ELLEN, the maid, slept across the hall from Susan, in a closet
so dirty that no one could have risked in it any article of
clothing with the least pretension to cleanness. It was no
better, no worse than the lodgings of more than two hundred
thousand New Yorkers. Its one narrow opening, beside the door,
gave upon a shaft whose odors were so foul that she kept the
window closed, preferring heat like the inside of a steaming
pan to the only available "outside air." This in a civilized
city where hundreds of dogs with jeweled collars slept in
luxurious rooms on downiest beds and had servants to wait upon
them! The morning after Susan's coming, Ellen woke her, as
they had arranged, at a quarter before five. The night before,
Susan had brought up from the basement a large bucket of water;
for she had made up her mind, to take a bath every day, at
least until the cold weather set in and rendered such a luxury
impossible. With this water and what she had in her little
pitcher, Susan contrived to freshen herself up. She had bought
a gas stove and some indispensable utensils for three dollars
and seventeen cents in a Fourteenth Street store, a pound of
cocoa for seventy cents and ten cents' worth of rolls--three
rolls, well baked, of first quality flour and with about as
good butter and other things put into the dough as one can
expect in bread not made at home. These purchases had reduced
her cash to forty-three cents--and she ought to buy without
delay a clock with an alarm attachment. And pay
day--Saturday--was two days away.
She made a cup of cocoa, drank it slowly, eating one of the
rolls--all in the same methodical way like a machine that
continues to revolve after the power has been shut off. It was
then, even more than during her first evening alone, even more
than when she from time to time startled out of troubled
sleep--it was then, as she forced down her lonely breakfast,
that she most missed Rod. When she had finished, she completed
her toilet. The final glance at herself in the little mirror
was depressing. She looked fresh for her new surroundings and
for her new class. But in comparison with what she usually
looked, already there was a distinct, an ominous falling off.
"I'm glad Rod never saw me looking like this," she said aloud
drearily. Taking a roll for lunch, she issued forth at
half-past six. The hour and three-quarters she had allowed for
dressing and breakfasting had been none too much. In the
coolness and comparative quiet she went down University Place
and across Washington Square under the old trees, all alive
with song and breeze and flashes of early morning light. She
was soon in Broadway's deep canyon, was drifting absently along
in the stream of cross, mussy-looking workers pushing
southward. Her heart ached, her brain throbbed. It was
horrible, this loneliness; and every one of the wounds where
she had severed the ties with Spenser was bleeding. She was
astonished to find herself before the building whose upper
floors were occupied by Jeffries and Jonas. How had she got
there? Where had she crossed Broadway?
"Good morning, Miss Sackville." It was Miss Hinkle, just
arriving. Her eyes were heavy, and there were the criss-cross
lines under them that tell a story to the expert in the
different effects of different kinds of dissipation. Miss
Hinkle was showing her age--and she was "no spring chicken."
Susan returned her greeting, gazing at her with the dazed eyes
and puzzled smile of an awakening sleeper.
"I'll show you the ropes," said Miss Hinkle, as they climbed
the two flights of stairs. "You'll find the job dead easy.
They're mighty nice people to work for, Mr. Jeffries
especially. Not easy fruit, of course, but nice for people
that have got on. You didn't sleep well?"
"Yes--I think so."
"I didn't have a chance to drop round last night. I was out
with one of the buyers. How do you like Mrs. Tucker?"
"She's very good, isn't she?"
"She'll never get along. She works hard, too--but not for
herself. In this world you have to look out for Number One.
I had a swell dinner last night. Lobster--I love lobster--and
elegant champagne--up to Murray's--such a refined place--all
fountains and mirrors--really quite artistic. And my gentleman
friend was so nice and respectful. You know, we have to go out
with the buyers when they ask us. It helps the house sell
goods. And we have to be careful not to offend them."
Miss Hinkle's tone in the last remark was so significant that
Susan looked at her--and, looking, understood.
"Sometimes," pursued Miss Hinkle, eyes carefully averted,
"sometimes a new girl goes out with an important customer and
he gets fresh and she kicks and complains to Mr. Jeffries--or
Mr. Jonas--or Mr. Ratney, the head man. They always sympathize
with her--but--well, I've noticed that somehow she soon loses
her job."
"What do you do when--when a customer annoys you?"
"I!" Miss Hinkle laughed with some embarrassment. "Oh, I do
the best I can." A swift glance of the cynical, laughing,
"fast" eyes at Susan and away. "The best I can--for the
house--and for myself. . . . I talk to you because I know
you're a lady and because I don't want to see you thrown down.
A woman that's living quietly at home--like a lady--she can be
squeamish. But out in the world a woman can't afford to
be--no, nor a man, neither. You don't find this set down in the
books, and they don't preach it in the churches--leastways they
didn't when I used to go to church. But it's true, all the same."
They were a few minutes early; so Miss Hinkle continued the
conversation while they waited for the opening of the room
where Susan would be outfitted for her work. "I called you
Miss Sackville," said she, "but you've been married--haven't you?"
"Yes."
"I can always tell--or at least I can see whether a woman's had
experience or not. Well, I've never been regularly married,
and I don't expect to, unless something pretty good offers.
