The young widow he recommended, a Madame Clelie Deliere, was
the most attractive woman she had ever known. She had all the
best French characteristics--a good heart, a lively mind, was
imaginative yet sensible, had good taste in all things. Like
most of the attractive French women, she was not beautiful,
but had that which is of far greater importance--charm. She
knew not a word of English, and it was perhaps Susan's chief
incentive toward working hard at French that she could not
really be friends with this fascinating person until she
learned to speak her language. Palmer--partly by nature,
partly through early experience in the polyglot tenement
district of New York--had more aptitude for language than had
Susan. But he had been lazy about acquiring French in a city
where English is spoken almost universally. With the coming of
young Madame Deliere to live in the apartment, he became interested.
It was not a month after her coming when you might have seen
at one of the fashionable gay restaurants any evening a party
of four--Gourdain was the fourth--talking French almost
volubly. Palmer's accent was better than Susan's. She could
not--and felt she never could--get the accent of the
trans-Alleghany region out of her voice--and so long as that
remained she would not speak good French. "But don't let that
trouble you," said Clelie. "Your voice is your greatest
charm. It is so honest and so human. Of the Americans I have
met, I have liked only those with that same tone in their voices."
"But __I__ haven't that accent," said Freddie with raillery.
Madame Clelie laughed. "No--and I do not like you," retorted
she. "No one ever did. You do not wish to be liked. You
wish to be feared." Her lively brown eyes sparkled and the
big white teeth in her generous mouth glistened. "You wish to
be feared--and you _are_ feared, Monsieur Freddie."
"It takes a clever woman to know how to flatter with the
truth," said he. "Everybody always has been afraid of me--and
is--except, of course, my wife."
He was always talking of "my wife" now. The subject so
completely possessed his mind that he aired it unconsciously.
When she was not around he boasted of "my wife's" skill in the
art of dress, of "my wife's" taste, of "my wife's" shrewdness
in getting her money's worth. When she was there, he was
using the favorite phrase "my wife" this--"my wife" that--"my
wife" the other--until it so got on her nerves that she began
to wait for it and to wince whenever it came--never a wait of
many minutes. At first she thought he was doing this
deliberately either to annoy her or in pursuance of some
secret deep design. But she soon saw that he was not aware of
his inability to keep off the subject or of his obsession for
that phrase representing the thing he was intensely wishing
and willing--"chiefly," she thought, "because it is something
he cannot have." She was amazed at his display of such a
weakness. It gave her the chance to learn an important truth
about human nature--that self-indulgence soon destroys the
strongest nature--and she was witness to how rapidly an
inflexible will disintegrates if incessantly applied to an
impossibility. When a strong arrogant man, unbalanced by long
and successful self-indulgence, hurls himself at an obstruction,
either the obstruction yields or the man is destroyed.
One morning early in February, as she was descending from her
auto in front of the apartment house, she saw Brent in the
doorway. Never had he looked so young or so well. His color
was fine, his face had become almost boyish; upon his skin and
in his eyes was that gloss of perfect health which until these
latter days of scientific hygiene was rarely seen after
twenty-five in a woman or after thirty in a man. She gathered
in all, to the smallest detail--such as the color of his
shirt--with a single quick glance. She knew that he had seen
her before she saw him--that he had been observing her. Her
happiest friendliest smile made her small face bewitching as
she advanced with outstretched hand.
"When did you come?" she asked.
"About an hour ago."
"From the Riviera?"
"No, indeed. From St. Moritz--and skating and skiing and
tobogganing. I rather hoped I looked it. Doing those things
in that air--it's being born again."
"I felt well till I saw you," said she. "Now I feel dingy and
half sick."
He laughed, his glance sweeping her from hat to boots.
Certainly his eyes could not have found a more entrancing
sight. She was wearing a beautiful dress of golden brown
cloth, sable hat, short coat and muff, brown suede boots laced
high upon her long slender calves. And when she had descended
from the perfect little limousine made to order for her, he
had seen a ravishing flutter of lingerie of pale violet silk.
The sharp air had brought no color to her cheeks to interfere
with the abrupt and fascinating contrast of their pallor with
the long crimson bow of her mouth. But her skin seemed
transparent and had the clearness of health itself. Everything
about her, every least detail, was of Parisian perfection.
"Probably there are not in the world," said he, "so many as a
dozen women so well put together as you are. No, not half a
dozen. Few women carry the art of dress to the point of genius."
"I see they had only frumps at St. Moritz this season,"
laughed she.
But he would not be turned aside. "Most of the well dressed
women stop short with being simply frivolous in spending so
much time at less than perfection--like the army of poets who
write pretty good verse, or the swarm of singers who sing
pretty well. I've heard of you many times this winter. You
are the talk of Paris."
She laughed with frank delight. It was indeed a pleasure to
discover that her pains had not been in vain.
"It is always the outsider who comes to the great city to show
it its own resources," he went on. "I knew you were going to
do this. Still happy?"
"Oh, yes."
But he had taken her by surprise. A faint shadow flitted
across her face. "Not so happy, I see."
"You see too much. Won't you lunch with us? We'll have it in
about half an hour."
He accepted promptly and they went up together. His glance
traveled round the drawing-room; and she knew he had noted all
the changes she had made on better acquaintance with her
surroundings and wider knowledge of interior furnishing. She
saw that he approved, and it increased her good humor. "Are you
hurrying through Paris on your way to somewhere else?" she asked.
"No, I stop here--I think--until I sail for America."
"And that will be soon?"
"Perhaps not until July. I have no plans. I've finished a
play a woman suggested to me some time ago. And I'm waiting."
A gleam of understanding came into her eyes. There was
controlled interest in her voice as she inquired:
"When is it to be produced?"
"When the woman who suggested it is ready to act in it."
"Do I by any chance know her?"
"You used to know her. You will know her again."
She shook her head slowly, a pensive smile hovering about her
eyes and lips. "No--not again. I have changed."
"We do not change," said he. "We move, but we do not change.
You are the same character you were when you came into the
world. And what you were then, that you will be when the
curtain falls on the climax of your last act. Your
circumstances will change--and your clothes--and your face,
hair, figure--but not _you_."
"Do you believe that?"
"I _know_ it."
She nodded slowly, the violet-gray eyes pensive. "Birds in
the strong wind--that's what we are. Driven this way or
that--or quite beaten down. But the wind doesn't change
sparrow to eagle--or eagle to gull--does it?"
She had removed her coat and was seated on an oval lounge
gazing into the open fire. He was standing before it, looking
taller and stronger than ever, in a gray lounging suit. A
cigarette depended loosely from the corner of his mouth. He
said abruptly:
"How are you getting on with your acting?"
She glanced in surprise.
"Gourdain," Brent explained. "He had to talk to somebody
about how wonderful you are. So he took to writing me--two
huge letters a week--all about you."
"I'm fond of him. And he's fond of Clelie. She's my----"
"I know all," he interrupted. "The tie between them is their
fondness for you. Tell me about the acting."
"Oh--Clelie and I have been going to the theater every few
days--to help me with French. She is mad about acting, and
there's nothing I like better."
"Also, _you_ simply have to have occupation."
She nodded. "I wasn't brought up to fit me for an idler.
When I was a child I was taught to keep busy--not at nothing,
but at something. Freddie's a lot better at it than I."
"Naturally," said Brent. "You had a home, with order and a
system--an old-fashioned American home. He--well, he hadn't."
"Clelie and I go at our make-believe acting quite seriously.
We have to--if we're to fool ourselves that it's an occupation."
"Why this anxiety to prove to me that you're not really serious?"
Susan laughed mockingly for answer, and went on:
"You should see us do the two wives in `L'Enigme'--or mother
and daughter in that diary scene in `L'Autre Danger'!"
"I must. . . . When are you going to resume your career?"
She rose, strolled toward an open door at one end of the
salon, closed it--strolled toward the door into the hall,
glanced out, returned without having closed it. She then said:
"Could I study here in Paris?"
Triumph gleamed in his eyes. "Yes. Boudrin--a splendid
teacher--speaks English. He--and I--can teach you."
"Tell me what I'd have to do."
"We would coach you for a small part in some play that's to be
produced here."
"In French?"
"I'll have an American girl written into a farce. Enough to
get you used to the stage--to give you practice in what he'll
teach you--the trade side of the art."
"And then?"
"And then we shall spend the summer learning your part in my
play. Two or three weeks of company rehearsals in New York in
September. In October--your name out over the Long Acre
Theater in letters of fire."
"Could that be done?"
"Even if you had little talent, less intelligence, and no
experience. Properly taught, the trade part of every art is
easy. Teachers make it hard partly because they're dull,
chiefly because there'd be small money for them if they taught
quickly, and only the essentials. No, journeyman acting's no
harder to learn than bricklaying or carpentering. And in
America--everywhere in the world but a few theaters in Paris
and Vienna--there is nothing seen but journeyman acting. The
art is in its infancy as an art. It even has not yet been
emancipated from the swaddling clothes of declamation. Yes,
you can do well by the autumn. And if you develop what I
think you have in you, you can leap with one bound into fame.
In America or England, mind you--because there the acting is
all poor to `pretty good'."
"You are sure it could be done? No--I don't mean that.
I mean, is there really a chance--any chance--for me to
make my own living? A real living?"
"I guarantee," said Brent.
She changed from seriousness to a mocking kind of gayety--that
is, to a seriousness so profound that she would not show it.
And she said:
"You see I simply must banish my old women--and that hunchback
and his piano. They get on my nerves."
He smiled humorously at her. But behind the smile his
gaze--grave, sympathetic--pierced into her soul, seeking the
meaning he knew she would never put into words.
At the sound of voices in the hall she said:
"We'll talk of this again."
At lunch that day she, for the first time in many a week,
listened without irritation while Freddie poured forth his
unending praise of "my wife." As Brent knew them intimately,
Freddie felt free to expatiate upon all the details of
domestic economy that chanced to be his theme, with the
exquisite lunch as a text. He told Brent how Susan had made
a study of that branch of the art of living; how she had
explored the unrivaled Parisian markets and groceries and
shops that dealt in specialties; how she had developed their
breakfasts, dinners, and lunches to works of art. It is
impossible for anyone, however stupid, to stop long in Paris
without beginning to idealize the material side of life--for
the French, who build solidly, first idealize food, clothing,
and shelter, before going on to take up the higher side of
life--as a sane man builds his foundation before his first
story, and so on, putting the observation tower on last of
all, instead of making an ass of himself trying to hang his
tower to the stars. Our idealization goes forward haltingly
and hypocritically because we try to build from the stars
down, instead of from the ground up. The place to seek the
ideal is in the homely, the commonplace, and the necessary.
