SPERRY had chosen for "Mr. and Mrs. Spenser" the second floor
rear of a house on the south side of West Forty-fifth Street
a few doors off Sixth Avenue. It was furnished as a
sitting-room--elegant in red plush, with oil paintings on the
walls, a fringed red silk-plush dado fastened to the
mantelpiece with bright brass-headed tacks, elaborate
imitation lace throws on the sofa and chairs, and an imposing
piece that might have been a cabinet organ or a pianola or a
roll-top desk but was in fact a comfortable folding bed.
There was a marble stationary washstand behind the
hand-embroidered screen in the corner, near one of the two
windows. Through a deep clothes closet was a small but
satisfactory bathroom.
"And it's warm in winter," said Mrs. Norris, the landlady, to
Susan. "Don't you hate a cold bathroom?"
Susan declared that she did.
"There's only one thing I hate worse," said Mrs. Norris, "and
that's cold coffee."
She had one of those large faces which look bald because the
frame of hair does not begin until unusually far back. At
fifty, when her hair would be thin, Mrs. Norris would be
homely; but at thirty she was handsome in a bold, strong
way. Her hair was always carefully done, her good figure
beautifully corseted. It was said she was not married to Mr.
Norris--because New York likes to believe that people are
living together without being married, because Mr. Norris came
and went irregularly, and because Mrs. Norris was so
particular about her toilet--and everyone knows that when a
woman has the man with whom she's satisfied securely fastened,
she shows her content or her virtuous indifference to other
men--or her laziness--by neglecting her hair and her hips and
dressing in any old thing any which way. Whatever the truth
as to Mrs. Norris's domestic life, she carried herself
strictly and insisted upon keeping her house as respectable as
can reasonably be expected in a large city. That is, everyone
in it was quiet, was of steady and sedate habit, was backed by
references. Not until Sperry had thoroughly qualified as a
responsible person did Mrs. Norris accept his assurances as to
the Spensers and consent to receive them. Downtown the
apartment houses that admit persons of loose character are
usually more expensive because that class of tenants have more
and expect more than ordinary working people. Uptown the
custom is the reverse; to get into a respectable house you
must pay more. The Spensers had to pay fourteen a week for
their quarters--and they were getting a real bargain, Mrs.
Norris having a weakness for literature and art where they
were respectable and paid regularly.
"What's left of the two hundred and fifty will not last long,"
said Spenser to Susan, when they were established and alone.
"But we'll have another five hundred as soon as the play's
done, and that'll be in less than a month. We're to begin
tomorrow. In less than two months the play'll be on and the
royalties will be coming in. I wonder how much I owe the
doctor and the hospital."
"That's settled," said Susan.
He glanced at her with a frown. "How much was it? You had no
right to pay!"
"You couldn't have got either doctor or room without payment
in advance." She spoke tranquilly, with a quiet assurance of
manner that was new in her, the nervous and sensitive about
causing displeasure in others. She added, "Don't be cross,
Rod. You know it's only pretense."
"Don't you believe anybody has any decency?" demanded he.
"It depends on what you mean by decency," replied she. "But
why talk of the past? Let's forget it."
"I would that I could!" exclaimed he.
She laughed at his heroics. "Put that in your play," said
she. "But this isn't the melodrama of the stage. It's the
farce comedy of life."
"How you have changed! Has all the sweetness, all the
womanliness, gone out of your character?"
She showed how little she was impressed. "I've learned to
take terrible things--really terrible things--without making
a fuss--or feeling like making a fuss. You can't expect me to
get excited over mere staginess. They're fond of fake
emotions up in this part of town. But down where I've been so
long the real horrors come too thick and fast for there to be
any time to fake."
He continued to frown, presently came out of a deep study to
say, "Susie, I see I've got to have a serious talk with you."
"Wait till you're well, my dear," said she. "I'm afraid I'll
not be very sympathetic with your seriousness."
"No--today. I'm not an invalid. And our relations worry me,
whenever I think of them."
He observed her as she sat with hands loosely clasped in her
lap; there was an inscrutable look upon her delicate face,
upon the clear-cut features so attractively framed by her
thick dark hair, brown in some lights, black in others.
"Well?" said she.
"To begin, I want you to stop rouging your lips. It's the
only sign of--of what you were. I'd a little rather you
didn't smoke. But as respectable women smoke nowadays, why I
don't seriously object. And when you get more clothes, get
quieter ones. Not that you dress loudly or in bad taste----"
"Thank you," murmured Susan.