Think I'd marry one of these rotten little clerks?" Miss Hinkle
answered her own question with a scornful sniff. "They can
hardly make a living for themselves. And a man who amounts to
anything, he wants a refined lady to help him on up, not a
working girl. Of course, there're exceptions. But as a rule
a girl in our position either has to stay single or marry
beneath her--marry some mechanic or such like. Well, I ain't
so lazy, or so crazy about being supported, that I'd sink to be
cook and slop-carrier--and worse--for a carpenter or a
bricklayer. Going out with the buyers--the gentlemanly
ones--has spoiled my taste. I can't stand a coarse man--coarse
dress and hands and manners. Can you?"
Susan turned hastily away, so that her face was hidden from
Miss Hinkle.
"I'll bet you wasn't married to a coarse man."
"I'd rather not talk about myself," said Susan with an effort.
"It's not pleasant."
Her manner of checking Miss Hinkle's friendly curiosity did not
give offense; it excited the experienced working woman's
sympathy. She went on:
"Well, I feel sorry for any woman that has to work. Of course
most women do--and at worse than anything in the stores and
factories. As between being a drudge to some dirty common
laborer like most women are, and working in a factory even,
give me the factory. Yes, give me a job as a pot slinger even,
low as that is. Oh, I _hate_ working people! I love
refinement. Up to Murray's last night I sat there, eating my
lobster and drinking my wine, and I pretended I was a
lady--and, my, how happy I was!"
The stockroom now opened. Susan, with the help of Miss Hinkle
and the stock keeper, dressed in one of the tight-fitting satin
slips that revealed every curve and line of her form, made
every motion however slight, every breath she drew, a gesture
of sensuousness. As she looked at herself in a long glass in
one of the show-parlors, her face did not reflect the
admiration frankly displayed upon the faces of the two other
women. That satin slip seemed to have a moral quality, an
immoral character. It made her feel naked--no, as if she were
naked and being peeped at through a crack or keyhole.
"You'll soon get used to it," Miss Hinkle assured her. "And
you'll learn to show off the dresses and cloaks to the best
advantage." She laughed her insinuating little laugh again,
amused, cynical, reckless. "You know, the buyers are men.
Gee, what awful jay things we work off on them, sometimes!
They can't see the dress for the figure. And you've got such
a refined figure, Miss Sackville--the kind I'd be crazy about
if I was a man. But I must say----" here she eyed herself in
the glass complacently--"most men prefer a figure like mine.
Don't they, Miss Simmons?"
The stock keeper shook her fat shoulders in a gesture of
indifferent disdain. "They take whatever's handiest--that's
_my_ experience."
About half-past nine the first customer appeared--Mr. Gideon,
it happened to be. He was making the rounds of the big
wholesale houses in search of stock for the huge Chicago
department store that paid him fifteen thousand a year and
expenses. He had been contemptuous of the offerings of
Jeffries and Jonas for the winter season, had praised with
enthusiasm the models of their principal rival, Icklemeier,
Schwartz and Company. They were undecided whether he was
really thinking of deserting them or was feeling for lower
prices. Mr. Jeffries bustled into the room where Susan stood
waiting; his flat face quivered with excitement. "Gid's come!"
he said in a hoarse whisper. "Everybody get busy. We'll try
Miss Sackville on him."
And he himself assisted while they tricked out Susan in an
afternoon costume of pale gray, putting on her head a big pale
gray hat with harmonizing feathers. The model was offered in
all colors and also in a modified form that permitted its use
for either afternoon or evening. Susan had received her
instructions, so when she was dressed, she was ready to sweep
into Gideon's presence with languid majesty. Jeffries' eyes
glistened as he noted her walk. "She looks as if she really
was a lady!" exclaimed he. "I wish I could make my daughters
move around on their trotters like that."
Gideon was enthroned in an easy chair, smoking a cigar. He was
a spare man of perhaps forty-five, with no intention of
abandoning the pretensions to youth for many a year. In dress
he was as spick and span as a tailor at the trade's annual
convention. But he had evidently been "going some" for several
days; the sour, worn, haggard face rising above his elegantly
fitting collar suggested a moth-eaten jaguar that has been for
weeks on short rations or none.
"What's the matter?" he snapped, as the door began to open.
"I don't like to be kept waiting."
In swept Susan; and Jeffries, rubbing his thick hands, said
fawningly, "But I think, Mr. Gideon, you'll say it was worth
waiting for."
Gideon's angry, arrogant eyes softened at first glimpse of
Susan. "Um!" he grunted, some such sound as the jaguar
aforesaid would make when the first chunk of food hurtled
through the bars and landed on his paws. He sat with cigar
poised between his long white fingers while Susan walked up and
down before him, displaying the dress at all angles, Jeffries
expatiating upon it the while.
"Don't talk so damn much, Jeff!" he commanded with the
insolence of a customer containing possibilities of large
profit. "I judge for myself. I'm not a damn fool."
"I should say not," cried Jeffries, laughing the merchant's
laugh for a customer's pleasantry. "But I can't help talking
about it, Gid, it's so lovely!"
Jeffries' shrewd eyes leaped for joy when Gideon got up from
his chair and, under pretense of examining the garment,
investigated Susan's figure. As his gentle, insinuating hands
traveled over her, his eyes sought hers. "Excuse me," said
Jeffries. "I'll see that they get the other things ready."
And out he went, winking at Mary Hinkle to follow him--an
unnecessary gesture as she was already on her way to the door.
