SHE now spent a large part of every day in wandering, like a
derelict, drifting aimlessly this way or that, up into the
Park or along Fifth Avenue. She gazed intently into shop
windows, apparently inspecting carefully all the articles on
display; but she passed on, unconscious of having seen
anything. If she sat at home with a book she rarely turned a
page, though her gaze was fastened upon the print as if she
were absorbingly interested.
What was she feeling? The coarse contacts of street life and
tenement life--the choice between monstrous defilements from
human beings and monstrous defilements from filth and vermin.
What was she seeing? The old women of the slums--the forlorn,
aloof figures of shattered health and looks--creeping along
the gutters, dancing in the barrel houses, sleeping on the
floor in some vile hole in the wall--sleeping the sleep from
which one awakes bitten by mice and bugs, and swarming with lice.
She had entire confidence in Brent's judgment. Brent must
have discovered that she was without talent for the stage--for
if he had thought she had the least talent, would he not in
his kindness have arranged or offered some sort of place in
some theater or other? Since she had no stage
talent--then--what should she do? What _could_ she do? And so
her mind wandered as aimlessly as her wandering steps. And
never before had the sweet melancholy of her eyes been so moving.
But, though she did not realize it, there was a highly
significant difference between this mood of profound
discouragement and all the other similar moods that had
accompanied and accelerated her downward plunges. Every time
theretofore, she had been cowed by the crushing mandate of
destiny--had made no struggle against it beyond the futile
threshings about of aimless youth. This time she lost neither
strength nor courage. She was no longer a child; she was no
longer mere human flotsam and jetsam. She did not know which
way to turn; but she did know, with all the certainty of a
dauntless will, that she would turn some way--and that it
would not be a way leading back to the marshes and caves of
the underworld. She wandered--she wandered aimlessly; but not
for an instant did she cease to keep watch for the right
direction--the direction that would be the best available in
the circumstances. She did not know or greatly care which way
it led, so long as it did not lead back whence she had come.
In all her excursions she had--not consciously but by
instinct--kept away from her old beat. Indeed, except in the
company of Spenser or Sperry she had never ventured into the
neighborhood of Long Acre. But one day she was deflected by
chance at the Forty-second Street corner of Fifth Avenue and
drifted westward, pausing at each book stall to stare at the
titles of the bargain offerings in literature. As she stood
at one of these stalls near Sixth Avenue, she became conscious
that two men were pressing against her, one on either side.
She moved back and started on her way. One of the men was
standing before her. She lifted her eyes, was looking into
the cruel smiling eyes of a man with a big black mustache and
the jaws of a prizefighter. His smile broadened.
"I thought it was you, Queenie," said he. "Delighted to see you."
She recognized him as a fly cop who had been one of Freddie
Palmer's handy men. She fell back a step and the other
man--she knew him instantly as also a policeman--lined up
beside him of the black mustache. Both men were laughing.
"We've been on the lookout for you a long time, Queenie," said
the other. "There's a friend of yours that wants to see you
mighty bad."
Susan glanced from one to the other, her face pale but calm,
in contrast to her heart where was all the fear and horror of
the police which long and savage experience had bred. She
turned away without speaking and started toward Sixth Avenue.
"Now, what d'ye think of that?" said Black Mustache to his
"side kick." "I thought she was too much of a lady to cut an
old friend. Guess we'd better run her in, Pete."
"That's right," assented Pete. "Then we can keep her safe
till F. P. can get the hooks on her."
Black Mustache laughed, laid his hand on her arm. "You'll
come along quietly," said he. "You don't want to make a
scene. You always was a perfect lady."
She drew her arm away. "I am a married woman--living with
my husband."
Black Mustache laughed. "Think of that, Pete! And she
soliciting us. That'll be good news for your loving husband.
Come along, Queenie. Your record's against you. Everybody'll
know you've dropped back to your old ways."
"I am going to my husband," said she quietly. "You had better
not annoy me."
