|SUE was in her half-furnished living-room--not curled comfortably
on the couch-bed, as she would have been a month or two earlier, but
sitting rather stiffly in a chair, a photograph in her listless hand.
Zanin--big, shaggy, sunburnt--walked the floor. “Are you turning
conventional, Sue?” he asked. “What is it? You puzzle me.”
“I don't want that picture used, Jacob.”
He lighted a cigarette, dropped on a wooden chair, tipped it Lack
against the wall, twisted his feet around the front legs, drummed on the
front of the seat with big fingers.
He reached for the photograph. It was Sue herself, as she would appear
in one of the more daring scenes of Nature.
“It's an honest picture, Sue--right off the film.” She was very quiet.
“It's the singling it out, Jacob. In the film it is all movement,
action--it passes. It doesn't stay before their eyes.” A little feeling
crept into her voice. “I agreed to do the film, Jacob. I'm doing it. Am
I not?”
“But you're drawing a rather sharp line, Sue. We've got to hit them hard
with this thing. I don't expect Mann to understand. I've got to work
along with him as best I can and let it go at that. But I count on you.”
The legs of the chair came down with a bang. He sprang up and walked the
floor again. His cigarette consumed, he lighted another with the butt,
which latter he tossed into a corner of the room. Sue's eyes followed it
there. She was still gazing at it when Zanin paused before her. She
could feel him looking down at her. She wished it were possible to avoid
discussion just now. There had been so many discussions during these
crowded two years.... She raised her eyes. There were his, fixed on her.
He was not tired. His right hand was plunged into his thick hair; his
left hand held the cigarette.
“You're none too fit, Sue.”
She moved her hands in assert.
“And that's something to be considered seriously. We need you fit.”
She did not answer at once. She would have liked to send him away.
She tried to recall the long slow series of events, each dovetailed so
intricately into the next that had brought them so close. Her mind--her
sense of fairness--told her that he had every right to stand there and
talk at her; yet he seemed suddenly and oddly a stranger.
“Suppose,” she said, “we stop discussing me.”
He shook his head. “It's quite time to begin discussing you. It's
suppressions, Sue. You've played the Village game with your mind, but
you've kept your feelings under. The result is natural enough--your
nerves are in a knot. You must let go--trust your emotions.”
“I trust my emotions enough,” said she shortly.
He walked back and forth. “Let's look at this dispassionately, Sue. We
can, you and I. Of course I love you--you know that. There have been
women enough in my life, but none of them has stirred my blood as you
have. Not one. I want you--desperately--every minute--month in, month
out. But”--he stood before her again--“if you can't let go with me, I'd
almost--surely, yes, I can say it, I'd rather it would be somebody else
then. But somebody, something. You're all buttled up. It's dangerous.”
She stirred restlessly.
“You know that as well as I.” He was merciless.
The worst of it was he really seemed dispassionate. For the moment she
could not question his sincerity. He went on--“As lately as last winter
you would have carried all this off with a glorious flare. It's this
suppression that has got to your nerves, as it was bound to. You're
dodging, I'm afraid. You're refusing life.” He lit another cigarette.
“It's damn puzzling. At heart you are, I know, a thoroughbred. I
can't imagine you marrying for a living or to escape love. You're
intelligent--too intelligent for that.” She moved restlessly, picked up
the photograph and studied it again.
“You can't go back to that home of yours...”
“I'm not going back there,” she said.
“And you can't quit. We're too deep in.”
“Don't talk about that, Jacob!” she broke out. “I'm not going to quit.”
He dropped casually on the arm of her chair. One big hand rested on the
chair-back, the other took hers and held it, with the picture, a little
higher.
She seemed for an instant to shrink away; then, with slightly compressed
lips, sat motionless.
“You think I am squeamish,” she said.
“Yes, I do.” They both looked at the photograph.
“Really, Sue--why on earth!... What is it, anyway? Are you all of a
sudden ashamed of your body?”
“Don't expect me to explain. I know I'm inconsistent.”
He pressed her hand; then his other big hand very quietly stroked her
hair, slid down to her forehead, rested slightly on her flushed temple
and cheek.
“You poor child,” he said, “you're almost in a fever. You've got to do
something. Don't you see that?”
She was silent.
“It's tearing you to pieces, this giving the lie to your own beliefs.
You've got to let go, Sue! For God's sake, be human! Accept a little
happiness. You're not a small person. You are gifted, big. But you've
got to live the complete life. It's the only answer.... See here.
Peter's away, isn't he?”
“He left last Thursday... I had a note...”
“I didn't,” Zanin smiled grimly. “It's Tuesday, now. We can't do those
outdoor scenes yet. You come away with me. I'll take you off into the
hills somewhere--over in Pennsylvania or up-state. Let's have some
happiness, Sue. And give me a chance to take a little real care of you.