Gideon understood as well as did they why they left. "I don't
think I've seen you before, my dear," said he to Susan.
"I came only this morning," replied she.
"I like to know everybody I deal with. We must get better
acquainted. You've got the best figure in the business--the
very best."
"Thank you," said Susan with a grave, distant smile.
"Got a date for dinner tonight?" inquired he; and, assuming
that everything would yield precedence to him, he did not wait
for a reply, but went on, "Tell me your address. I'll send a
cab for you at seven o'clock."
"Thank you," said Susan, "but I can't go."
Gideon smiled. "Oh, don't be shy. Of course you'll go. Ask
Jeffries. He'll tell you it's all right."
"There are reasons why I'd rather not be seen in the restaurants."
"That's even better. I'll come in the cab myself and we'll go
to a quiet place."
His eyes smiled insinuatingly at her. Now that she looked at
him more carefully he was unusually attractive for a man of his
type--had strength and intelligence in his features, had a
suggestion of mastery, of one used to obedience, in his voice.
His teeth were even and sound, his lips firm yet not too thin.
"Come," said he persuasively. "I'll not eat you up--" with a
gay and gracious smile--"at least I'll try not to."
Susan remembered what Miss Hinkle had told her. She saw that
she must either accept the invitation or give up her position.
She said:
"Very well," and gave him her address.
Back came Jeffries and Miss Hinkle carrying the first of the
wraps. Gideon waved them away. "You've shown 'em to me
before," said he. "I don't want to see 'em again. Give me
the evening gowns."
Susan withdrew, soon to appear in a dress that left her arms
and neck bare. Gideon could not get enough of this. Jeffries
kept her walking up and down until she was ready to drop with
weariness of the monotony, of the distasteful play of Gideon's
fiery glance upon her arms and shoulders and throat. Gideon
tried to draw her into conversation, but she would--indeed
could--go no further than direct answers to his direct
questions. "Never mind," said he to her in an undertone.
"I'll cheer you up this evening. I think I know how to order
a dinner."
Her instant conquest of the difficult and valuable Gideon so
elated Jeffries that he piled the work on her. He used her
with every important buyer who came that day. The temperature
was up in the high nineties, the hot moist air stood stagnant
as a barnyard pool; the winter models were cruelly hot and
heavy. All day long, with a pause of half an hour to eat her
roll and drink a glass of water, Susan walked up and down the
show parlors weighted with dresses and cloaks, furs for arctic
weather. The other girls, even those doing almost nothing,
were all but prostrated. It was little short of intolerable,
this struggle to gain the "honest, self-respecting living by
honest work" that there was so much talk about. Toward five
o'clock her nerves abruptly and completely gave way, and she
fainted--for the first time in her life. At once the whole
establishment was in an uproar. Jeffries cursed himself loudly
for his shortsightedness, for his overestimating her young
strength. "She'll look like hell this evening," he wailed,
wringing his hands like a distracted peasant woman. "Maybe she
won't be able to go out at all."
She soon came round. They brought her whiskey, and afterward
tea and sandwiches. And with the power of quick recuperation
that is the most fascinating miracle of healthy youth, she not
only showed no sign of her breakdown but looked much better.
And she felt better. We shall some day understand why it is
that if a severe physical blow follows upon a mental blow,
recovery from the physical blow is always accompanied by a
relief of the mental strain. Susan came out of her fit of
faintness and exhaustion with a different point of view--as if
time had been long at work softening her, grief. Spenser
seemed part of the present no longer, but of the past--a past
far more remote than yesterday.
Mary Hinkle sat with her as she drank the tea. "Did you make
a date with Gid?" inquired she. Her tone let Susan know that
the question had been prompted by Jeffries.
"He asked me to dine with him, and I said I would."
"Have you got a nice dress--dinner dress, I mean?"
"The linen one I'm wearing is all. My other dress is for
cooler weather."
"Then I'll give you one out of stock--I mean I'll borrow one
for you. This dinner's a house affair, you know--to get Gid's
order. It'll be worth thousands to them."
"There wouldn't be anything to fit me on such short notice,"
said Susan, casting about for an excuse for not wearing
borrowed finery.
"Why, you've got a model figure. I'll pick you out a white
dress--and a black and white hat. I know 'em all, and I know
one that'll make you look simply lovely."
Susan did not protest. She was profoundly indifferent to what
happened to her. Life seemed a show in which she had no part,
and at which she sat a listless spectator. A few minutes, and in
puffed Jeffries, solicitous as a fussy old bird with a new family.
"You're a lot better, ain't you?" cried he, before he had
looked at her. "Oh, yes, you'll be all right. And you'll have
a lovely time with Mr. Gideon. He's a perfect gentleman--knows
how to treat a lady. . . . The minute I laid eyes on you I
said to myself, said I, 'Jeffries, she's a mascot.' And you
are, my dear. You'll get us the order. But you mustn't talk
business with him, you understand?"
"Yes," said Susan, wearily.
"He's a gentleman, you know, and it don't do to mix business
and social pleasures. You string him along quiet and ladylike
and elegant, as if there wasn't any such things as cloaks or
dresses in the world. He'll understand all right. . . . If
you land the order, my dear, I'll see that you get a nice
present. A nice dress--the one we're going to lend you--if he
gives us a slice. The dress and twenty-five in cash, if he
gives us all. How's that?"