Pete looked uneasy, but Black Mustache's sinister face became
more resolute. "If you wanted to live respectable, why did
you solicit us two? Come along--or do you want me and Pete to
take you by the arms?"
"Very well," said she. "I'll go." She knew the police, knew
that Palmer's lieutenant would act as he said--and she also
knew what her "record" would do toward carrying through the plot.
She walked in the direction of the station house, the two
plain clothes men dropping a few feet behind and rejoining her
only when they reached the steps between the two green lamps.
In this way they avoided collecting a crowd at their heels.
As she advanced to the desk, the sergeant yawning over the
blotter glanced up.
"Bless my soul!" cried he, all interest at once. "If it ain't
F. P.'s Queenie!"
"And up to her old tricks, sergeant," said Black Mustache.
"She solicited me and Pete."
Susan was looking the sergeant straight in the eyes. "I am a
married woman," said she. "I live with my husband. I was
looking at some books in Forty-second Street when these two
came up and arrested me."
The sergeant quailed, glanced at Pete who was guiltily hanging
his head--glanced at Black Mustache. There he got the support
he was seeking. "What's your husband's name?" demanded Black
Mustache roughly. "What's your address?"
And Rod's play coming on the next night but one! She shrank,
collected herself. "I am not going to drag him into this, if
I can help it," said she. "I give you a chance to keep
yourselves out of trouble." She was gazing calmly at the
sergeant again. "You know these men are not telling the
truth. You know they've brought me here because of Freddie
Palmer. My husband knows all about my past. He will stand by
me. But I wish to spare him."
The sergeant's uncertain manner alarmed Black Mustache.
"She's putting up a good, bluff" scoffed he. "The truth is
she ain't got no husband. She'd not have solicited us if she
was living decent."
"You hear what the officer says," said the sergeant, taking
the tone of great kindness. "You'll have to give your name
and address--and I'll leave it to the judge to decide between
you and the officers." He took up his pen. "What's your name?"
Susan, weak and trembling, was clutching the iron rail before
the desk--the rail worn smooth by the nervous hands of ten
thousand of the social system's sick or crippled victims.
"Come--what's your name?" jeered Black Mustache.
Susan did not answer.
"Put her down Queenie Brown," cried he, triumphantly.
The sergeant wrote. Then he said: "Age?"
No answer from Susan. Black Mustache answered for her:
"About twenty-two now."
"She don't look it," said the sergeant, almost at ease once
more. "But brunettes stands the racket better'n blondes.
Native parents?"
No answer.
"Native. You don't look Irish or Dutch or Dago--though you
might have a dash of the Spinnitch or the Frog-eaters. Ever
arrested before?"
No answer from the girl, standing rigid at the bar. Black
Mustache said:
"At least oncet, to my knowledge. I run her in myself."
"Oh, she's got a record?" exclaimed the sergeant, now wholly
at ease. "Why the hell didn't you say so?"
"I thought you remembered. You took her pedigree."
"I do recollect now," said the sergeant. "Take my advice,
Queenie, and drop that bluff about the officers lying.
Swallow your medicine--plead guilty--and you'll get off with a
fine. If you lie about the police, the judge'll soak it to
you. It happens to be a good judge--a friend of Freddie's."
Then to the policemen: "Take her along to court, boys, and
get back here as soon as you can."
"I want her locked up," objected Black Mustache. "I want F. P.
to see her. I've got to hunt for him."
"Can't do it," said the sergeant. "If she makes a yell about
police oppression, our holding on to her would look bad. No,
put her through."
Susan now straightened herself and spoke. "I shan't make any
complaint," said she. "Anything rather than court. I can't
stand that. Keep me here."
"Not on your life!" cried the sergeant. "That's a trick.
She'd have a good case against us."
"F. P.'ll raise the devil if----" began Black Mustache.
"Then hunt him up right away. To court she's got to go. I
don't want to get broke."