An ideal that does not spring deep-rooted from the soil of
practical life may be a topic for a sermon or a novel or for
idle conversation among silly and pretentious people. But
what use has it in a world that must _live_, and must be taught
to live?
Freddie was unaware that he was describing a further
development of Susan--a course she was taking in the
university of experience--she who had passed through its
common school, its high school, its college. To him her
clever housekeeping offered simply another instance of her
cleverness in general. His discourse was in bad taste. But
its bad taste was tolerable because he was interesting--food,
like sex, being one of those universal subjects that command
and hold the attention of all mankind. He rose to no mean
height of eloquence in describing their dinner of the evening
before--the game soup that brought to him visions of a hunting
excursion he had once made into the wilds of Canada; the way
the _barbue_ was cooked and served; the incredible duck--and
the salad! Clelie interrupted to describe that salad as like
a breath of summer air from fields and limpid brooks. He
declared that the cheese--which Susan had found in a shop in
the Marche St. Honore--was more wonderful than the most
wonderful _petit Suisse_. "And the coffee!" he exclaimed.
"But you'll see in a few minutes. We have _coffee_ here."
"_Quelle histoire!_" exclaimed Brent, when Freddie had
concluded. And he looked at Susan with the ironic, quizzical
gleam in his eyes.
She colored. "I am learning to live," said she. "That's what
we're on earth for--isn't it?"
"To learn to live--and then, to live," replied he.
She laughed. "Ah, that comes a little later."
"Not much later," rejoined he, "or there's no time left for it."
It was Freddie who, after lunch, urged Susan and Clelie to
"show Brent what you can do at acting."
"Yes--by all means," said Brent with enthusiasm.
And they gave--in one end of the salon which was well suited
for it--the scene between mother and daughter over the stolen
diary, in "L'Autre Danger." Brent said little when they
finished, so little that Palmer was visibly annoyed. But
Susan, who was acquainted with his modes of expression, felt
a deep glow of satisfaction. She had no delusions about her
attempts; she understood perfectly that they were simply crude
attempts. She knew she had done well--for her--and she knew
he appreciated her improvement.
"That would have gone fine--with costumes and scenery--eh?"
demanded Freddie of Brent.
"Yes," said Brent absently. "Yes--that is--Yes."
Freddie was dissatisfied with this lack of enthusiasm. He
went on insistently:
"I think she ought to go on the stage--she and Madame Clelie, too."
"Yes," said Brent, between inquiry and reflection.
"What do _you_ think?"
"I don't think she ought," replied Brent. "I think she
_must_." He turned to Susan. "Would you like it?"
Susan hesitated. Freddie said--rather lamely, "Of course she
would. For my part, I wish she would."
"Then I will," said Susan quietly.
Palmer looked astounded. He had not dreamed she would assent.
He knew her tones--knew that the particular tone meant
finality. "You're joking," cried he, with an uneasy laugh.
"Why, you wouldn't stand the work for a week. It's hard
work--isn't it, Brent?"
"About the hardest," said Brent. "And she's got practically
everything still to learn."
"Shall we try, Clelie?" said Susan.
Young Madame Deliere was pale with eagerness. "Ah--but that
would be worth while!" cried she.
"Then it's settled," said Susan. To Brent: "We'll make the
arrangements at once--today."
Freddie was looking at her with a dazed expression. His
glance presently drifted from her face to the fire, to rest
there thoughtfully as he smoked his cigar. He took no part in
the conversation that followed. Presently he left the room
without excusing himself. When Clelie seated herself at the
piano to wander vaguely from one piece of music to another,
Brent joined Susan at the fire and said in English:
"Palmer is furious."
"I saw," said she.
"I am afraid. For--I know him."
She looked calmly at him. "But I am not."
"Then you do not know him."
The strangest smile flitted across her face.
After a pause Brent said: "Are you married to him?"
Again the calm steady look. Then: "That is none of your business."
"I thought you were not," said Brent, as if she had answered
his question with a clear negative. He added, "You know I'd
not have asked if it had been `none of my business.'"
"What do you mean?"
"If you had been his wife, I could not have gone on. I've all
the reverence for a home of the man who has never had one.
I'd not take part in a home-breaking. But--since you are free----"
"I shall never be anything else but free. It's because I wish
to make sure of my freedom that I'm going into this."
Palmer appeared in the doorway.
That night the four and Gourdain dined together, went to the
theater and afterward to supper at the Cafe de Paris.
Gourdain and young Madame Deliere formed an interesting,
unusually attractive exhibit of the parasitism that is as
inevitable to the rich as fleas to a dog. Gourdain was a
superior man, Clelie a superior woman. There was nothing of
the sycophant, or even of the courtier, about either. Yet
they already had in their faces that subtle indication of the
dependent that is found in all professional people who
habitually work for and associate with the rich only. They
had no sense of dependence; they were not dependents, for they
gave more than value received. Yet so corrupting is the
atmosphere about rich people that Gourdain, who had other rich
clients, no less than Clelie who got her whole living from
Palmer, was at a glance in the flea class and not in the dog
class. Brent looked for signs of the same thing in Susan's
face. The signs should have been there; but they were not.
"Not yet," thought he. "And never will be now."
Palmer's abstraction and constraint were in sharp contrast to
the gayety of the others. Susan drank almost nothing. Her
spirits were soaring so high that she did not dare stimulate
them with champagne. The Cafe de Paris is one of the places
where the respectable go to watch _les autres_ and to catch a
real gayety by contagion of a gayety that is mechanical and
altogether as unreal as play-acting. There is something
fantastic about the official temples of Venus; the
pleasure-makers are so serious under their masks and the
pleasure-getters so quaintly dazzled and deluded. That is,
Venus's temples are like those of so many other religions in
reverence among men--disbelief and solemn humbuggery at the
altar; belief that would rather die than be undeceived, in the
pews. Palmer scarcely took his eyes from Susan's face. It
amused and pleased her to see how uneasy this made Brent--and
how her own laughter and jests aggravated his uneasiness to
the point where he was almost showing it. She glanced round
that brilliant room filled with men and women, each of them
carrying underneath the placidity of stiff evening shirt or
the scantiness of audacious evening gown the most
fascinating emotions and secrets--love and hate and jealousy,
cold and monstrous habits and desires, ruin impending or
stealthily advancing, fortune giddying to a gorgeous climax,
disease and shame and fear--yet only signs of love and
laughter and lightness of heart visible. And she wondered
whether at any other table there was gathered so curious an
assemblage of pasts and presents and futures as at the one
over which Freddie Palmer was presiding somberly. . . . Then her
thoughts took another turn. She fell to noting how each man
was accompanied by a woman--a gorgeously dressed woman, a
woman revealing, proclaiming, in every line, in every
movement, that she was thus elaborately and beautifully
toiletted to please man, to appeal to his senses, to gain his
gracious approval. It was the world in miniature; it was an
illustration of the position of woman--of her own position.
Favorite; pet. Not the equal of man, but an appetizer, a
dessert. She glanced at herself in the glass, mocked her own
radiant beauty of face and form and dress. Not really a full
human being; merely a decoration. No more; and no worse off
than most of the women everywhere, the favorites licensed or
unlicensed of law and religion. But just as badly off, and
just as insecure. Free! No rest, no full breath until
freedom had been won! At any cost, by straight way or
devious--free!
"Let's go home," said she abruptly. "I've had enough of this."
She was in a dressing gown, all ready for bed and reading,
when Palmer came into her sitting-room. She was smoking, her
gaze upon her book. Her thick dark hair was braided close to
her small head. There was delicate lace on her nightgown,
showing above the wadded satin collar of the dressing gown.
He dropped heavily into a chair.
If anyone had told me a year ago that a skirt could make a
damn fool of me," said he bitterly, "I'd have laughed in his
face. Yet--here I am! How nicely I did drop into your trap
today--about the acting!"
"Trap?"
"Oh, I admit I built and baited and set it, myself--ass that I
was! But it was your trap--yours and Brent's, all the
same. . . . A skirt--and not a clean one, at that."
She lowered the book to her lap, took the cigarette from
between her lips, looked at him. "Why not be reasonable,
Freddie?" said she calmly. Language had long since lost its
power to impress her. "Why irritate yourself and annoy me
simply because I won't let you tyrannize over me? You know
you can't treat me as if I were your property. I'm not your
wife, and I don't have to be your mistress."
"Getting ready to break with me eh?"
"If I wished to go, I'd tell you--and go."
"You'd give me the shake, would you?--without the slightest
regard for all I've done for you!"
She refused to argue that again. "I hope I've outgrown doing
weak gentle things through cowardice and pretending it's
through goodness of heart."
"You've gotten hard--like stone."
"Like you--somewhat." And after a moment she added, "Anything
that's strong is hard--isn't it? Can a man or a woman get
anywhere without being able to be what you call `hard' and
what I call `strong'?"
"Where do _you_ want to get?" demanded he.
She disregarded his question, to finish saying what was in her
mind--what she was saying rather to give herself a clear look
at her own thoughts and purposes than to enlighten him about
them. "I'm not a sheltered woman," pursued she. "I've got no
one to save me from the consequences of doing nice, sweet,
womanly things."
"You've got me," said he angrily.
"But why lean if I'm strong enough to stand alone? Why weaken
myself just to gratify your mania for owning and bossing? But
let me finish what I was saying. I never got any quarter
because I was a woman. No woman does, as a matter of fact;
and in the end, the more she uses her sex to help her shirk,
the worse her punishment is. But in my case----
"I was brought up to play the weak female, to use my sex as my
shield. And that was taken from me and--I needn't tell _you_
how I was taught to give and take like a man--no, not like a
man--for no man ever has to endure what a woman goes through
if she is thrown on the world. Still, I'm not whining. Now
that it's all over I'm the better for what I've been through.
I've learned to use all a man's weapons and in addition I've
got a woman's."
"As long as your looks last," sneered he.