"Thank you," said Susan. "I'll do my best."
"You'll land it. You'll land it. I feel as if we had it with
his O. K. on it."
Susan shivered. "Don't--don't count on me too much," she said
hesitatingly. "I'm not in very good spirits, I'm sorry to say."
"A little pressed for money?" Jeffries hesitated, made an
effort, blurted out what was for him, the business man, a giddy
generosity. "On your way out, stop at the cashier's. He'll
give you this week's pay in advance." Jeffries hesitated,
decided against dangerous liberality. "Not ten, you
understand, but say six. You see, you won't have been with us
a full week." And he hurried away, frightened by his prodigality,
by these hysterical impulses that were rushing him far from the
course of sound business sense. "As Jones says, I'm a generous
old fool," he muttered. "My soft heart'll ruin me yet."
Jeffries sent Mary Hinkle home with Susan to carry the dress
and hat, to help her make a toilet and to "start her off
right." In the hour before they left the store there was
offered a typical illustration of why and how "business" is
able to suspend the normal moral sense and to substitute for it
a highly ingenious counterfeit of supreme moral obligation to
it. The hysterical Jeffries had infected the entire personnel
with his excitement, with the sense that a great battle was
impending and that the cause of the house, which was the cause
of everyone who drew pay from it, had been intrusted to the
young recruit with the fascinating figure and the sweet, sad
face. And Susan's sensitive nature was soon vibrating in
response to this feeling. It terrified her that she, the
inexperienced, had such grave responsibility. It made her
heart heavy to think of probable failure, when the house had
been so good to her, had taken her in, had given her unusual
wages, had made it possible for her to get a start in life, had
intrusted to her its cause, its chance to retrieve a bad season
and to protect its employees instead of discharging a lot of them.
"Have you got long white gloves?" asked Mary Hinkle, as they
walked up Broadway, she carrying the dress and Susan the hat box.
"Only a few pairs of short ones."
"You must have long white gloves--and a pair of white stockings."
"I can't afford them."
"Oh, Jeffries told me to ask you--and to go to work and buy
them if you hadn't."
They stopped at Wanamaker's. Susan was about to pay, when Mary
stopped her. "If you pay," said she, "maybe you'll get your
money back from the house, and maybe you won't. If I pay,
they'll not make a kick on giving it back to me."
The dress Mary had selected was a simple white batiste, cut out
at the neck prettily, and with the elbow sleeves that were then
the fashion. "Your arms and throat are lovely," said Mary.
"And your hands are mighty nice, too--that's why I'm sure
you've never been a real working girl--leastways, not for a
long time. When you get to the restaurant and draw off your
gloves in a slow, careless, ladylike kind of way, and put your
elbows on the table--my, how he will take on!" Mary looked at
her with an intense but not at all malignant envy. "If you don't
land high, it'll be because you're a fool. And you ain't that."
"I'm afraid I am," replied Susan. "Yes, I guess I'm what's
called a fool--what probably is a fool."
"You want to look out then," warned Miss Hinkle. "You want to
go to work and get over that. Beauty don't count, unless a
girl's got shrewdness. The streets are full of beauties
sellin' out for a bare living. They thought they couldn't help
winning, and they got left, and the plain girls who had to
hustle and manage have passed them. Go to Del's or Rector's or
the Waldorf or the Madrid or any of those high-toned places,
and see the women with the swell clothes and jewelry! The
married ones, and the other kind, both. Are they raving
tearing beauties? Not often. . . . The trouble with me is
I've been too good-hearted and too soft about being flattered.
I was too good looking, and a small easy living came too easy.
You--I'd say you were--that you had brains but were shy about
using them. What's the good of having them? Might as well be
a boob. Then, too, you've got to go to work and look out about
being too refined. The refined, nice ones goes the lowest--if
they get pushed--and this is a pushing world. You'll get
pushed just as far as you'll let 'em. Take it from me. I've
been down the line."
Susan's low spirits sank lower. These disagreeable truths--for
observation and experience made her fear they were
truths--filled her with despondency. What was the matter with
life? As between the morality she had been taught and the
practical morality of this world upon which she had been
cast, which was the right? How "take hold"? How avert the
impending disaster? What of the "good" should--_must_--she
throw away? What should--_must_--she cling to?
Mary Hinkle was shocked by the poor little room. "This is no
place for a lady!" cried she. "But it won't last long--not
after tonight, if you play your cards halfway right."
"I'm very well satisfied," said Susan. "If I can only keep this!"
She felt no interest in the toilet until the dress and hat were
unpacked and laid out upon the bed. At sight of them her eyes
became a keen and lively gray--never violet for that kind of
emotion--and there surged up the love of finery that dwells in
every normal woman--and in every normal man--that is put there
by a heredity dating back through the ages to the very
beginning of conscious life--and does not leave them until life
gives up the battle and prepares to vacate before death.
Ellen, the maid, passing the door, saw and entered to add her
ecstatic exclamations to the excitement. Down she ran to bring
Mrs. Tucker, who no sooner beheld the glory displayed upon the
humble bed than she too was in a turmoil. Susan dressed with
the aid of three maids as interested and eager as ever robed a
queen for coronation. Ellen brought hot water and a larger
bowl. Mrs. Tucker wished to lend a highly scented toilet soap
she used when she put on gala attire; but Susan insisted upon
her own plain soap. They all helped her bathe; they helped her
select the best underclothes from her small store. Susan would
put on her own stockings; but Ellen got one foot into one of
the slippers and Mrs. Tucker looked after the other foot.