The two men fell afoul each other with curse and abuse. They
were in no way embarrassed by the presence of Susan. Her
"record" made her of no account either as a woman or as a
witness. Soon each was so well pleased with the verbal wounds
he had dealt the other that their anger evaporated. The
upshot of the hideous controversy was that Black Mustache said:
"You take her to court, Pete. I'll hunt up F. P. Keep her
till the last."
In after days she could recall starting for the street car
with the officer, Pete; then memory was a blank until she was
sitting in a stuffy room with a prison odor--the anteroom to
the court. She and Pete were alone. He was walking nervously
up and down pulling his little fair mustache. It must have
been that she had retained throughout the impassive features
which, however stormy it was within, gave her an air of
strength and calm. Otherwise Pete would not presently have
halted before her to say in a low, agitated voice:
"If you can make trouble for us, don't do it. I've got a
wife, and three babies--one come only last week--and my old
mother paralyzed. You know how it is with us fellows--that
we've got to do what them higher up says or be broke."
Susan made no reply.
"And F. P.--he's right up next the big fellows nowadays. What
he says goes. You can see for yourself how much chance
against him there'd be for a common low-down cop."
She was still silent, not through anger as he imagined but
because she had no sense of the reality of what was happening.
The officer, who had lost his nerve, looked at her a moment,
in his animal eyes a humble pleading look; then he gave a
groan and turned away. "Oh, hell!" he muttered.
Again her memory ceased to record until--the door swung open;
she shivered, thinking it was the summons to court. Instead,
there stood Freddie Palmer. The instant she looked into his
face she became as calm and strong as her impassive expression
had been falsely making her seem. Behind him was Black
Mustache, his face ghastly, sullen, cowed. Palmer made a
jerky motion of head and arm. Pete went; and the door closed
and she was alone with him.
"I've seen the Judge and you're free," said Freddie.
She stood and began to adjust her hat and veil.
"I'll have those filthy curs kicked off the force."
She was looking tranquilly at him.
"You don't believe me? You think I ordered it done?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "No matter," she said. "It's
undone now. I'm much obliged. It's more than I expected."
"You don't believe me--and I don't blame you. You think I'm
making some sort of grandstand play."
"You haven't changed--at least not much."
"I'll admit, when you left I was wild and did tell 'em to take
you in as soon as they found you. But that was a long time
ago. And I never meant them to disturb a woman who was living
respectably with her husband. There may have been--yes, there
was a time when I'd have done that--and worse. But not any
more. You say I haven't changed. Well, you're wrong. In
some ways I have. I'm climbing up, as I always told you I
would--and as a man gets up he sees things differently. At
least, he acts differently. I don't do _that_ kind of dirty
work, any more."
"I'm glad to hear it," murmured Susan for lack of anything
else to say.
He was as handsome as ever, she saw--had the same charm of
manner--a charm owing not a little of its potency to the
impression he made of the man who would dare as far as any
man, and then go on to dare a step farther--the step from
which all but the rare, utterly unafraid man shrinks. His
look at her could not but appeal to her vanity as woman, and
to her woman's craving for being loved; at the same time it
agitated her with specters of the days of her slavery to him.
He said:
"_You_'ve changed--a lot. And all to the good. The only sign
is rouge on your lips and that isn't really a sign nowadays.
But then you never did look the professional--and you weren't."
His eyes were appealingly tender as he gazed at her sweet,
pensive face, with its violet-gray eyes full of mystery and
sorrow and longing. And the clear pallor of her skin, and
the slender yet voluptuous lines of her form suggested a pale,
beautiful rose, most delicate of flowers yet about the hardiest.
"So--you've married and settled down?"
"No," replied Susan. "Neither the one nor the other."
"Why, you told----"
"I'm supposed to be a married woman."
"Why didn't you give your name and address at the police
station?" said he. "They'd have let you go at once."
"Yes, I know," replied she. "But the newspapers would
probably have published it. So--I couldn't. As it is I've
been worrying for fear I'd be recognized, and the man would
get a write-up."