"That will be longer than yours," said she pleasantly, "if you
keep on with the automobiles and the champagne. And when my
looks are gone, my woman's weapons. . .
"Why, I'll still have the man's weapons left--shan't
I?--knowledge, and the ability to use it."
His expression of impotent fury mingled with compelled
admiration and respect made his face about as unpleasant to
look at as she had ever seen it. But she liked to look. His
confession of her strength made her feel stronger. The sense
of strength was a new sensation with her--new and delicious.
Nor could the feeling that she was being somewhat cruel
restrain her from enjoying it.
"I have never asked quarter," she went on. "I never shall.
If fate gets me down, as it has many a time, why I'll he able
to take my medicine without weeping or whining. I've never
asked pity. I've never asked charity. That's why I'm here,
Freddie--in this apartment, instead of in a filthy tenement
attic--and in these clothes instead of in rags--and with you
respecting me, instead of kicking me toward the gutter. Isn't
that so?"
He was silent.
"Isn't it so?" she insisted.
"Yes," he admitted. And his handsome eyes looked the love so
near to hate that fills a strong man for a strong woman when
they clash and he cannot conquer. "No wonder I'm a fool about
you," he muttered.
"I don't purpose that any man or woman shall use me," she went
on, "in exchange for merely a few flatteries. I insist that
if they use me, they must let me use them. I shan't be mean
about it, but I shan't be altogether a fool, either. And what
is a woman but a fool when she lets men use her for nothing
but being called sweet and loving and womanly? Unless that's
the best she can do, poor thing!"
"You needn't sneer at respectable women."
"I don't," replied she. "I've no sneers for anybody. I've
discovered a great truth, Freddie the deep-down equality of
all human beings--all of them birds in the same wind and
battling with it each as best he can. As for myself--with
money, with a career that interests me, with position that'll
give me any acquaintances and friends that are congenial, I
don't care what is said of me."
As her plan unfolded itself fully to his understanding, which
needed only a hint to enable it to grasp all, he forgot his
rage for a moment in his interest and admiration. Said he:
"You've used me. Now you're going to use Brent--eh?
Well--what will you give _him_ in exchange?"
"He wants someone to act certain parts in certain plays."
"Is that _all_ he wants?"
"He hasn't asked anything else."
"And if he did?"
"Don't be absurd. You know Brent."
"He's not in love with you," assented Palmer. "He doesn't
want you that way. There's some woman somewhere, I've
heard--and he doesn't care about anybody but her."
He was speaking in a careless, casual way, watching her out of
the corner of his eye. And she, taken off guard, betrayed in
her features the secret that was a secret even from herself.
He sprang up with a bound, sprang at her, caught her up out of
her chair, the fingers of one hand clasping her throat.
"I thought so!" he hissed. "You love him--damn you! You love
him! You'd better look out, both of you!"
There came a knock at the door between her bedroom and that of
Madame Clelie. Palmer released her, stood panting, with
furious eyes on the door from which the sound had come. Susan
called, "It's all right, Clelie, for the present." Then she
said to Palmer, "I told Clelie to knock if she ever heard
voices in this room--or any sound she didn't understand." She
reseated herself, began to massage her throat where his
fingers had clutched it. "It's fortunate my skin doesn't mar
easily," she went on. "What were you saying?"
"I know the truth now. You love Brent. That's the milk in
the cocoanut."
She reflected on this, apparently with perfect tranquillity,
apparently with no memory of his furious threat against her
and against Brent. She said:
"Perhaps I was simply piqued because there's another woman."
"You are jealous."
"I guess I was--a little."
"You admit that you love him, you----"
He checked himself on the first hissing breath of the foul
epithet. She said tranquilly:
"Jealousy doesn't mean love. We're jealous in all sorts of
ways--and of all sorts of things."
"Well--_he_ cares nothing about _you_."
"Nothing."
"And never will. He'd despise a woman who had been----"
"Don't hesitate. Say it. I'm used to hearing it,
Freddie--and to being it. And not `had been' but `is.' I
still am, you know."
"You're not!" he cried. "And never were--and never could
be--for some unknown reason, God knows why."
She shrugged her shoulders, lit another cigarette. He went on:
"You can't get it out of your head that because he's
interested in you he's more or less stuck on you. That's the
way with women. The truth is, he wants you merely to act in
his plays."
"And I want that, too."
"You think I'm going to stand quietly by and let this thing go
on--do you?"
She showed not the faintest sign of nervousness at this
repetition, more carefully veiled, of his threat against
her--and against Brent. She chose the only hopeful course;
she went at him boldly and directly. Said she with amused
carelessness:
"Why not? He doesn't want me. Even if I love him, I'm not
giving him anything you want."
"How do you know what I want?" cried he, confused by this
unexpected way of meeting his attack. "You think I'm simply
a brute--with no fine instincts or feelings----"
She interrupted him with a laugh. "Don't be absurd, Freddie,"
said she. "You know perfectly well you and I don't call out the
finer feelings in each other. If either of us wanted that
sort of thing, we'd have to look elsewhere."
"You mean Brent--eh?"
She laughed with convincing derision. "What nonsense!" She
put her arms round his neck, and her lips close to his. The
violet-gray eyes were half closed, the perfume of the smooth
amber-white skin, of the thick, wavy, dark hair, was in his
nostrils. And in a languorous murmur she soothed his
subjection to a deep sleep with, "As long as you give me what
I want from you, and I give you what you want from me why
should we wrangle?"
And with a smile he acquiesced. She felt that she had ended
the frightful danger--to Brent rather than to herself--that
suddenly threatened from those wicked eyes of Palmer's. But
it might easily come again. She did not dare relax her
efforts, for in the succeeding days she saw that he was like
one annoyed by a constant pricking from a pin hidden in the
clothing and searched for in vain. He was no longer jealous
of Brent. But while he didn't know what was troubling him, he
did know that he was uncomfortable.
XXIII
IN but one important respect was Brent's original plan
modified. Instead of getting her stage experience in France,
Susan joined a London company making one of those dreary,
weary, cheap and trashy tours of the smaller cities of the
provinces with half a dozen plays by Jones, Pinero, and Shaw.
Clelie stayed in London, toiling at the language, determined
to be ready to take the small part of French maid in Brent's
play in the fall. Brent and Palmer accompanied Susan; and
every day for several hours Brent and the stage manager--his
real name was Thomas Boil and his professional name was
Herbert Streathern--coached the patient but most unhappy Susan
line by line, word by word, gesture by gesture, in the little
parts she was playing. Palmer traveled with them, making a
pretense of interest that ill concealed his boredom and
irritation. This for three weeks; then he began to make trips
to London to amuse himself with the sports, amateur and
professional, with whom he easily made friends--some of them
men in a position to be useful to him socially later on. He
had not spoken of those social ambitions of his since Susan
refused to go that way with him--but she knew he had them in
mind as strongly as ever. He was the sort of man who must
have an objective, and what other objective could there be for
him who cared for and believed in the conventional ambitions
and triumphs only--the successes that made the respectable
world gape and grovel and envy?
"You'll not stick at this long," he said to Susan.
"I'm frightfully depressed," she admitted. "It's
tiresome--and hard--and so hideously uncomfortable! And I've
lost all sense of art or profession. Acting seems to be
nothing but a trade, and a poor, cheap one at that."
He was not surprised, but was much encouraged by this candid
account of her state of mind. Said he:
"It's my private opinion that only your obstinacy keeps you
from giving it up straight off. Surely you must see it's
nonsense. Drop it and come along--and be comfortable and
happy. Why be obstinate? There's nothing in it."
"Perhaps it _is_ obstinacy," said she. "I like to think it's
something else."
"Drop it. You want to. You know you do."
"I want to, but I can't," replied she.
He recognized the tone, the expression of the eyes, the sudden
showing of strength through the soft, young contour. And he desisted.
Never again could there be comfort, much less happiness, until
she had tried out her reawakened ambition. She had given up
all that had been occupying her since she left America with
Freddie; she had abandoned herself to a life of toil.
Certainly nothing could have been more tedious, more
tormenting to sensitive nerves, than the schooling through
which Brent was putting her. Its childishness revolted her
and angered her. Experience had long since lowered very
considerably the point at which her naturally sweet
disposition ceased to be sweet--a process through which every
good-tempered person must pass unless he or she is to be
crushed and cast aside as a failure. There were days, many of
them, when it took all her good sense, all her fundamental
faith in Brent, to restrain her from an outbreak. Streathern
regarded Brent as a crank, and had to call into service all
his humility as a poor Englishman toward a rich man to keep
from showing his contempt. And Brent seemed to be--indeed
was--testing her forbearance to the uttermost. He offered not
the slightest explanation of his method. He simply ordered
her blindly to pursue the course he marked out. She was
sorely tempted to ask, to demand, explanations. But there
stood out a quality in Brent that made her resolve ooze away,
as soon as she faced him. Of one thing she was confident.
Any lingering suspicions Freddie might have had of Brent's
interest in her as a woman, or even of her being interested
in him as a man, must have been killed beyond resurrection.
Freddie showed that he would have hated Brent, would have
burst out against him, for the unhuman, inhuman way he was
treating her, had it not been that Brent was so admirably
serving his design to have her finally and forever disgusted
and done with the stage.
Finally there came a performance in which the audience--the
gallery part of it--"booed" her--not the play, not the other
players, but her and no other. Brent came along, apparently
by accident, as she made her exit. He halted before her and
scanned her countenance with those all-seeing eyes of his.
Said he:
"You heard them?"
"Of course," replied she.
"That was for you," said he and he said it with an absence of
sympathy that made it brutal.
"For only me," said she--frivolously.
"You seem not to mind."
"Certainly I mind. I'm not made of wood or stone."
"Don't you think you'd better give it up?"
She looked at him with a steely light from the violet eyes,
a light that had never been there before.
"Give up?" said she. "Not even if you give me up. This thing
has got to be put through."
He simply nodded. "All right," he said. "It will be."
"That booing--it almost struck me dead. When it didn't, I for
the first time felt sure I was going to win."
He nodded again, gave her one of his quick expressive,
fleeting glances that somehow made her forget and forgive
everything and feel fresh and eager to start in again. He said:
"When the booing began and you didn't break down and run off the
stage, I knew that what I hoped and believed about you was true."