"Ain't they lovely?" said Ellen to Mrs. Tucker, as they knelt
together at their task. "I never see such feet. Not a lump on
'em, but like feet in a picture."
"It takes a mighty good leg to look good in a white stocking,"
observed Mary. "But yours is so nice and long and slim that
they'd stand most anything."
Mrs. Tucker and Ellen stood by with no interference save
suggestion and comment, while Mary, who at one time worked for
a hairdresser, did Susan's thick dark hair. Susan would permit
no elaborations, much to Miss Hinkle's regret. But the three
agreed that she was right when the simple sweep of the vital
blue-black hair was finished in a loose and graceful knot at
the back, and Susan's small, healthily pallid face looked its
loveliest, with the violet-gray eyes soft and sweet and
serious. Mrs. Tucker brought the hat from the bed, and Susan
put it on--a large black straw of a most becoming shape with
two pure white plumes curling round the crown and a third, not
so long, rising gracefully from the big buckle where the three
plumes met. And now came the putting on of the dress. With as
much care as if they were handling a rare and fragile vase,
Mary and Mrs. Tucker held the dress for Susan to step into it.
Ellen kept her petticoat in place while the other two escorted
the dress up Susan's form.
Then the three worked together at hooking and smoothing. Susan
washed her hands again, refused to let Mrs. Tucker run and
bring powder, produced from a drawer some prepared chalk and
with it safeguarded her nose against shine; she tucked the
powder rag into her stocking. Last of all the gloves went on and
a small handkerchief was thrust into the palm of the left glove.
"How do I look?" asked Susan. "Lovely"--"Fine"--"Just grand,"
exclaimed the three maids.
"I feel awfully dressed up," said she. "And it's so hot!"
"You must go right downstairs where it's cool and you won't get
wilted," cried Mrs. Tucker. "Hold your skirts close on the
way. The steps and walls ain't none too clean."
In the bathroom downstairs there was a long mirror built into
the wall, a relic of the old house's long departed youth of
grandeur. As the tenant--Mr. Jessop--was out, Mrs. Tucker led
the way into it. There Susan had the first satisfactory look
at herself. She knew she was a pretty woman; she would have
been weak-minded had she not known it. But she was amazed at
herself. A touch here and there, a sinuous shifting of the
body within the garments, and the suggestion of "dressed up"
vanished before the reflected eyes of her agitated assistants,
who did not know what had happened but only saw the results.
She hardly knew the tall beautiful woman of fashion gazing at
her from the mirror. Could it be that this was her
hair?--these eyes hers--and the mouth and nose and the skin?
Was this long slender figure her very own? What an astounding
difference clothes did make! Never before had Susan worn
anything nearly so fine. "This is the way I ought to look all
the time," thought she. "And this is the way I _will_ look!"
Only better--much better. Already her true eye was seeing the
defects, the chances for improvement--how the hat could be
re-bent and re-trimmed to adapt it to her features, how the
dress could be altered to make it more tasteful, more effective
in subtly attracting attention to her figure.
"How much do you suppose the dress cost, Miss Hinkle?" asked
Ellen--the question Mrs. Tucker had been dying to put but had
refrained from putting lest it should sound unrefined.
"It costs ninety wholesale," said Miss Hinkle. "That'd mean a
hundred and twenty-five--a hundred and fifty, maybe if you was
to try to buy it in a department store. And the hat--well,
Lichtenstein'd ask fifty or sixty for it and never turn a hair."
"Gosh--ee?" exclaimed Ellen. "Did you ever hear the like?"
"I'm not surprised," said Mrs. Tucker, who in fact was
flabbergasted. "Well--it's worth the money to them that can
afford to buy it. The good Lord put everything on earth to be
used, I reckon. And Miss Sackville is the build for things
like that. Now it'd be foolish on me, with a stomach and
sitter that won't let no skirt hang fit to look at."
The bell rang. The excitement died from Susan's face, leaving
it pale and cold. A wave of nausea swept through her. Ellen
peeped out, Mrs. Tucker and Miss Hinkle listening with anxious
faces. "It's him!" whispered Ellen, "and there's a taxi, too."
It was decided that Ellen should go to the door, that as she
opened it Susan should come carelessly from the back room and
advance along the hall. And this program was carried out with
the result that as Gideon said, "Is Miss Sackville here?" Miss
Sackville appeared before his widening, wondering, admiring
eyes. He was dressed in the extreme of fashion and costliness
in good taste; while it would have been impossible for him to
look distinguished, he did look what he was--a prosperous
business man with prospects. He came perfumed and rustling.
But he felt completely outclassed--until he reminded himself
that for all her brave show of fashionable lady she was only a
model while he was a fifteen-thousand-a-year man on the way to
a partnership.
"Don't you think we might dine on the veranda at Sherry's?"
suggested he. "It'd be cool there."
At sight of him she had nerved herself, had keyed herself up
toward recklessness. She was in for it. She would put it
through. No futile cowardly shrinking and whimpering! Why not
try to get whatever pleasure there was a chance for?