"That was square," said he. "Yes, it'd have been a dirty
trick to drag him in."
It was the matter-of-course to both of them that she should
have protected her "friend." She had simply obeyed about the
most stringent and least often violated article in the moral
code of the world of outcasts. If Freddie's worst enemy in
that world had murdered him, Freddie would have used his last
breath in shielding him from the common foe, the law.
"If you're not married to him, you're free," said Freddie with
a sudden new kind of interest in her.
"I told you I should always be free."
They remained facing each other a moment. When she moved to
go, he said:
"I see you've still got your taste in dress--only more so."
She smiled faintly, glanced at his clothing. He was dressed
with real fashion. He looked Fifth Avenue at its best, and
his expression bore out the appearance of the well-bred man of
fortune. "I can return the compliment," said she. "And you
too have improved."
At a glance all the old fear of him had gone beyond the
possibility of return. For she instantly realized that, like
all those who give up war upon society and come in and
surrender, he was enormously agitated about his new status,
was impressed by the conventionalities to a degree that made
him almost weak and mildly absurd. He was saying:
"I don't think of anything else but improving--in every way.
And the higher I get the higher I want to go. . . . That was a
dreadful thing I did to you. I wasn't to blame. It was part
of the system. A man's got to do at every stage whatever's
necessary. But I don't expect you to appreciate that. I know
you'll never forgive me."
"I'm used to men doing dreadful things."
"_You_ don't do them."
"Oh, I was brought up badly--badly for the game, I mean. But
I'm doing better, and I shall do still better. I can't
abolish the system. I can't stand out against it--and live.
So, I'm yielding--in my own foolish fashion."
"You don't lay up against me the--the--you know what I mean?"
The question surprised her, so far as it aroused any emotion.
She answered indifferently:
"I don't lay anything up against anybody. What's the use? I
guess we all do the best we can--the best the system'll let us."
And she was speaking the exact truth. She did not reason out
the causes of a state of mind so alien to the experiences of
the comfortable classes that they could not understand it,
would therefore see in it hardness of heart. In fact, the
heart has nothing to do with this attitude in those who are
exposed to the full force of the cruel buffetings of the
storms that incessantly sweep the wild and wintry sea of
active life. They lose the sense of the personal. Where they
yield to anger and revenge upon the instrument the blow fate
has used it to inflict, the resentment is momentary. The mood
of personal vengeance is characteristic of stupid people
leading uneventful lives--of comfortable classes, of remote
rural districts. She again moved to go, this time putting out
her hand with a smile. He said, with an awkwardness most
significant in one so supple of mind and manner:
"I want to talk to you. I've got something to
propose--something that'll interest you. Will you give
me--say, about an hour?"
She debated, then smiled. "You will have me arrested if I refuse?"
He flushed scarlet. "You're giving me what's coming to me,"
said he. "The reason--one reason--I've got on so well is that
I've never been a liar."
"No--you never were that."
"You, too. It's always a sign of bravery, and bravery's the
one thing I respect. Yes, what I said I'd do always I did.
That's the only way to get on in politics--and the crookeder
the politics the more careful a man has to be about acting on
the level. I can borrow a hundred thousand dollars without
signing a paper--and that's more than the crooks in Wall
Street can do--the biggest and best of them. So, when I told
you how things were with me about you, I was on the level."
"I know it," said Susan. "Where shall we go? I can't ask you
to come home with me."
"We might go to tea somewhere----"
Susan laughed outright. Tea! Freddie Palmer proposing tea!
What a changed hooligan--how ridiculously changed! The other
Freddie Palmer--the real one--the fascinating repelling
mixture of all the barbaric virtues and vices must still be
there. But how carefully hidden--and what strong provocation
would be needed to bring that savage to the surface again.
The Italian in him, that was carrying him so far so cleverly,
enabled him instantly to understand her amusement. He echoed
her laugh. Said he:
"You've no idea the kind of people I'm traveling with--not
political swells, but the real thing. What do you say to
the Brevoort?"