Streathern joined them. His large, soft eyes were full of
sympathetic tears. He was so moved that he braved Brent. He
said to Susan:
"It wasn't your fault, Miss Lenox. You were doing exactly as
Mr. Brent ordered, when the booing broke out."
"Exactly," said Brent.
Streathern regarded him with a certain nervousness and veiled
pity. Streathern had been brought into contact with many
great men. He had found them, each and every one, with this
same streak of wild folly, this habit of doing things that
were to him obviously useless and ridiculous. It was a
profound mystery to him why such men succeeded while he
himself who never did such things remained in obscurity. The
only explanation was the abysmal stupidity, ignorance, and
folly of the masses of mankind. What a harbor of refuge that
reflection has ever been for mediocrity's shattered and
sinking vanity! Yet the one indisputable fact about the great
geniuses of long ago is that in their own country and age "the
common people heard them gladly." Streathern could not now
close his mouth upon one last appeal on behalf of the clever
and lovely and so amiable victim of Brent's mania.
"I say, Mr. Brent," pleaded he, "don't you think--Really now,
if you'll permit a chap not without experience to say
so--Don't you think that by drilling her so much and so--so
_beastly_ minutely--you're making her wooden--machine-like?"
"I hope so," said Brent, in a tone that sent Streathern
scurrying away to a place where he could express himself
unseen and unheard.
In her fifth week she began to improve. She felt at home on
the stage; she felt at home in her part, whatever it happened
to be. She was giving what could really be called a
performance. Streathern, when he was sure Brent could not
hear, congratulated her. "It's wonderfully plucky of you, my
dear," said he, "quite amazingly plucky--to get yourself
together and go straight ahead, in spite of what your American
friend has been doing to you."
"In spite of it." cried Susan. "Why, don't you see that it's
because of what he's been doing? I felt it, all the time. I
see it now."
"Oh, really--do you think so?" said Streathern.
His tone made it a polite and extremely discreet way of
telling her he thought she had become as mad as Brent. She
did not try to explain to him why she was improving. In that
week she advanced by long strides, and Brent was radiant.
"Now we'll teach you scales," said he. "We'll teach you the
mechanics of expressing every variety of emotion. Then we'll
be ready to study a strong part."
She had known in the broad from the outset what Brent was
trying to accomplish--that he was giving her the trade side of
the art, was giving it to her quickly and systematically. But
she did not appreciate how profoundly right he was until she
was "learning scales." Then she understood why most so called
"professional" performances are amateurish, haphazard, without
any precision. She was learning to posture, and to utter
every emotion so accurately that any spectator would recognize
it at once.
"And in time your voice and your body," said Brent, "will
become as much your servants as are Paderewski's ten fingers.
He doesn't rely upon any such rot as inspiration. Nor does
any master of any art. A mind can be inspired but not a body.
It must be taught. You must first have a perfect instrument.
Then, if you are a genius, your genius, having a perfect
instrument to work with, will produce perfect results. To
ignore or to neglect the mechanics of an art is to hamper or
to kill inspiration. Geniuses--a few--and they not the
greatest--have been too lazy to train their instruments. But
anyone who is merely talented dares not take the risk. And
you--we'd better assume--are merely talented."
Streathern, who had a deserved reputation as a coach, was
disgusted with Brent's degradation of an art. As openly as he
dared, he warned Susan against the danger of becoming a mere
machine--a puppet, responding stiffly to the pulling of
strings. But Susan had got over her momentary irritation
against Brent, her doubt of his judgment in her particular
case. She ignored Streathern's advice that she should be
natural, that she should let her own temperament dictate
variations on his cut and dried formulae for expression. She
continued to do as she was bid.
"If you are _not_ a natural born actress," said Brent," at
least you will be a good one--so good that most critics will
call you great. And if you _are_ a natural born genius at
acting, you will soon put color in the cheeks of these dolls
I'm giving you--and ease into their bodies--and nerves and
muscles and blood in place of the strings."
In the seventh week he abruptly took her out of the company
and up to London to have each day an hour of singing, an hour
of dancing, and an hour of fencing. "You'll ruin her health,"
protested Freddie. "You're making her work like a ditch digger."
Brent replied, "If she hasn't the health, she's got to abandon
the career. If she has health, this training will give it
steadiness and solidity. If there's a weakness anywhere,
it'll show itself and can be remedied."
And he piled the work on her, dictated her hours of sleep, her
hours for rest and for walking, her diet--and little he gave
her to eat. When he had her thoroughly broken to his regimen,
he announced that business compelled his going immediately to
America. "I shall be back in a month," said he.
"I think I'll run over with you," said Palmer. "Do you mind, Susan?"
"Clelie and I shall get on very well," she replied. She would
be glad to have both out of the way that she might give her
whole mind to the only thing that now interested her. For the
first time she was experiencing the highest joy that comes to
mortals, the only joy that endures and grows and defies all the
calamities of circumstances--the joy of work congenial and developing.
"Yes--come along," said Brent to Palmer. "Here you'll be
tempting her to break the rules." He added, "Not that you
would succeed. She understands what it all means, now--and
nothing could stop her. That's why I feel free to leave her."
"Yes, I understand," said Susan. She was gazing away into
space; at sight of her expression Freddie turned hastily away.
On a Saturday morning Susan and Clelie, after waiting on the
platform at Euston Station until the long, crowded train for
Liverpool and the _Lusitania_ disappeared, went back to the
lodgings in Half Moon Street with a sudden sense of the
vastness of London, of its loneliness and dreariness, of its
awkward inhospitality to the stranger under its pall of foggy
smoke. Susan was thinking of Brent's last words:
She had said, "I'll try to deserve all the pains you've taken,
Mr. Brent."
"Yes, I have done a lot for you," he had replied. "I've put
you beyond the reach of any of the calamities of life--beyond
the need of any of its consolations. Don't forget that if the
steamer goes down with all on board."
And then she had looked at him--and as Freddie's back was half
turned, she hoped he had not seen--in fact, she was sure he
had not, or she would not have dared. And Brent--had returned
her look with his usual quizzical smile; but she had learned
how to see through that mask. Then--she had submitted to
Freddie's energetic embrace--had given her hand to
Brent--"Good-by," she had said; and "Good luck," he.
Beyond the reach of _any_ of the calamities? Beyond the need
of _any_ of the consolations? Yes--it was almost literally
true. She felt the big interest--the career--growing up
within her, and expanding, and already overstepping all other
interests and emotions.
Brent had left her and Clelie more to do than could be done;
thus they had no time to bother either about the absent or
about themselves. Looking back in after years on the days
that Freddie was away, Susan could recall that from time to
time she would find her mind wandering, as if groping in the
darkness of its own cellars or closets for a lost thought, a
missing link in some chain of thought. This even awakened her
several times in the night--made her leap from sleep into
acute and painful consciousness as if she had recalled and
instantly forgotten some startling and terrible thing.
And when Freddie unexpectedly came--having taken passage on the
_Lusitania_ for the return voyage, after only six nights and
five days in New York--she was astonished by her delight at
seeing him, and by the kind of delight it was. For it rather
seemed a sort of relief, as from a heavy burden of anxiety.
"Why didn't you wait and come with Brent?" asked she.
"Couldn't stand it," replied he. "I've grown clear away from
New York--at least from the only New York I know. I don't
like the boys any more. They bore me. They--offend me. And
I know if I stayed on a few days they'd begin to suspect. No,
it isn't Europe. It's--you. You're responsible for the
change in me."
He was speaking entirely of the internal change, which indeed
was great. For while he was still fond of all kinds of
sporting, it was not in his former crude way; he had even
become something of a connoisseur of pictures and was
cultivating a respect for the purity of the English language
that made him wince at Susan's and Brent's slang. But when he
spoke thus frankly and feelingly of the change in him, Susan
looked at him--and, not having seen him in two weeks and three
days, she really saw him for the first time in many a month.
She could not think of the internal change he spoke of for
noting the external change. He had grown at least fifty
pounds heavier than he had been when they came abroad. In one
way this was an improvement; it gave him a dignity, an air of
consequence in place of the boyish good looks of the days
before the automobile and before the effects of high living
began to show. But it made of him a different man in Susan's
eyes--a man who now seemed almost a stranger to her.
"Yes, you _have_ changed," replied she absently. And she went
and examined herself in a mirror.
"You, too," said Freddie. "You don't look older--as I do.
But--there's a--a--I can't describe it."
Susan could not see it. "I'm just the same," she insisted.
Palmer laughed. "You can't judge about yourself. But all
this excitement--and studying--and thinking--and God knows
what---- You're not at all the woman I came abroad with."
The subject seemed to be making both uncomfortable; they
dropped it.
Women are bred to attach enormous importance to their physical
selves--so much so that many women have no other sense of
self-respect, and regard themselves as possessing the entirety
of virtue if they have chastity or can pretend to have it.
The life Susan had led upsets all this and forces a woman
either utterly to despise herself, even as she is despised of
men, or to discard the sex measure of feminine self-respect as
ridiculously inadequate, and to seek some other measure.
Susan had sought this other measure, and had found it. She
was, therefore, not a little surprised to find--after Freddie
had been back three or four days--that he was arousing in her
the same sensations which a strange man intimately about would
have aroused in her in the long past girlhood of innocence.
It was not physical repulsion; it was not a sense of
immorality. It was a kind of shyness, a feeling of violated
modesty. She felt herself blushing if he came into the room
when she was dressing. As soon as she awakened in the morning
she sprang from bed beside him and hastened into her
dressing-room and closed the door, resisting an impulse to
lock it. Apparently the feeling of physical modesty which she
had thought dead, killed to the last root, was not dead, was
once more stirring toward life.
"What are you blushing about?" asked he, when she, passing
through the bedroom, came suddenly upon him, very scantily dressed.
She laughed confusedly and beat a hurried retreat. She began
to revolve the idea of separate bedrooms; she resolved that
when they moved again she would arrange it on some
pretext--and she was looking about for a new place on the plea
that their quarters in Half Moon Street were too cramped. All
this close upon his return, for it was before the end of the
first week that she, taking a shower bath one morning, saw the
door of the bathroom opening to admit him, and cried out sharply:
"Close that door!"
"It's I," Freddie called, to make himself heard above the
noise of the water. "Shut off that water and listen."