But--Sherry's--was it safe? Yes, almost any of the Fifth
Avenue places--except the Waldorf, possibly--was safe enough.
The circuit of Spenser and his friends lay in the more Bohemian
Broadway district. He had taken her to Sherry's only once, to
see as part of a New York education the Sunday night crowd of
fashionable people. "If you like," said she.
Gideon beamed. He would be able to show off his prize! As
they drove away Susan glanced at the front parlor windows, saw
the curtains agitated, felt the three friendly, excited faces
palpitating. She leaned from the cab window, waved her hand,
smiled. The three faces instantly appeared and immediately hid
again lest Gideon should see.
But Gideon was too busy planning conversation. He knew Miss
Sackville was "as common as the rest of 'em--and an old hand at
the business, no doubt." But he simply could not abruptly
break through the barrier; he must squirm through gradually.
"That's a swell outfit you've got on," he began.
"Yes," replied Susan with her usual candor. "Miss Hinkle
borrowed it out of the stock for me to wear."
Gideon was confused. He knew how she had got the hat and
dress, but he expected her to make a pretense. He couldn't
understand her not doing it. Such candor--any kind of
candor--wasn't in the game of men and women as women had played
it in his experience. The women--all sorts of women--lied and
faked at their business just as men did in the business of
buying and selling goods. And her voice--and her way of
speaking--they made him feel more than ever out of his class.
He must get something to drink as soon as it could be served;
that would put him at his ease. Yes--a drink--that would set
him up again. And a drink for her--that would bring her down
from this queer new kind of high horse. "I guess she must be
a top notcher--the real thing, come down in the world--and not
out of the near silks. But she'll be all right after a drink.
One drink of liquor makes the whole world kin." That last
thought reminded him of his own cleverness and he attacked the
situation afresh. But the conversation as they drove up the
avenue was on the whole constrained and intermittent--chiefly
about the weather. Susan was observing--and feeling--and
enjoying. Up bubbled her young spirits perpetually renewed by
her healthy, vital youth of body. She was seeing her beloved
City of the Sun again. As they turned out of the avenue for
Sherry's main entrance Susan realized that she was in
Forty-fourth Street. The street where she and Spenser had
lived!--had lived only yesterday. No--not yesterday--impossible!
Her eyes closed and she leaned back in the cab.
Gideon was waiting to help her alight. He saw that something
was wrong; it stood out obviously in her ghastly face. He
feared the carriage men round the entrance would "catch on" to
the fact that he was escorting a girl so unused to swell
surroundings that she was ready to faint with fright. "Don't
be foolish," he said sharply. Susan revived herself,
descended, and with head bent low and trembling body entered
the restaurant. In the agitation of getting a table and
settling at it Gideon forgot for the moment her sickly pallor.
He began to order at once, not consulting her--for he prided
himself on his knowledge of cookery and assumed that she knew
nothing about it. "Have a cocktail?" asked he. "Yes, of
course you will. You need it bad and you need it quick."
She said she preferred sherry. She had intended to drink
nothing, but she must have aid in conquering her faintness and
overwhelming depression. Gideon took a dry martini; ordered a
second for himself when the first came, and had them both down
before she finished her sherry. "I've ordered champagne," said
he. "I suppose you like sweet champagne. Most ladies do, but
I can't stand seeing it served even."
"No--I like it very dry," said Susan.
Gideon glinted his eyes gayly at her, showed his white jaguar
teeth. "So you're acquainted with fizz, are you?" He was
feeling his absurd notion of inequality in her favor dissipate
as the fumes of the cocktails rose straight and strong from his
empty stomach to his brain. "Do you know, I've a sort of
feeling that we're going to like each other a lot. I think we
make a handsome couple--eh--what's your first name?"
"Lorna."
"Lorna, then. My name's Ed, but everybody calls me Gid."
As soon as the melon was served, he ordered the champagne
opened. "To our better acquaintance," said he, lifting his
glass toward her.
"Thank you," said she, in a suffocated voice, touching her
glass to her lips.
He was too polite to speak, even in banter, of what he thought
was the real cause of her politeness and silence. But he must
end this state of overwhelmedness at grand surroundings. Said he:
"You're kind o' shy, aren't you, Lorna? Or is that your game?"
"I don't know. You've had a very interesting life, haven't
you? Won't you tell me about it?"
"Oh--just ordinary," replied he, with a proper show of modesty.
And straightway, as Susan had hoped, he launched into a minute
account of himself--the familiar story of the energetic,
aggressive man twisting and kicking his way up from two or
three dollars a week. Susan seemed interested, but her mind
refused to occupy itself with a narrative so commonplace.
After Rod and his friends this boastful business man was dull
and tedious. Whenever he laughed at an account of his superior
craft--how he had bluffed this man, how he had euchered that
one--she smiled. And so in one more case the common masculine
delusion that women listen to them on the subject of
themselves, with interest and admiration as profound as their
own, was not impaired.
"But," he wound up, "I've stayed plain Ed Gideon. I never have
let prosperity swell _my_ head. And anyone that knows me'll
tell you I'm a regular fool for generosity with those that come
at me right. . . . I've always been a favorite with the ladies."
As he was pausing for comment from her, she said, "I can
believe it." The word "generosity" kept echoing in her mind.
Generosity--generosity. How much talk there was about it!