"What did you say?"
"I didn't mean to interrupt. Go on."
"I admire the way you dress, but it makes me jealous. I want
you to have nice clothes for the house. I like things that
show your neck and suggest your form. But I don't want you
attracting men's eyes and their loose thoughts, in the
street. . . . And I don't want you to look so damnably alluring
about the feet. That's your best trick--and your worst. Why
are you smiling--in that fashion?"
"You talk to me as if I were your wife."
He gazed at her with an expression that was as affectionate as
it was generous--and it was most generous. "Well, you may be
some day--if you keep straight. And I think you will."
The artificial red of her lips greatly helped to make her
sweetly smiling face the perfection of gentle irony. "And
you?" said she.
"You know perfectly well it's different about a man."
"I know nothing of the sort," replied she. "Among certain
kinds of people that is the rule. But I'm not of those kinds.
I'm trying to make my way in the world, exactly like a man.
So I've got to be free from the rules that may be all very
well for ladies. A woman can't fight with her hands tied, any
more than a man can--and you know what happens to the men who
allow themselves to be tied; they're poor downtrodden
creatures working hard at small pay for the men who fight with
their hands free."
"I've taken you out of the unprotected woman class, my dear,"
he reminded her. "You're mine, now, and you're going back
where you belong."
"Back to the cage it's taken me so long to learn to do
without?" She shook her head. "No, Rod--I couldn't possibly
do it--not if I wanted to. . . . You've got several false ideas
about me. You'll have to get rid of them, if we're to get along."
"For instance?"
"In the first place, don't delude yourself with the notion
that I'd marry you. I don't know whether the man I was forced
to marry is dead or whether he's got a divorce. I don't care.
No matter how free I was I shouldn't marry you."
He smiled complacently. She noted it without irritation.
Truly, small indeed is the heat of any kind that can be got
from the warmed-up ashes of a burnt-out passion. She went
easily on:
"You have nothing to offer me--neither love nor money. And a
woman--unless she's a poor excuse--insists on one or the other.
You and I fancied we loved each other for a while. We don't
fool ourselves in that way now. At least I don't, though I
believe you do imagine I'm in love with you."
"You wouldn't be here if you weren't."
"Put that out of your head, Rod. It'll only breed trouble.
I don't like to say these things to you, but you compel me to.
I learned long ago how foolish it is to put off unpleasant
things that will have to be faced in the end. The longer
they're put off the worse the final reckoning is. Most of my
troubles have come through my being too weak or
good-natured--or whatever it was--to act as my good sense told
me. I'm not going to make that mistake any more. And I'm
going to start the new deal with absolute frankness with you.
I am not in love with you."
"I know you better than you know yourself," said he.
"For a little while after I found you again I did have a
return of the old feeling--or something like it. But it soon
passed. I couldn't love you. I know you too well."
He struggled hard with his temper, as his vanity lashed at it.
She saw, struggled with her old sensitiveness about inflicting
even necessary pain upon others, went on:
"I simply like you, Rod--and that's all. We're well
acquainted. You're physically attractive to me--not wildly
so, but enough--more than any other man--probably more than
most husbands are to their wives--or most wives to their
husbands. So as long as you treat me well and don't wander
off to other women, I'm more than willing to stay on here."
"Really!" said he, in an intensely sarcastic tone. "Really!"
"Now--keep your temper," she warned. "Didn't I keep mine when
you were handing me that impertinent talk about how I should
dress and the rest of it? No--let me finish. In the second
place and in conclusion, my dear Rod, I'm not going to live
off you. I'll pay my half of the room. I'll pay for my own
clothes--and rouge for my lips. I'll buy and cook what we eat
in the room; you'll pay when we go to a restaurant. I believe
that's all."
"Are you quite sure?" inquired he with much satire.
"Yes, I think so. Except--if you don't like my terms, I'm
ready to leave at once."
"And go back to the streets, I suppose?" jeered he.
"If it were necessary--yes. So long as I've got my youth and
my health, I'll do precisely as I please. I've no craving for
respectability--not the slightest. I--I----" She tried to
speak of her birth, that secret shame of which she was
ashamed. She had been thinking that Brent's big fine way of
looking at things had cured her of this bitterness. She found
that it had not--as yet. So she went on, "I'd prefer your
friendship to your ill will--much prefer it, as you're the
only person I can look to for what a man can do for a woman,
and as I like you. But if I have to take tyranny along with
the friendship--" she looked at him quietly and her tones were
almost tender, almost appealing--"then, it's good-by, Rod."