She shut off the water, but instead of listening, she said,
nervous but determined:
"Please close the door. I'll be out directly."
"Listen, I tell you," he cried, and she now noticed that his
voice was curiously, arrestingly, shrill.
"Brent--has been hurt--badly hurt." She was dripping wet.
She thrust her arms into her bathrobe, flung wide the partly
open door. He was standing there, a newspaper in his
trembling hand. "This is a dispatch from New York--dated
yesterday," he began. "Listen," and he read:
"During an attempt to rob the house of Mr. Robert Brent, the
distinguished playwright, early this morning, Mr. Brent was
set upon and stabbed in a dozen places, his butler, James
Fourget, was wounded, perhaps mortally, and his secretary, Mr.
J. C. Garvey, was knocked insensible. The thieves made their
escape. The police have several clues. Mr. Brent is hovering
between life and death, with the chances against him."
Susan, leaning with all her weight against the door jamb, saw
Palmer's white face going away from her, heard his agitated
voice less and less distinctly--fell to the floor with a crash
and knew no more.
When she came to, she was lying in the bed; about it or near
it were Palmer, her maid, his valet, Clelie, several
strangers. Her glance turned to Freddie's face and she looked
into his eyes amid a profound silence. She saw in those eyes
only intense anxiety and intense affection. He said:
"What is it, dear? You are all right. Only a fainting spell."
"Was that true?" she asked.
"Yes, but he'll pull through. The surgeons save everybody
nowadays. I've cabled his secretary, Garvey, and to my
lawyers. We'll have an answer soon. I've sent out for all
the papers."
"She must not be agitated," interposed a medical looking man
with stupid brown eyes and a thin brown beard sparsely veiling
his gaunt and pasty face.
"Nonsense!" said Palmer, curtly. "My wife is not an invalid.
Our closest friend has been almost killed. To keep the news
from her would be to make her sick."
Susan closed her eyes. "Thank you," she murmured. "Send them
all away--except Clelie. . . . Leave me alone with Clelie."
Pushing the others before him, Freddie moved toward the door
into the hall. At the threshold he paused to say:
"Shall I bring the papers when they come?"
She hesitated. "No," she answered without opening her eyes.
"Send them in. I want to read them, myself."
She lay quiet, Clelie stroking her brow. From time to time a
shudder passed over her. When, in answer to a knock, Clelie
took in the bundle of newspapers, she sat up in bed and read
the meager dispatches. The long accounts were made long by
the addition of facts about Brent's life. The short accounts
added nothing to what she already knew. When she had read
all, she sank back among the pillows and closed her eyes. A
long, long silence in the room. Then a soft knock at the
door. Clelie left the bedside to answer it, returned to say:
"Mr. Freddie wishes to come in with a telegram."
Susan started up wildly. Her eyes were wide and staring--a
look of horror. "No--no!" she cried. Then she compressed her
lips, passed her hand slowly over her brow. "Yes--tell him to
come in."
Her gaze was upon the door until it opened, leaped to his
face, to his eyes, the instant he appeared. He was
smiling--hopefully, but not gayly.
"Garvey says"--and he read from a slip of paper in his hand--"
`None of the wounds necessarily mortal. Doctors refuse to
commit themselves, but I believe he has a good chance.'"
He extended the cablegram that she might read for herself, and
said, "He'll win, my dear. He has luck, and lucky people
always win in big things."
Her gaze did not leave his face. One would have said that she
had not heard, that she was still seeking what she had admitted
him to learn. He sat down where Clelie had been, and said:
"There's only one thing for us to do, and that is to go over
at once."
She closed her eyes. A baffled, puzzled expression was upon
her deathly pale face.
"We can sail on the _Mauretania_ Saturday," continued he.
"I've telephoned and there are good rooms."
She turned her face away.
"Don't you feel equal to going?"
"As you say, we must."
"The trip can't do you any harm." His forced composure
abruptly vanished and he cried out hysterically: "Good God!
It's incredible." Then he got himself in hand again, and went
on: "No wonder it bowled you out. I had my anxiety about you
to break the shock. But you---- How do you feel now?"
"I'm going to dress."
"I'll send you in some brandy." He bent and kissed her. A
shudder convulsed her--a shudder visible even through the
covers. But he seemed not to note it, and went on: "I didn't
realize how fond I was of Brent until I saw that thing in the
paper. I almost fainted, myself. I gave Clelie a horrible scare."
"I thought you were having an attack," said Clelie. "My
husband looked exactly as you did when he died that way."
Susan's strange eyes were gazing intently at him--the
searching, baffled, persistently seeking look. She closed
them as he turned from the bed. When she and Clelie were
alone and she was dressing, she said:
"Freddie gave you a scare?"
"I was at breakfast," replied Clelie, "was pouring my coffee.
He came into the room in his bathrobe--took up the papers from
the table opened to the foreign news as he always does. I
happened to be looking at him"--Clelie flushed--"he is very
handsome in that robe--and all at once he dropped the
paper--grew white--staggered and fell into a chair. Exactly
like my husband."
Susan, seated at her dressing-table, was staring absently out
of the window. She shook her head impatiently, drew a long
breath, went on with her toilet.
XXIV
A FEW minutes before the dinner hour she came into the drawing
room. Palmer and Madame Deliere were already there, near
the fire which the unseasonable but by no means unusual
coolness of the London summer evening made extremely
comfortable--and, for Americans, necessary. Palmer stood with
his back to the blaze, moodily smoking a cigarette. That
evening his now almost huge form looked more degenerated than
usual by the fat of high living and much automobiling. His
fleshy face, handsome still and of a refined type, bore the
traces of anxious sorrow. Clelie, sitting at the corner of
the fireplace and absently turning the leaves of an
illustrated French magazine, had in her own way an air as
funereal as Freddie's. As Susan entered, they glanced at her.
Palmer uttered and half suppressed an ejaculation of
amazement. Susan was dressed as for opera or ball--one of her
best evening dresses, the greatest care in arranging her hair
and the details of her toilette. Never had she been more
beautiful. Her mode of life since she came abroad with
Palmer, the thoughts that had been filling her brain and
giving direction to her life since she accepted Brent as her
guide and Brent's plans as her career, had combined to give
her air of distinction the touch of the extraordinary--the
touch that characterizes the comparatively few human beings
who live the life above and apart from that of the common
run--the life illuminated by imagination. At a glance one
sees that they are not of the eaters, drinkers, sleepers, and
seekers after the shallow easy pleasures money provides
ready-made. They shine by their own light; the rest of mankind
shines either by light reflected from them or not at all.
Looking at her that evening as she came into the comfortable,
old-fashioned English room, with its somewhat heavy but
undeniably dignified furniture and draperies, the least
observant could not have said that she was in gala attire
because she was in gala mood. Beneath the calm of her surface
expression lay something widely different. Her face, slim
and therefore almost beyond the reach of the attacks of time
and worry, was of the type to which a haggard expression is
becoming. Her eyes, large and dreamy, seemed to be seeing
visions of unutterable sadness, and the scarlet streak of her
mouth seemed to emphasize their pathos. She looked young,
very young; yet there was also upon her features the stamp of
experience, the experience of suffering. She did not notice
the two by the fire, but went to the piano at the far end of the
room and stood gazing out into the lovely twilight of the garden.
Freddie, who saw only the costume, said in an undertone to
Clelie, "What sort of freak is this?"
Said Madame Deliere: "An uncle of mine lost his wife. They
were young and he loved her to distraction. Between her death
and the funeral he scandalized everybody by talking
incessantly of the most trivial details--the cards, the
mourning, the flowers, his own clothes. But the night of the
funeral he killed himself."
Palmer winced as if Clelie had struck him. Then an expression
of terror, of fear, came into his eyes. "You don't think
she'd do that?" he muttered hoarsely.
"Certainly not," replied the young Frenchwoman. "I was simply
trying to explain her. She dressed because she was
unconscious of what she was doing. Real sorrow doesn't think
about appearances." Then with quick tact she added: "Why
should she kill herself? Monsieur Brent is getting well.
Also, while she's a devoted friend of his, she doesn't love
him, but you."
"I'm all upset," said Palmer, in confused apology.
He gazed fixedly at Susan--a straight, slim figure with the
carriage and the poise of head that indicate self-confidence
and pride. As he gazed Madame Clelie watched him with
fascinated eyes. It was both thrilling and terrifying to see
such love as he was revealing--a love more dangerous than
hate. Palmer noted that he was observed, abruptly turned to
face the fire.
A servant opened the doors into the dining-room, Madame
Deliere rose. "Come, Susan," said she.
Susan looked at her with unseeing eyes.
"Dinner is served."
"I do not care for dinner," said Susan, seating herself at the piano.
"Oh, but you----"
"Let her alone," said Freddie, curtly. "You and I will go in."
Susan, alone, dropped listless hands into her lap. How long
she sat there motionless and with mind a blank she did not
know. She was aroused by a sound in the hall--in the
direction of the outer door of their apartment. She started
up, instantly all alive and alert, and glided swiftly in the
direction of the sound. A servant met her at the threshold.
He had a cablegram on a tray.
"For Mr. Palmer," said he.
But she, not hearing, took the envelope and tore it open. At
a sweep her eyes took in the unevenly typewritten words:
Brent died at half past two this afternoon.
GARVEY.
She gazed wonderingly at the servant, reread the cablegram.
The servant said: "Shall I take it to Mr. Palmer, ma'am?"
"No. That is all, thanks," replied she.
And she walked slowly across the room to the fire. She
shivered, adjusted one of the shoulder straps of her low-cut
pale green dress. She read the cablegram a third time, laid
it gently, thoughtfully, upon the mantel. "Brent died at half
past two this afternoon." Died. Yes, there was no mistaking
the meaning of those words. She knew that the message was
true. But she did not feel it. She was seeing Brent as he
had been when they said good-by. And it would take something
more than a mere message to make her feel that the Brent so
vividly alive, so redolent of life, of activity, of energy, of
plans and projects, the Brent of health and strength, had
ceased to be. "Brent died at half past two this afternoon."