Everyone was forever praising himself for his generosity, was
reciting acts of the most obvious selfishness in proof. Was
there any such thing in the whole world as real generosity?
"They like a generous man," pursued Gid. "I'm tight in
business--I can see a dollar as far as the next man and chase
it as hard and grab it as tight. But when it comes to the
ladies, why, I'm open-handed. If they treat me right, I treat
them right." Then, fearing that he had tactlessly raised a
doubt of his invincibility, he hastily added, "But they always
do treat me right."
While he had been talking on and on, Susan had been appealing
to the champagne to help her quiet her aching heart. She
resolutely set her thoughts to wandering among the couples at
the other tables in that subdued softening light--the
beautifully dressed women listening to their male companions
with close attention--were they too being bored by such trash
by way of talk? Were they too simply listening because it is
the man who pays, because it is the man who must be conciliated
and put in a good humor with himself, if dinners and dresses
and jewels are to be bought? That tenement attic--that hot
moist workroom--poverty--privation--"honest work's" dread
rewards----
"Now, what kind of a man would you say I was?" Gideon was inquiring.
"How do you mean?" replied Susan, with the dexterity at vagueness
that habitually self-veiling people acquire as an instinct.
"Why, as a man. How do I compare with the other men you've
known?" And he "shot" his cuffs with a gesture of careless
elegance that his cuff links might assist in the picture of the
"swell dresser" he felt he was posing.
"Oh--you--you're--very different."
"I _am_ different," swelled Gideon. "You see, it's this
way----" And he was off again into another eulogy of himself;
it carried them through the dinner and two quarts of champagne.
He was much annoyed that she did not take advantage of the
pointed opportunity he gave her to note the total of the bill;
he was even uncertain whether she had noted that he gave the
waiter a dollar. He rustled and snapped it before laying it
upon the tray, but her eyes looked vague.
"Well," said he, after a comfortable pull at an
expensive-looking cigar, "sixteen seventy-five is quite a
lively little peel-off for a dinner for only two. But it was
worth it, don't you think?"
"It was a splendid dinner," said Susan truthfully.
Gideon beamed in intoxicated good humor. "I knew you'd like
it. Nothing pleases me better than to take a nice girl who
isn't as well off as I am out and blow her off to a crackerjack
dinner. Now, you may have thought a dollar was too much to tip
the waiter?"
"A dollar is--a dollar, isn't it?" said Susan.
Gideon laughed. "I used to think so. And most men wouldn't
give that much to a waiter. But I feel sorry for poor devils
who don't happen to be as lucky or as brainy as I am. What do
you say to a turn in the Park? We'll take a hansom, and kind
of jog along. And we'll stop at the Casino and at Gabe's for
a drink."
"I have to get up so early," began Susan.
"Oh, that's all right." He slowly winked at her. "You'll not
have to bump the bumps for being late tomorrow--if you treat
_me_ right."
He carried his liquor easily. Only in his eyes and in his ever
more slippery smile that would slide about his face did he show
that he had been drinking. He helped her into a hansom with a
flourish and, overruling her protests, bade the driver go to
the Casino. Once under way she was glad; her hot skin and her
weary heart were grateful for the air blowing down the avenue
from the Park's expanse of green. When Gideon attempted to put
his arm around her, she moved close into the corner and went on
talking so calmly about calm subjects that he did not insist.
But when he had tossed down a drink of whiskey at the Casino
and they resumed the drive along the moonlit, shady roads, he
tried again.
"Please," said she, "don't spoil a delightful evening."
"Now look here, my dear--haven't I treated you right?"
"Indeed you have, Mr. Gideon."
"Oh, don't be so damned formal. Forget the difference between
our positions. Tomorrow I'm going to place a big order with
your house, if you treat me right. I'm dead stuck on you--and
that's a God's fact. You've taken me clean off my feet. I'm
thinking of doing a lot for you."
Susan was silent.
"What do you say to throwing up your job and coming to Chicago
with me? How much do you get?"
"Ten."
"Why, _you_ can't live on that."
"I've lived on less--much less."
"Do you like it?"
"Naturally not."
"You want to get on--don't you?"
"I must."
"You're down in the heart about something. Love?"
Susan was silent.
"Cut love out. Cut it out, my dear. That ain't the way to get
on. Love's a good consolation prize, if you ain't going to get
anywhere, and know you ain't. And it's a good first prize
after you've arrived and can afford the luxuries of life. But
for a man--or a woman--that's pushing up, it's sheer ruination!
Cut it out!"
"I am cutting it out," said Susan. "But that takes time."
"Not if you've got sense. The way to cut anything out is--cut
it out!--a quick slash--just cut. If you make a dozen little
slashes, each of them hurts as much as the one big slash--and
the dozen hurt twelve times as much--bleed twelve times as
much--put off the cure a lot more than twelve times as long."
He had Susan's attention for the first time.
"Do you know why women don't get on?"
"Tell me," said she. "That's what I want to hear."
"Because they don't play the game under the rules. Now, what
does a man do? Why, he stakes everything he's got--does
whatever's necessary, don't stop at _nothing_ to help him get
there. How is it with women? Some try to be virtuous--when
their bodies are their best assets. God! I wish I'd 'a' had
your looks and your advantages as a woman to help me. I'd be
a millionaire this minute, with a house facing this Park and a
yacht and all the rest of it. A woman that's squeamish about
her virtue can't hope to win--unless she's in a position to
make a good marriage. As for the loose ones, they are as big
fools as the virtuous ones. The virtuous ones lock away their
best asset; the loose ones throw it away. Neither one _use_ it.