She had silenced him, for he saw in her eyes, much more gray
than violet though the suggestion of violet was there, that
she meant precisely what she said. He was astonished, almost
dazed by the change in her. This woman grown was not the
Susie who had left him. No--and yet----
She had left him, hadn't she? That showed a character
completely hidden from him, perhaps the character he was now
seeing. He asked--and there was no sarcasm and a great deal
of uneasiness in his tone:
"How do you expect to make a living?"
"I've got a place at forty dollars a week."
"Forty dollars a week! You!" He scowled savagely at her.
"There's only one thing anyone would pay you forty a week for."
"That's what I'd have said," rejoined she. "But it seems not
to be true. My luck may not last, but while it lasts, I'll
have forty a week."
"I don't believe you," said he, with the angry bluntness
of jealousy.
"Then you want me to go?" inquired she, with a certain
melancholy but without any weakness.
He ignored her question. He demanded:
"Who's giving it to you?"
"Brent."
Spenser leaned from the bed toward her in his excitement.
"_Robert_ Brent?" he cried.
"Yes. I'm to have a part in one of his plays."
Spenser laughed harshly. "What rot! You're his mistress."
"It wouldn't be strange for you to think I'd accept that
position for so little, but you must know a man of his sort
wouldn't have so cheap a mistress."
"It's simply absurd."
"He is to train me himself."
"You never told me you knew him."
"I don't."
"Who got you the job?"
"He saw me in Fitzalan's office the day you sent me there. He
asked me to call, and when I went he made me the offer."
"Absolute rot. What reason did he give?"
"He said I looked as if I had the temperament he was in search of."
"You must take me for a fool."
"Why should I lie to you?"
"God knows. Why do women lie to men all the time? For the
pleasure of fooling them."
"Oh, no. To get money, Rod--the best reason in the world, it
being rather hard for a woman to make money by working for it."
"The man's in love with you!"
"I wish he were," said Susan, laughing. "I'd not be here, my
dear--you may be sure of that. And I'd not content myself
with forty a week. Oh, you don't know what tastes I've got!
Wait till I turn myself loose."
"Well--you can--in a few months," said Spenser.
Even as he had been protesting his disbelief in her story, his
manner toward her had been growing more respectful--a change
that at once hurt and amused her with its cynical suggestions,
and also pleased her, giving her a confidence-breeding sense
of a new value in herself. Rod went on, with a kind of
shamefaced mingling of jest and earnest:
"You stick by me, Susie, old girl, and the time'll come when
I'll be able to give you more than Brent."
"I hope so," said Susan.
He eyed her sharply. "I feel like a fool believing such a
fairy story as you've been telling me. Yet I do."
"That's good," laughed she. "Now I can stay. If you hadn't
believed me, I'd have had to go. And I don't want to do
that--not yet."
His eyes flinched. "Not yet? What does that mean?"
"It means I'm content to stay, at present. Who can answer for
tomorrow?" Her eyes lit up mockingly. "For instance--you.
Today you think you're going to be true to me don't you? Yet
tomorrow--or as soon as you get strength and street clothes, I
may catch you in some restaurant telling some girl she's the
one you've been getting ready for."
He laughed, but not heartily. Sperry came, and Susan went to
buy at a department store a complete outfit for Rod, who still
had only nightshirts. As she had often bought for him in the
old days, she felt she would have no difficulty in fitting him
nearly enough, with her accurate eye supplementing the
measurements she had taken. When she got back home two hours
and a half later, bringing her purchases in a cab, Sperry had
gone and Rod was asleep. She sat in the bathroom, with the
gas lighted, and worked at "Cavalleria" until she heard him
calling. He had awakened in high good-humor.
"That was an awful raking you gave me before Sperry came,"
began he. "But it did me good. A man gets so in the habit of
ordering women about that it becomes second nature to him.
You've made it clear to me that I've even less control over
you than you have over me. So, dear, I'm going to be humble
and try to give satisfaction, as servants say."
"You'd better," laughed Susan. "At least, until you get on
your feet again."
"You say we don't love each other," Rod went on, a becoming
brightness in his strong face. "Well--maybe so. But--we suit
each other--don't we?"