Except in the great crises we all act with a certain
theatricalism, do the thing books and plays and the example of
others have taught us to do. But in the great crises we do as
we feel. Susan knew that Brent was dead. If he had meant
less to her, she would have shrieked or fainted or burst into
wild sobs. But not when he was her whole future. She _knew_
he was dead, but she did not _believe_ it. So she stood
staring at the flames, and wondering why, when she knew such
a frightful thing, she should remain calm. When she had heard
that he was injured, she had felt, now she did not feel at
all. Her body, her brain, went serenely on in their routine.
The part of her that was her very self--had it died, and not Brent?
She turned her back to the fire, gazed toward the opposite
wall. In a mirror there she saw the reflection of Palmer, at
table in the adjoining room. A servant was holding a dish at
his left and he was helping himself. She observed his every
motion, observed his fattened body, his round and large face,
the forming roll of fat at the back of his neck. All at once
she grew cold--cold as she had not been since the night she
and Etta Brashear walked the streets of Cincinnati. The ache
of this cold, like the cold of death, was an agony. She shook
from head to foot. She turned toward the mantel again, looked
at the cablegram. But she did not take it in her hands. She
could see--in the air, before her eyes--in clear, sharp
lettering--"Brent died at half past two this afternoon. Garvey."
The sensation of cold faded into a sensation of approaching
numbness. She went into the hall--to her own rooms. In the
dressing-room her maid, Clemence, was putting away the afternoon
things she had taken off. She stood at the dressing table,
unclasping the string of pearls. She said to Clemence tranquilly:
"Please pack in the small trunk with the broad stripes three
of my plainest street dresses--some underclothes--the things
for a journey--only necessaries. Some very warm things,
please, Clemence, I've suffered from cold, and I can't bear
the idea of it. And please telephone to the--to the Cecil for
a room and bath. When you have finished I shall pay you what
I owe and a month's wages extra. I cannot afford to keep you
any longer."
"But, madame"--Clemence fluttered in agitation--"Madame
promised to take me to America."
"Telephone for the rooms for Miss Susan Lenox," said Susan.
She was rapidly taking off her dress. "If I took you to
America I should have to let you go as soon as we landed."
"But, madame--" Clemence advanced to assist her.
"Please pack the trunk," said Susan. "I am leaving here at once."
"I prefer to go to America, even if madame----"
"Very well. I'll take you. But you understand?"
"Perfectly, madame----"
A sound of hurrying footsteps and Palmer was at the threshold.
His eyes were wild, his face distorted. His hair, usually
carefully arranged over the rapidly growing bald spot above
his brow, was disarranged in a manner that would have been
ludicrous but for the terrible expression of his face. "Go!"
he said harshly to the maid; and he stood fretting the knob
until she hastened out and gave him the chance to close the
door. Susan, calm and apparently unconscious of his presence,
went on with her rapid change of costume. He lit a cigarette
with fingers trembling, dropped heavily into a chair near the
door. She, seated on the floor, was putting on boots.
When she had finished one and was beginning on the other he
said stolidly:
"You think I did it"--not a question but an assertion.
"I know it," replied she. She was so seated that he was
seeing her in profile.
"Yes--I did," he went on. He settled himself more deeply in
the chair, crossed his leg. "And I am glad that I did."
She kept on at lacing the boot. There was nothing in her
expression to indicate emotion, or even that she heard.
"I did it," continued he, "because I had the right. He
invited it. He knew me--knew what to expect. I suppose he
decided that you were worth taking the risk. It's strange
what fools men--all men--we men--are about women. . . .
Yes, he knew it. He didn't blame me."
She stopped lacing the boot, turned so that she could look at him.
"Do you remember his talking about me one day?" he went on,
meeting her gaze naturally. "He said I was a survival of the
Middle Ages--had a medieval Italian mind--said I would do
anything to gain my end--and would have a clear conscience
about it. Do you remember?"
"Yes."
"But you don't see why I had the right to kill him?"
A shiver passed over her. She turned away again, began again
to lace the boot--but now her fingers were uncertain.
"I'll explain," pursued he. "You and I were getting along
fine. He had had his chance with you and had lost it.
Well, he comes over here--looks us up--puts himself between
you and me--proceeds to take you away from me. Not in a
square manly way but under the pretense of giving you a career.
He made you restless--dissatisfied. He got you away from me.
Isn't that so?"
She was sitting motionless now.
Palmer went on in the same harsh, jerky way:
"Now, nobody in the world--not even you--knew me better than
Brent did. He knew what to expect--if I caught on to what was
doing. And I guess he knew I would be pretty sure to catch on."
"He never said a word to me that you couldn't have heard,"
said Susan.
"Of course not," retorted Palmer. "That isn't the question.
It don't matter whether he wanted you for himself or for his
plays. The point is that he took you away from me--he, my
friend--and did it by stealth. You can't deny that."
"He offered me a chance for a career--that was all," said she.
"He never asked for my love--or showed any interest in it. I
gave him that."
He laughed--his old-time, gentle, sweet, wicked laugh. He said:
"Well--it'd have been better for him if you hadn't. All it
did for him was to cost him his life."
Up she sprang. "Don't say that!" she cried passionately--so
passionately that her whole body shook. "Do you suppose I
don't know it? I know that I killed him. But I don't feel
that he's dead. If I did, I'd not be able to live. But I
can't! I can't! For me he is as much alive as ever."
"Try to think that--if it pleases you," sneered Palmer. "The
fact remains that it was _you_ who killed him."
Again she shivered. "Yes," she said, "I killed him."
"And that's why I hate you," Palmer went on, calm and
deliberate--except his eyes; they were terrible. "A few
minutes ago--when I was exulting that he would probably
die--just then I found that opened cable on the mantel. Do
you know what it did to me? It made me hate you. When I read
it----" Freddie puffed at his cigarette in silence. She
dropped weakly to the chair at the dressing table.
"Curse it!" he burst out. "I loved him. Yes, I was crazy
about him--and am still. I'm glad I killed him. I'd do it
again. I had to do it. He owed me his life. But that
doesn't make me forgive _you_."
A long silence. Her fingers wandered among the articles
spread upon the dressing table. He said:
"You're getting ready to leave?"
"I'm going to a hotel at once."
"Well, you needn't. I'm leaving. You're done with me. But
I'm done with you." He rose, bent upon her his wicked glance,
sneering and cruel. "You never want to see me again. No more
do I ever want to see you again. I wish to God I never had
seen you. You cost me the only friend I ever had that I cared
about. And what's a woman beside a friend--a _man_ friend?
You've made a fool of me, as a woman always does of a
man--always, by God! If she loves him, she destroys him. If
she doesn't love him, he destroys himself."
Susan covered her face with her bare arms and sank down at the
dressing table. "For pity's sake," she cried brokenly, "spare
me--spare me!"
He seized her roughly by the shoulder. "Just flesh!" he said.
"Beautiful flesh--but just female. And look what a fool
you've made of me--and the best man in the world dead--over
yonder! Spare you? Oh, you'll pull through all right.
You'll pull through everything and anything--and come out
stronger and better looking and better off. Spare you! Hell!
I'd have killed you instead of him if I'd known I was going to
hate you after I'd done the other thing. I'd do it yet--you
dirty skirt!"
He jerked her unresisting form to its feet, gazed at her
like an insane fiend. With a sob he seized her in his arms,
crushed her against his breast, sunk his fingers deep into her
hair, kissed it, grinding his teeth as he kissed. "I hate
you, damn you--and I love you!" He flung her back into the
chair--out of his life. "You'll never see me again!" And he
fled from the room--from the house.
XXV
THE big ship issued from the Mersey into ugly waters--into the
weather that at all seasons haunts and curses the coasts of
Northern Europe. From Saturday until Wednesday Susan and
Madame Deliere had true Atlantic seas and skies; and the ship
leaped and shivered and crashed along like a brave cavalryman
in the rear of a rout--fighting and flying, flying and
fighting. Four days of hours whose every waking second lagged
to record itself in a distinct pang of physical wretchedness;
four days in which all emotions not physical were suspended,
in which even the will to live, most tenacious of primal
instincts in a sane human being, yielded somewhat to the
general lassitude and disgust. Yet for Susan Lenox four most
fortunate days; for in them she underwent a mental change that
enabled her to emerge delivered of the strain that threatened
at every moment to cause a snap.
On the fifth day her mind, crutched by her resuming body, took
up again its normal routine. She began to dress herself, to
eat, to exercise--the mechanical things first, as always--then
to think. The grief that had numbed her seemed to have been
left behind in England where it had suddenly struck her
down--England far away and vague across those immense and
infuriated waters, like the gulf of death between two
incarnations. No doubt that grief was awaiting her at the
other shores; no doubt there she would feel that Brent was
gone. But she would be better able to bear the discovery.
The body can be accustomed to the deadliest poisons, so that
they become harmless--even useful--even a necessary aid to
life. In the same way the mind can grow accustomed to the
cruelest calamities, tolerate them, use them to attain a
strength and power the hot-housed soul never gets.
When a human being is abruptly plunged into an unnatural
unconsciousness by mental or physical catastrophes, the
greatest care is taken that the awakening to normal life again
be slow, gradual, without shock. Otherwise the return would
mean death or insanity or lifelong affliction with radical
weakness. It may be that this sea voyage with its four days
of agitations that lowered Susan's physical life to a harmony
of wretchedness with her mental plight, and the succeeding
days of gradual calming and restoration, acted upon her to
save her from disaster. There will be those readers of her
story who, judging her, perhaps, by themselves--as revealed in
their judgments, rather than in their professions--will think
it was quite unnecessary to awaken her gradually; they will
declare her a hard-hearted person, caring deeply about no one
but herself, or one of those curiosities of human nature that
are interested only in things, not at all in persons, even in
themselves. There may also be those who will see in her a
soft and gentle heart for which her intelligence finally
taught her to construct a shield--more or less
effective--against buffetings which would have destroyed or,
worse still, maimed her. These will feel that the sea voyage, the
sea change, suspending the normal human life, the life on land,
tided her over a crisis that otherwise must have been disastrous.
However this may be--and who dares claim the definite
knowledge of the mazes of human character and motive to be
positive about the matter?--however it may be, on Thursday
afternoon they steamed along a tranquil and glistening sea
into the splendor and majesty of New York Harbor. And Susan
was again her calm, sweet self, as the violet-gray eyes gazing
pensively from the small, strongly-featured face plainly
showed. Herself again, with the wound--deepest if not
cruelest of her many wounds--covered and with its poison under
control. She was ready again to begin to live--ready to
fulfill our only certain mission on this earth, for we are not
here to succumb and to die, but to adapt ourselves and live.