Do you follow me?"
"I think so." Susan was listening with a mind made abnormally
acute by the champagne she had freely drunk. The coarse
bluntness and directness of the man did not offend her. It
made what he said the more effective, producing a rude
arresting effect upon her nerves. It made the man himself seem
more of a person. Susan was beginning to have a kind of
respect for him, to change her first opinion that he was merely
a vulgar, pushing commonplace.
"Never thought of that before?"
"Yes--I've thought of it. But----" She paused.
"But--what?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Never mind. Some womanish heart nonsense, I suppose. Do you
see the application of what I've said to you and me?"
"Go on." She was leaning forward, her elbows on the closed
doors of the hansom, her eyes gazing dreamily into the moonlit
dimness of the cool woods through which they were driving.
"You don't want to stick at ten per?"
"No."
"It'll be less in a little while. Models don't last. The
work's too hard."
"I can see that."
"And anyhow it means tenement house."
"Yes. Tenement house."
"Well--what then? What's your plan?"
"I haven't any."
"Haven't a plan--yet want to get on! Is that good sense?
Did ever anybody get anywhere without a plan?"
"I'm willing to work. I'm going to work. I _am_ working."
"Work, of course. Nobody can keep alive without working. You
might as well say you're going to breathe and eat--Work don't
amount to anything, for getting on. It's the kind of
work--working in a certain direction--working with a plan."
"I've got a plan. But I can't begin at it just yet."
"Will it take money?"
"Some."
"Have you got it?"
"No," replied Susan. "I'll have to get it."
"As an honest working girl?" said he with good-humored irony.
Susan laughed. "It does sound ridiculous, doesn't it?" said she.
"Here's another thing that maybe you haven't counted in.
Looking as you do, do you suppose men that run things'll let
you get past without paying toll? Not on your life, my dear.
If you was ugly, you might after several years get twenty or
twenty-five by working hard--unless you lost your figure first.
But the men won't let a good looker rise that way. Do you
follow me?"
"Yes."
"I'm not talking theory. I'm talking life. Take you and me
for example. I can help you--help you a lot. In fact I can
put you on your feet. And I'm willing. If you was a man and
I liked you and wanted to help you, I'd make you help me, too.
I'd make you do a lot of things for me--maybe some of 'em not
so very nice--maybe some of 'em downright dirty. And you'd do
'em, as all young fellows, struggling up, have to. But you're
a woman. So I'm willing to make easier terms. But I can't
help you with you not showing any appreciation. That wouldn't
be good business--would it?--to get no return but, 'Oh, thank
you so much, Mr. Gideon. So sweet of you. I'll remember you
in my prayers.' Would that be sensible?"
"No," said Susan.
"Well, then! If I do you a good turn, you've got to do me a
good turn--not one that I don't want done, but one I do want
done. Ain't I right? Do you follow me?"
"I follow you."
Some vague accent in Susan's voice made him feel dissatisfied
with her response. "I hope you do," he said sharply. "What
I'm saying is dresses on your back and dollars in your
pocket--and getting on in the world--if you work it right."
"Getting on in the world," said Susan, pensively.
"I suppose that's a sneer."
"Oh, no. I was only thinking."
"About love being all a woman needs to make her happy, I suppose?"
"No. Love is--Well, it isn't happiness."
"Because you let it run you, instead of you running it. Eh?"
"Perhaps."
"Sure! Now, let me tell you, Lorna dear. Comfort and luxury,
money in bank, property, a good solid position--_that's_ the
foundation. Build on _that_ and you'll build solid. Build on
love and sentiment and you're building upside down. You're
putting the gingerbread where the rock ought to be. Follow me?"
"I see what you mean."
He tried to find her hand. "What do you say?"
"I'll think of it."
"Well, think quick, my dear. Opportunity doesn't wait round in
anybody's outside office . . . Maybe you don't trust
me--don't think I'll deliver the goods?"
"No. I think you're honest."
"You're right I am. I do what I say I'll do. That's why I've got
on. That's why I'll keep on getting on. Let's drive to a hotel."
She turned her head and looked at him for the first time since
he began his discourse on making one's way in the world. Her
look was calm, inquiring--would have been chilling to a man of
sensibility--that is, of sensibility toward an unconquered woman.
"I want to give your people that order, and I want to help you."
"I want them to get the order. I don't care about the rest,"
she replied dully.
"Put it any way you like."
Again he tried to embrace her. She resisted firmly. "Wait,"
said she. "Let me think."
They drove the rest of the way to the upper end of the Park
in silence.
He ordered the driver to turn. He said to her; "Well, do you
get the sack or does the house get the order?"
She was silent.
"Shall I drive you home or shall we stop at Gabe's for a drink?"
"Could I have champagne?" said she.
"Anything you like if you choose right."
"I haven't any choice," said she.
He laughed, put his arm around her, kissed her unresponsive but
unresisting lips. "You're right, you haven't," said he. "It's
a fine sign that you have the sense to see it. Oh, you'll get
on. You don't let trifles stand in your way."