"That's why I want to stay," said Susan, sitting on the bed
and laying her hand caressingly upon his. "I could stand it
to go, for I've been trained to stand anything--everything.
But I'd hate it."
He put his arm round her, drew her against his breast.
"Aren't you happy here?" he murmured.
"Happier than any place else in the world," replied she softly.
After a while she got a small dinner for their two selves on
the gas stove she had brought with her and had set up in the
bathroom. As they ate, she cross-legged on the bed opposite
him, they beamed contentedly at each other. "Do you remember
the dinner we had at the St. Nicholas in Cincinnati?" asked she.
"It wasn't as good as this," declared he. "Not nearly so well
cooked. You could make a fortune as a cook. But then you do
everything well."
"Even to rouging my lips?"
"Oh, forget it!" laughed he. "I'm an ass. There's a
wonderful fascination in the contrast between the dash of
scarlet and the pallor of that clear, lovely skin of yours."
Her eyes danced. "You are getting well!" she exclaimed. "I'm
sorry I bought you clothes. I'll be uneasy every time you're out."
"You can trust me. I see I've got to hustle to keep my job
with you. Well, thank God, your friend Brent's old enough to
be your father."
"Is he?" cried Susan. "Do you know, I never thought of his age."
"Yes, he's forty at least--more. Are you sure he isn't after
_you_, Susie?"
"He warned me that if I annoyed him in that way he'd discharge me."
"Do you like him?"
"I--don't--know" was Susan's slow, reflective answer.
"I'm--afraid of him--a little."
Both became silent. Finally Rod said, with an impatient shake
of the head, "Let's not think of him."
"Let's try on your new clothes," cried Susan.
And when the dishes were cleared away they had a grand time
trying on the things she had bought. It was amazing how near
she had come to fitting him. "You ought to feel flattered,"
said she. "Only a labor of love could have turned out so well."
He turned abruptly from admiring his new suit in the glass and
caught her in his arms. "You do love me--you do!" he cried.
"No woman would have done all you've done for me, if she didn't."
For answer, Susan kissed him passionately; and as her body
trembled with the sudden upheaval of emotions long dormant or
indulged only in debased, hateful ways, she burst into tears.
She knew, even in that moment of passion, that she did not
love him; but not love itself can move the heart more deeply
than gratitude and her bruised heart was so grateful for his
words and tones and gestures of affection!
Wednesday afternoon, on the way to Brent's house, she glanced
up at the clock in the corner tower of the Grand Central
Station. It lacked five minutes of three. She walked slowly,
timed herself so accurately that, as the butler opened the
door, a cathedral chime hidden somewhere in the upper interior
boomed the hour musically. The man took her direct to the
elevator, and when it stopped at the top floor, Brent himself
opened the door, as before. He was dismissing a short fat man
whom Susan placed as a manager, and a tall, slim, and most
fashionably dressed woman with a beautiful insincere
face--anyone would have at once declared her an actress,
probably a star. The woman gave Susan a searching, feminine
look which changed swiftly to superciliousness. Both the man
and the woman were loath to go, evidently had not finished
what they had come to say. But Brent, in his abrupt but
courteous way, said:
"Tomorrow at four, then. As you see, my next appointment has
begun." And he had them in the elevator with the door closed.
He turned upon Susan the gaze that seemed to take in
everything. "You are in better spirits, I see," said he.
"I'm sorry to have interrupted," said she. "I could have waited."
"But _I_ couldn't," replied he. "Some day you'll discover
that your time is valuable, and that to waste it is far
sillier than if you were to walk along throwing your money
into the gutter. Time ought to be used like money--spent
generously but intelligently." He talked rapidly on, with his
manner as full of unexpressed and inexpressible intensity as
the voice of the violin, with his frank egotism that had no
suggestion of vanity or conceit. "Because I systematize my
time, I'm never in a hurry, never at a loss for time to give
to whatever I wish. I didn't refuse to keep you waiting for
your sake but for my own. Now the next hour belongs to you
and me--and we'll forget about time--as, if we were dining in
a restaurant, we'd not think of the bill till it was
presented. What did you do with the play?"
Susan could only look at him helplessly.
He laughed, handed her a cigarette, rose to light a match for
her. "Settle yourself comfortably," said he, "and say what's
in your head."
With hands deep in the trousers of his house suit, he paced up
and down the long room, the cigarette loose between his lips.