And those who laud the succumbers and the diers--yea, even
the blessed martyrs of sundry and divers fleeting issues
usually delusions--may be paying ill-deserved tribute to
vanity, obstinacy, lack of useful common sense, passion for
futile and untimely agitation--or sheer cowardice. Truth--and
what is truth but right living?--truth needs no martyrs; and
the world needs not martyrs, not corpses rotting in unmarked
or monumented graves, but intelligent men and women, healthy
in body and mind, capable of leading the human race as fast as
it is able to go in the direction of the best truth to which
it is able at that time to aspire.
As the ship cleared Quarantine Susan stood on the main deck
well forward, with Madame Clelie beside her. And up within
her, defying all rebuke, surged the hope that cannot die in
strong souls living in healthy bodies.
She had a momentary sense of shame, born of the feeling that
it is basest, most heartless selfishness to live, to respond
to the caress of keen air upon healthy skin, of glorious light
upon healthy eyes, when there are others shut out and shut
away from these joys forever. Then she said to herself, "But
no one need apologize for being alive and for hoping. I must
try to justify him for all he did for me."
A few miles of beautiful water highway between circling shores
of green, and afar off through the mist Madame Clelie's
fascinated eyes beheld a city of enchantment. It appeared and
disappeared, reappeared only to disappear again, as its veil
of azure mist was blown into thick or thin folds by the light
breeze. One moment the Frenchwoman would think there was
nothing ahead but more and ever more of the bay glittering in
the summer sunlight. The next moment she would see again that
city--or was it a mirage of a city?--towers, mighty walls,
domes rising mass above mass, summit above summit, into the
very heavens from the water's edge where there was a fringe of
green. Surely the vision must be real; yet how could tiny man
out of earth and upon earth rear in such enchantment of line
and color those enormous masses, those peak-like piercings of
the sky?
"Is that--_it?_" she asked in an awed undertone.
Susan nodded. She, too, was gazing spellbound. Her beloved
City of the Sun.
"But it is beautiful--beautiful beyond belief. And I have
always heard that New York was ugly."
"It is beautiful--and ugly--both beyond belief!" replied Susan.
"No wonder you love it!"
"Yes--I love it. I have loved it from the first moment I saw
it. I've never stopped loving it--not even----" She did not
finish her sentence but gazed dreamily at the city appearing
and disappearing in its veils of thin, luminous mist. Her
thoughts traveled again the journey of her life in New York.
When she spoke again, it was to say:
"Yes--when I first saw it--that spring evening--I called it my
City of the Stars, then, for I didn't know that it belonged to
the sun--Yes, that spring evening I was happier than I ever
had been--or ever shall be again."
"But you will be happy again "dear" said Clelie, tenderly
pressing her arm.
A faint sad smile--sad but still a smile--made Susan's
beautiful face lovely. "Yes, I shall be happy--not in those
ways--but happy, for I shall be busy. . . . No, I don't take the
tragic view of life--not at all. And as I've known misery, I
don't try to hold to it."
"Leave that," said Clelie, "to those who have known only the
comfortable make-believe miseries that rustle in crepe and
shed tears--whenever there's anyone by to see."
"Like the beggars who begin to whine and exhibit their
aggravated sores as soon as a possible giver comes into view,"
said Susan. "I've learned to accept what comes, and to try to
make the best of it, whatever it is. . . . I say I've learned.
But have I? Does one ever change? I guess I was born that
sort of philosopher."
She recalled how she put the Warhams out of her life as soon
as she discovered what they really meant to her and she to
them--how she had put Jeb Ferguson out of her life--how she
had conquered the grief and desolation of the loss of
Burlingham--how she had survived Etta's going away without
her--the inner meaning of her episodes with Rod--with Freddie
Palmer----
And now this last supreme test--with her soul rising up and
gathering itself together and lifting its head in strength----
"Yes, I was born to make the best of things," she repeated.
"Then you were born lucky," sighed Clelie, who was of those
who must lean if they would not fall and lie where they fell.
Susan gave a curious little laugh--with no mirth, with a great
deal of mockery. "Do you know, I never thought so before, but
I believe you're right," said she. Again she laughed in that
queer way. "If you knew my life you'd think I was joking.
But I'm not. The fact that I've survived and am what I am
proves I was born lucky." Her tone changed, her expression
became unreadable. "If it's lucky to be born able to live.
And if that isn't luck, what is?"
She thought how Brent said she was born lucky because she had
the talent that enables one to rise above the sordidness of
that capitalism he so often denounced--the sordidness of the
lot of its slaves, the sordidness of the lot of its masters.
Brent! If it were he leaning beside her--if he and she were
coming up the bay toward the City of the Sun!
A billow of heartsick desolation surged over her.
Alone--always alone. And still alone. And always to be alone.
Garvey came aboard when the gangway was run out. He was in
black wherever black could be displayed. But the grief
shadowing his large, simple countenance had the stamp of the
genuine. And it was genuine, of the most approved enervating
kind. He had done nothing but grieve since his master's
death--had left unattended all the matters the man he loved
and grieved for would have wished put in order. Is it out of
charity for the weakness of human nature and that we may think
as well as possible of it--is that why we admire and praise
most enthusiastically the kind of love and the kind of
friendship and the kind of grief that manifest themselves in
obstreperous feeling and wordiness, with no strength left for
any attempt to _do?_ As Garvey greeted them the tears filled
Clelie's eyes and she turned away. But Susan gazed at him
steadily; in her eyes there were no tears, but a look that
made Garvey choke back sobs and bend his head to hide his
expression. What he saw--or felt--behind her calmness filled
him with awe, with a kind of terror. But he did not recognize
what he saw as grief; it did not resemble any grief he had
felt or had heard about.
"He made a will just before he died," he said to Susan. "He
left everything to you."
Then she had not been mistaken. He had loved her, even as she
loved him. She turned and walked quickly from them. She
hastened into her cabin, closed the door and flung herself
across the bed. And for the first time she gave way. In that
storm her soul was like a little land bird in the clutch of a
sea hurricane. She did not understand herself. She still had
no sense that he was dead; yet had his dead body been lying
there in her arms she could not have been more shaken by
paroxysms of grief, without tears or sobs--grief that vents
itself in shrieks and peals of horrible laughter-like
screams--she smothered them in the pillows in which she buried
her face. Clelie came, opened the door, glanced in, closed
it. An hour passed--an hour and a half. Then Susan appeared
on deck--amber-white pallor, calm, beautiful, the fashionable
woman in traveling dress.
"I never before saw you with your lips not rouged!" exclaimed Clelie.
"You will never see them rouged again," said Susan.
"But it makes you look older."
"Not so old as I am," replied she.
And she busied herself about the details of the landing and
the customs, waving aside Garvey and his eager urgings that
she sit quietly and leave everything to him. In the carriage,
on the way to the hotel, she roused herself from her apparently
tranquil reverie and broke the strained silence by saying:
"How much shall I have?"
The question was merely the protruding end of a train of
thought years long and pursued all that time with scarcely an
interruption. It seemed abrupt; to Garvey it sounded brutal.
Off his guard, he showed in flooding color and staring eye how
profoundly it shocked him. Susan saw, but she did not
explain; she was not keeping accounts in emotion with the
world. She waited patiently. After a long pause he said in
a tone that contained as much of rebuke as so mild a dependent
dared express:
"He left about thirty thousand a year, Miss Lenox."
The exultant light that leaped to Susan's eye horrified him.
It even disturbed Clelie, though she better understood Susan's
nature and was not nearly so reverent as Garvey of the
hypocrisies of conventionality. But Susan had long since lost
the last trace of awe of the opinion of others. She was not
seeking to convey an impression of grief. Grief was too real
to her. She would as soon have burst out with voluble
confession of the secret of her love for Brent. She saw what
Garvey was thinking; but she was not concerned. She continued
to be herself--natural and simple. And there was no reason
why she should conceal as a thing to be ashamed of the fact
that Brent had accomplished the purpose he intended, had
filled her with honest exultation--not with delight merely,
not with triumph, but with that stronger and deeper joy which
the unhoped for pardon brings to the condemned man.
She must live on. The thought of suicide, of any form of
giving up--the thought that instantly possesses the weak and
the diseased--could not find lodgment in that young, healthy
body and mind of hers. She must live on; and suddenly she
discovered that she could live _free!_ Not after years of
doubtful struggles, of reverses, of success so hardly won that
she was left exhausted. But now--at once--_free!_ The heavy
shackles had been stricken off at a blow. She was
free--forever free! Free, forever free, from the wolves of
poverty and shame, of want and rags and filth, the wolves that
had been pursuing her with swift, hideous padded stride, the
wolves that more than once had dragged her down and torn and
trampled her, and lapped her blood. Free to enter of her own
right the world worth living in, the world from which all but
a few are shut out, the world which only a few of those
privileged to enter know how to enjoy. Free to live the life
worth while the life of leisure to work, instead of slaving to
make leisure and luxury and comfort for others. Free to
achieve something beside food, clothing, and shelter. Free to
live as _she_ pleased, instead of for the pleasure of a master
or masters. Free--free--free! The ecstasy of it surged up in
her, for the moment possessing her and submerging even thought
of how she had been freed.
She who had never acquired the habit of hypocrisy frankly
exulted in countenance exultant beyond laughter. She could
conceal her feelings, could refrain from expressing. But if
she expressed at all, it must be her true self--what she
honestly felt. Garvey hung his head in shame. He would not
have believed Susan could be so unfeeling. He would not let
his eyes see the painful sight. He would try to forget, would
deny to himself that he had seen. For to his shallow,
conventional nature Susan's expression could only mean delight
in wealth, in the opportunity that now offered to idle and to
luxuriate in the dead man's money, to realize the crude dreamings
of those lesser minds whose initial impulses toward growth have
been stifled by the routine our social system imposes upon all
but the few with the strength to persist individual.
Free! She tried to summon the haunting vision of the old
women with the tin cups of whisky reeling and staggering in
time to the hunchback's playing. She could remember every
detail, but these memories would not assemble even into a
vivid picture and the picture would have been far enough from
the horror of actuality in the vision she formerly could not
banish. As a menace, as a prophecy, the old women and the
hunchback and the strumming piano had gone forever.