Half my strength is rusting right now because you won't use it.”
He drew her closer.
Suddenly she sprang up, leaped across the room, whirled against the wall
and faced him.
Then she faltered perceptibly, for on his face she saw only frank
admiration.
“Fine, Sue!” he cried. “That's the old fire! Damn it, girl, don't let's
be childish about this! You and I don't need to get all of a flutter at
the thought of love. If I didn't stir an emotional response in you do
you think I'd want you? But I do.” He rose and came to her. He gripped
her shoulders and made her look at him. “Child, for God's sake, don't
all at once forget everything you know! Where's your humor? Can't you
see that this is exactly what you've got to have--that somebody has got
to stir you as I'm stirring you now! If I couldn't reach you, it would
have to be some one else. A little love won't hurt you any. The real
danger I've been fearing is that no man would be able to stir you. That
would be the tragedy. You're a live vital girl. You're an artist. Of
course you've got to have love. You'll never do real work without it.
You'll never even grow up without it.”
She could not meet his eyes. And she had a disheartening feeling that
he was reasonable and right, granting the premises of their common
philosophy.
He took his hands away. She heard him strike a match and light a
cigarette, then move about the room. Then his voice--
“What do you say, Sue--will you pack a bag and start off with me? It'll
do both of us good. It'll give us new life for our job.”
[Illustration: 0185]
She was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No.”
“If it was only this,” he said, thoughtfully enough--“but it's
everything. Peter is lying down on me and now you are failing me
utterly.”
She dropped on a chair by the door. “That's the hardest thing you ever
said to me, Jacob.”
“It is true. I'm not blaming you. But it is a fact I have to meet....
Sue, do you think for one moment I intend being beaten in this
enterprise? Don't you know me better than that? You are failing me. Not
in love--that is personal. But in the work. Lately I have feared that
Peter had your love. Now, Sue, if I am not to have you I can almost wish
he had. When you do accept love it will hurt you. I have no doubt of
that. There will be reactions. The conventional in you will stab and
stab. But you are not little, and you will feel the triumph of it. It
will make you. After all, however it may come, through door or window,
love is life.”
She had folded her hands in her lap and was looking down at them. “I
have no doubt you are right,” she said slowly and quietly.
He gave a weary sigh. “Of course. Your own intelligence tells you....
If you won't go with me, Sue, I may slip away alone. I've got to think.
I've got to get money. I can get it, and I will. A little more energy,
a little more expenditure of personality will do it. It can always be
done.”
Her mind roused and seized on this as a momentary diversion. “Do you
mean to go outside for it?”
“If it comes to that. Don't you know, Sue, that we're too far in with
this thing to falter. The way to make money is to spend money. Peter's a
chicken. If he won't come through, somebody's got to. Why it would cost
more than a thousand dollars--perhaps two thousand--merely to do what I
have planned to do with the picture you so suddenly dislike,” He looked
about for his hat. “I'm going, Sue. I've let myself get stirred up;
and that, of course, is foolishness. I'm just tiring you out. You can't
help, I see that--not as you are.”
She rose and leaned against the wall by the door. He took her arm as
he reached her side. “Buck up, little girl,” he said; “don't blame
yourself.”
She did not answer, and for a long moment they stood thus. Then she
heard him draw in his breath.
His arms were around her. He held her against him.
“Have you got a kiss for me, Sue?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He let her go then, and again she leaned against the walk
“Good-by,” said he. “If you could bring yourself to share the real
thrill with me, I could help you. But I'm not going to wear you out with
this crude sex-duel stuff. Good-by.”
“Wait,” she said then. She moved over to the table, and fingered
the photograph. He stood in the doorway and watched her. She was
thinking--desperately thinking. He could see that. The flush was still
on her temples and cheeks. Finally she straightened up and faced him.
“Jacob,” she said, “I can't let you go like that. This thing has got to
be settled. Really settled.”
He slowly nodded.
“Give me till Saturday, Jacob. I promise you I'll try to think it all
out. I'll go through with the pictures anyway--somehow. As for this
photograph, go ahead. Use it. Only please don't commit yourself in a
money way before I see you. Come to tea Saturday, at four. I'll either
tell you finally that we are---well, hardly to be friends beyond the
rest of this job of ours, or I'll--I'll go along with you, Jacob.”
Her voice faltered over the last of this, but her eyes did not. And her
chin was high.
“It's too bad,” said he. “But you're right. It isn't me. You've come to
the point where you've got to find yourself.”
“That's it,” she said. “I've got to try to find out what I am. If
my thoughts and feelings have been misleading me--well, maybe I _am_
conventional--maybe I _am_ little--”
Her voice broke. Her eyes filled. But she fought the tears back and
still faced him.
He took a step toward her. She shook her head.
He went out then.
And when the outer door shut she dropped limply on the couch-bed.