Whenever she saw his front face she was reassured; but
whenever she saw his profile, her nerves trembled--for in the
profile there was an expression of almost ferocious
resolution, of tragic sadness, of the sternness that spares
not. The full face was kind, if keen; was sympathetic--was
the man as nature had made him. The profile was the great
man--the man his career had made. And Susan knew that the
profile was master.
"Which part did you like _Santuzza_ or _Lola_?"
"_Lola_," replied she.
He paused, looked at her quickly. Why?"
"Oh, I don't sympathize with the woman--or the man--who's
deserted. I pity, but I can't help seeing it's her or his own
fault. _Lola_ explains why. Wouldn't you rather laugh than
cry? _Santuzza_ may have been attractive in the moments of
passion, but how she must have bored _Turiddu_ the rest of the
time! She was so intense, so serious--so vain and selfish."
"Vain and selfish? That's interesting." He walked up and
down several times, then turned on her abruptly. "Well--go on,"
he said. "I'm waiting to hear why she was vain and selfish."
"Isn't it vain for a woman to think a man ought to be crazy
about her all the time because he once has been? Isn't it
selfish for her to want him to be true to her because it gives
_her_ pleasure, even though she knows it doesn't give _him_ pleasure?"
"Men and women are all vain and selfish in love," said he.
"But the women are meaner than the men," replied she, "because
they're more ignorant and narrow-minded."
He was regarding her with an expression that made her uneasy.
"But that isn't in the play--none of it," said he.
"Well, it ought to be," replied she. "_Santuzza_ is the
old-fashioned conventional heroine. I used to like
them--until I had lived a little, myself. She isn't true to
life. But in _Lola_----"
"Yes--what about _Lola_?" he demanded.
"Oh, she wasn't a heroine, either. She was just human--taking
happiness when it offered. And her gayety--and her
capriciousness. A man will always break away from a solemn,
intense woman to get that sort of sunshine."
"Yes--yes--go on," said Brent.
"And her sour, serious, solemn husband explains why wives are
untrue to their husbands. At least, it seems so to me."
He was walking up and down again. Every trace of indolence,
of relaxation, was gone from his gait and from his features.
His mind was evidently working like an engine at full speed.
Suddenly he halted. "You've given me a big idea," said he.
"I'll throw away the play I was working on. I'll do your play."
Susan laughed--pleased, yet a little afraid he was kinder than
she deserved. "What I said was only common sense--what my
experience has taught me."
"That's all that genius is, my dear," replied he. "As soon as
we're born, our eyes are operated on so that we shall never
see anything as it is. The geniuses are those who either
escape the operation or are reëndowed with true sight by
experience." He nodded approvingly at her. "You're going to
be a person--or, rather, you're going to show you're a person.
But that comes later. You thought of _Lola_ as your part?"
"I tried to. But I don't know anything about acting except
what I've seen and the talk I've heard."
"As I said the other day, that means you've little to learn.
Now--as to _Lola's_ entrance."
"Oh, I thought of a lot of things to do--to show that she, too,
loved _Turiddu_ and that she had as much right to love--and to
be loved--as _Santuzza_ had. _Santuzza_ had had her chance, and
had failed."
Brent was highly amused. "You seem to forget that _Lola_ was a
married woman--and that if _Santuzza_ didn't get a husband she'd
be the mother of a fatherless child."
Never had he seen in her face such a charm of sweet melancholy
as at that moment. "I suppose the way I was born and the life
I've led make me think less of those things than most people
do," replied she. "I was talking about natural hearts--what
people think inside--the way they act when they have courage."
"When they have courage," Brent repeated reflectively. "But
who has courage?"
"A great many people are compelled to have it," said she.
"I never had it until I got enough money to be independent."
"I never had it," said Susan, "until I had no money."
He leaned against the big table, folded his arms on his chest,
looked at her with eyes that made her feel absolutely at ease
with him. Said he:
"You have known what it was to have no money--none?"
Susan nodded. "And no friends--no place to sleep--worse off
than _Robinson Crusoe_ when the waves threw him on the island.
I had to--to suck my own blood to keep alive."
"You smile as you say that," said he.
"If I hadn't learned to smile over such things," she answered,
"I'd have been dead long ago."
He seated himself opposite her. He asked:
"Why didn't you kill yourself?"
"I was afraid."
"Of the hereafter?"
"Oh no. Of missing the coming true of my dreams about life."
"Love?"