Free--secure, independent--free!
After a long silence Garvey ventured stammeringly:
"He said to me--he asked me to request--he didn't make it a
condition--just a wish--a hope, Miss Lenox--that if you could,
and felt it strongly enough----"
"Wished what?" said Susan, with a sharp impatience that showed
how her nerves were unstrung.
"That you'd go on--go on with the plays--with the acting."
The violet eyes expressed wonder. "Go on?" she inquired,
"Go on?" Then in a tone that made Clelie sob and Garvey's
eyes fill she said:
"What else is there to live for, now?"
"I'm--I'm glad for his sake," stammered Garvey.
He was disconcerted by her smile. She made no other
answer--aloud. For _his_ sake! For her own sake, rather.
What other life had she but the life _he_ had given her? "And
he knew I would," she said to herself. "He said that merely to
let me know he left me entirely free. How like him, to do that!"
At the hotel she shut herself in; she saw no one, not even
Clelie, for nearly a week. Then--she went to work--and worked
like a reincarnation of Brent.
She inquired for Sperry, found that he and Rod had separated
as they no longer needed each other; she went into a sort of
partnership with Sperry for the production of Brent's
plays--he, an excellent coach as well as stage director,
helping her to finish her formal education for the stage. She
played with success half a dozen of the already produced Brent
plays. At the beginning of her second season she appeared
in what has become her most famous part--_Roxy_ in Brent's last
play, "The Scandal." With the opening night her career of
triumph began. Even the critics--therefore, not unnaturally,
suspicious of an actress who was so beautiful, so beautifully
dressed, so well supported, and so well outfitted with
actor-proof plays even the critics conceded her ability. She
was worthy of the great character Brent had created--the
wayward, many-sided, ever gay _Roxy Grandon_.
When, at the first night of "The Scandal," the audience
lingered, cheering Brent's picture thrown upon a drop,
cheering Susan, calling her out again and again, refusing to
leave the theater until it was announced that she could answer
no more calls, as she had gone home--when she was thus finally
and firmly established in her own right--she said to Sperry:
"Will you see to it that every sketch of me that appears
tomorrow says that I am the natural daughter of Lorella Lenox?"
Sperry's Punch-like face reddened.
"I've been ashamed of that fact," she went on. "It has made
me ashamed to be alive in the bottom of my heart."
"Absurd," said Sperry.
"Exactly," replied Susan. "Absurd. Even stronger than my
shame about it has been my shame that I could be so small as
to feel ashamed of it. Now--tonight" she was still in her
dressing-room. As she paused they heard the faint faraway
thunders of the applause of the lingering audience--"Listen!"
she cried. "I am ashamed no longer. Sperry, _Ich bin ein Ich!_"
"I should say," laughed he. "All you have to say is `Susan
Lenox' and you answer all questions."
"At last I'm proud of it," she went on. "I've justified
myself. I've justified my mother. I am proud of her, and she
would be proud of me. So see that it's done, Sperry."
"Sure," said he. "You're right."
He took her hand and kissed it. She laughed, patted him on the
shoulder, kissed him on both cheeks in friendly, sisterly fashion.
He had just gone when a card was brought to her--"Dr. Robert
Stevens"--with "Sutherland, Indiana," penciled underneath.
Instantly she remembered, and had him brought to her--the man
who had rescued her from death at her birth. He proved to be
a quiet, elderly gentleman, subdued and aged beyond his
fifty-five years by the monotonous life of the drowsy old
town. He approached with a manner of embarrassed respect and
deference, stammering old-fashioned compliments. But Susan
was the simple, unaffected girl again, so natural that he soon
felt as much at ease as with one of his patients in Sutherland.
She took him away in her car to her apartment for supper with
her and Clelie, who was in the company, and Sperry. She kept
him hour after hour, questioning him about everyone and
everything in the old town, drawing him out, insisting upon
more and more details. The morning papers were brought and
they read the accounts of play and author and players. For
once there was not a dissent; all the critics agreed that it
was a great performance of a great play. And Susan made
Sperry read aloud the finest and the longest of the accounts
of Brent himself--his life, his death, his work, his lasting
fame now peculiarly assured because in Susan Lenox there had
been found a competent interpreter of his genius.
After the reading there fell silence. Susan, her pallid face
and her luminous, inquiring violet eyes inscrutable, sat
gazing into vacancy. At last Doctor Stevens moved uneasily
and rose to go. Susan roused herself, accompanied him to the
adjoining room. Said the old doctor.
"I've told you about everybody. But you've told me nothing
about the most interesting Sutherlander of all--yourself."
Susan looked at him. And he saw the wound hidden from all the
world--the wound she hid from herself as much of the time as
she could. He, the doctor, the professional confessor, had
seen such wounds often; in all the world there is hardly a
heart without one. He said:
"Since sorrow is the common lot, I wonder that men can be so
selfish or so unthinking as not to help each other in every
way to its consolations. Poor creatures that we
are--wandering in the dark, fighting desperately, not knowing
friend from foe!"
"But I am glad that you saved me," said she.
"You have the consolations--success--fame--honor."
"There is no consolation," replied she in her grave sweet way.
"I had the best. I--lost him. I shall spend my life in
flying from myself."
After a pause she went on: "I shall never speak to anyone as
I have spoken to you. You will understand all. I had the
best--the man who could have given me all a woman seeks from
a man--love, companionship, sympathy, the shelter of strong
arms. I had that. I have lost it. So----"
A long pause. Then she added:
"Usually life is almost tasteless to me. Again--for an hour
or two it is a little less so--until I remember what I have
lost. Then--the taste is very bitter--very bitter."
And she turned away.
She is a famous actress, reputed great. Some day she will be
indeed great--when she has the stage experience and the years.
Except for Clelie, she is alone. Not that there have been no
friendships in her life. There have even been passions. With
men and women of her vigor and vitality, passion is
inevitable. But those she admits find that she has little to
give, and they go away, she making no effort to detain them;
or she finds that she has nothing to give, and sends them away
as gently as may be. She has the reputation of caring for
nothing but her art--and for the great establishment for
orphans up the Hudson, into which about all her earnings go.
The establishment is named for Brent and is dedicated to her
mother. Is she happy? I do not know. I do not think she
knows. Probably she is--as long as she can avoid pausing to
think whether she is or not. What better happiness can
intelligent mortal have, or hope for? Certainly she is
triumphant, is lifted high above the storms that tortured her
girlhood and early youth, the sordid woes that make life an
unrelieved tragedy of calamity threatened and calamity realized
for the masses of mankind. The last time I saw her----
It was a few evenings ago, and she was crossing the sidewalk
before her house toward the big limousine that was to take her
to the theater. She is still young; she looked even younger
than she is. Her dress had the same exquisite quality that
made her the talk of Paris in the days of her sojourn there.
But it is not her dress that most interests me, nor the luxury
and perfection of all her surroundings. It is not even her
beauty--that is, the whole of her beauty.
Everything and every being that is individual in appearance
has some one quality, trait, characteristic, which stands out
above all the rest to make a climax of interest and charm.
With the rose it is its perfume; with the bird, perhaps the
scarlet or snowy feathers upon its breast. Among human beings
who have the rare divine dower of clear individuality the
crown and cap of distinction differs. In her--for me, at
least--the consummate fascination is not in her eyes, though I
am moved by the soft glory of their light, nor in the lovely
oval contour of her sweet, healthily pallid face. No, it is
in her mouth--sensitive, strong yet gentle, suggestive of all
the passion and suffering and striving that have built up her
life. Her mouth--the curve of it--I think it is, that sends
from time to time the mysterious thrill through her audiences.
And I imagine those who know her best look always first at
those strangely pale lips, curved in a way that suggests
bitterness melting into sympathy, sadness changing into
mirth--a way that seems to say: "I have suffered--but, see!
I have stood fast!"
Can a life teach any deeper lesson, give any higher inspiration?
As I was saying, the last time I saw her she was about to
enter her automobile. I halted and watched the graceful
movements with which she took her seat and gathered the robes
about her. And then I noted her profile, by the light of the
big lamps guarding her door. You know that profile? You have
seen its same expression in every profile of successful man or
woman who ever lived. Yes, she may be happy--doubtless is
more happy than unhappy. But--I do not envy her--or any other
of the sons and daughters of men who is blessed--and
cursed--with imagination.
And Freddie--and Rod--and Etta--and the people of
Sutherland--and all the rest who passed through her life and
out? What does it matter? Some went up, some down--not
without reason, but, alas! not for reason of desert. For the
judgments of fate are, for the most part, not unlike blows
from a lunatic striking out in the dark; if they land where
they should, it is rarely and by sheer chance. Ruth's parents
are dead; she is married to Sam Wright. He lost his father's
money in wheat speculation in Chicago--in one of the most
successful of the plutocracy's constantly recurring raids upon
the hoardings of the middle class. They live in a little
house in one of the back streets of Sutherland and he is head
clerk in Arthur Sinclair's store--a position he owes to the
fact that Sinclair is his rich brother-in-law. Ruth has
children and she is happier in them than she realizes or than
her discontented face and voice suggest. Etta is fat and
contented, the mother of many, and fond of her fat, fussy
August, the rich brewer. John Redmond--a congressman, a
possession of the Beef Trust, I believe--but not so highly
prized a possession as was his abler father.
Freddie? I saw him a year ago at the races at Auteuil. He is
huge and loose and coarse, is in the way soon to die of
Bright's disease, I suspect. There was a woman with him--very
pretty, very _chic_. I saw no other woman similarly placed
whose eyes held so assiduously, and without ever a wandering
flutter, to the face of the man who was paying. But Freddie
never noticed her. He chewed savagely at his cigar, looking
about the while for things to grumble at or to curse. Rod?
He is still writing indifferent plays with varying success.
He long since wearied of Constance Francklyn, but she clings
to him and, as she is a steady moneymaker, he tolerates her.
Brent? He is statelily ensconced up at Woodlawn. Susan has
never been to his grave--there. His grave in her heart--she
avoids that too, when she can. But there are times--there
always will be times----
If you doubt it, look at her profile.
Yes, she has learned to live. But--she has paid the price.