When they were seated in the café 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 onlysuspectmyself. But Iknowmost 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 meyourtroubles. 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 whetherI 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.
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? Whatcouldshe 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'tF. 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. BlackMustache 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 dothatkind 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."
"Youdon't do them."
"Oh, I was brought up badly—badly for the game, I mean. ButI'm doing better, and I shall do still better. I can'tabolish 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 sureyoucan afford to be seen withme?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 youseemto 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 whereyoucome 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 whereyoucome 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, butIdidn'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 ifI'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.
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, MissLenox," 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. ButI 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 inyou, 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. "Whycan'tit 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.