"That--and more. Just love wouldn't satisfy me. I want to
see the world--to know the world--and to be somebody. I want
to try _everything_."
She laughed gayly--a sudden fascinating vanishing of the
melancholy of eyes and mouth, a sudden flashing out of young
beauty. "I've been down about as deep as one can go. I want
to explore in the other direction."
"Yes--yes," said Brent, absently. "You must see it all."
He remained for some time in a profound reverie, she as
unconscious of the passing of time as he for if he had his
thoughts, she had his face to study. Try as she would, she
could not associate the idea of age with him--any age. He
seemed simply a grown man. And the more closely she studied
him the greater her awe became. He knew so much; he
understood so well. She could not imagine him swept away by
any of the petty emotions--the vanities, the jealousies, the
small rages, the small passions and loves that made up the
petty days of the small creatures who inhabit the world and
call it theirs. Could he fall in love? Had he been in love?
Yes--he must have been in love many times--for many women must
have taken trouble to please a man so well worth while, and he
must have passed from one woman to another as his whims or his
tastes changed. Could he ever care about her--as a woman?
Did he think her worn out as a physical woman? Or would he
realize that body is nothing by itself; that unless the soul
enters it, it is cold and meaningless and worthless--like the
electric bulb when the filament is dark and the beautiful,
hot, brilliant and intensely living current is not in it?
Could she love him? Could she ever feel equal and at ease,
through and through, with a man so superior?
"You'd better study the part of _Lola_--learn the lines," said
he, when he had finished his reflecting. "Then--this day week
at the same hour--we will begin. We will work all
afternoon--we will dine together--go to some theater where I
can illustrate what I mean. Beginning with next Wednesday
that will be the program every day until further notice."
"Until you see whether you can do anything with me or not?"
"Just so. You are living with Spenser?"
"Yes." Susan could have wished his tone less matter-of-fact.
"How is he getting on?"
"He and Sperry are doing a play for Fitzalan."
"Really? That's good. He has talent. If he'll learn of
Sperry and talk less and work more, and steadily, he'll make
a lot of money. You are not tied to him in any way?"
"No--not now that he's prospering. Except, of course, that
I'm fond of him."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, everybody must have somebody.
You've not seen this house. I'll show it to you, as we've
still fifteen minutes."
A luxurious house it was--filled with things curious and, some
of them, beautiful--things gathered in excursions through
Europe, Susan assumed. The only absolutely simple room was
his bedroom, big and bare and so arranged that he could sleep
practically out of doors. She saw servants--two men besides
the butler, several women. But the house was a bachelor's
house, with not a trace of feminine influence. And evidently
he cared nothing about it but lived entirely in that wonderful
world which so awed Susan--the world he had created within
himself, the world of which she had alluring glimpses through
his eyes, through his tones and gestures even. Small people
strive to make, and do make, impression of themselves by
laboring to show what they know and think. But the person of
the larger kind makes no such effort. In everything Brent
said and did and wore, in all his movements, gestures,
expressions, there was the unmistakable hallmark of the man
worth while. The social life has banished simplicity from
even the most savage tribe. Indeed, savages, filled with
superstitions, their every movement the result of some notion
of proper ceremonial, are the most complex of all the human
kind. The effort toward simplicity is not a movement back to
nature, for there savage and lower animal are completely
enslaved by custom and instinct; it is a movement upward
toward the freedom of thought and action of which our best
intelligence has given us a conception and for which it has
given us a longing. Never had Susan met so simple a man; and
never had she seen one so far from all the silly ostentations
of rudeness, of unattractive dress, of eccentric or coarse
speech wherewith the cheap sort of man strives to proclaim
himself individual and free.
With her instinct for recognizing the best at first sight,
Susan at once understood. And she was like one who has been
stumbling about searching for the right road, and has it
suddenly shown to him. She fairly darted along this right
road. She was immediately busy, noting the mistakes in her
own ideas of manners and dress, of good and bad taste. She
realized how much she had to learn. But this did not
discourage her. For she realized at the same time that she
could learn--and his obvious belief in her as a possibility
was most encouraging.
When he bade her good-by at the front door and it closed
behind her, she was all at once so tired that it seemed to her
she would then and there sink down through sheer fatigue and
fall asleep. For no physical exercise so quickly and utterly
exhausts as real brain exercise--thinking, studying, learning
with all the concentrated intensity of a thoroughbred in the
last quarter of the mile race.