She hesitated.
"You needn't be worried about being seen with me, no matter
how high you're flying," he hastened to say. "I always did
keep myself in good condition for the rise. Nothing's known
about me or ever will be."
The girl was smiling at him again. "I wasn't thinking of
those things," said she. "I've never been to the Brevoort."
"It's quiet and respectable."
Susan's eyes twinkled. "I'm glad it's respectable," said she.
"Are you quite sure _you_ can afford to be seen with _me?_ It's
true they don't make the fuss about right and wrong side of
the line that they did a few years ago. They've gotten a
metropolitan morality. Still--I'm not respectable and never
shall be."
"Don't be too hasty about that," protested he, gravely. "But
wait till you hear my proposition."
As they walked through West Ninth Street she noted that there
was more of a physical change in him than she had seen at
first glance. He was less athletic, heavier of form and his
face was fuller. "You don't keep in as good training as you
used," said she.
"It's those infernal automobiles," cried he. "They're death
to figure--to health, for that matter. But I've got the
habit, and I don't suppose I'll ever break myself of it. I've
taken on twenty pounds in the past year, and I've got myself
so upset that the doctor has ordered me abroad to take a cure.
Then there's champagne. I can't let that alone, either,
though I know it's plain poison."
And when they were in the restaurant of the Brevoort he
insisted on ordering champagne--and left her for a moment to
telephone for his automobile. It amused her to see a man so
masterful thus pettily enslaved. She laughed at him, and he
again denounced himself as a weak fool. "Money and luxury are
too much for me. They are for everybody. I'm not as strong
willed as I used to be," he said. "And it makes me uneasy.
That's another reason for my proposition."
"Well--let's hear it," said she. "I happen to be in a
position where I'm fond of hearing propositions--even if I
have no intention of accepting."
She was watching him narrowly. The Freddie Palmer he was
showing to her was a surprising but perfectly logical
development of a side of his character with which she had been
familiar in the old days; she was watching for that other
side--the sinister and cruel side. "But first," he went on,
"I must tell you a little about myself. I think I told you
once about my mother and father?"
"I remember," said Susan.
"Well, honestly, do you wonder that I was what I used to be?"
"No," she answered. "I wonder that you are what you _seem_ to be."
"What I come pretty near being," cried he. "The part that's
more or less put on today is going to be the real thing
tomorrow. That's the way it is with life--you put on a thing,
and gradually learn to wear it. And--I want you to help me."
There fell silence between them, he gazing at his glass of
champagne, turning it round and round between his long
white fingers and watching the bubbles throng riotously up
from the bottom. "Yes," he said thoughtfully, "I want you to
help me. I've been waiting for you. I knew you'd turn up
again." He laughed. "I've been true to you in a way--a man's
way. I've hunted the town for women who suggested you--a poor
sort of makeshift--but--I had to do something."
"What were you going to tell me?"
Her tone was business-like. He did not resent it, but
straightway acquiesced. "I'll plunge right in. I've been, as
you know, a bad one--bad all my life. I was born bad. You
know about my mother and father. One of my sisters died in a
disreputable resort. The other--well, the last I heard of
her, she was doing time in an English pen. I've got a
brother--he's a degenerate. Well!--not to linger over rotten
smells, I was the only one of the family that had brains. I
soon saw that everybody who gets on in the world is bad--which
simply means doing disturbing things of one kind and another.
And I saw that the ordinary crooks let their badness run their
brains, while the get-on kind of people let their brains run
their badness. You can be rotten--and sink lower and lower
every day. Or you can gratify your natural taste for
rottenness and at the same time get up in the world. I made up
my mind to do the rotten things that get a man money and power."
"Respectability," said Susan.
"Respectability exactly. So I set out to improve my brains.
I went to night school and read and studied. And I didn't
stay a private in the gang of toughs. I had the brains to be
leader, but the leader's got to be a fighter too. I took up
boxing and made good in the ring. I got to be leader. Then
I pushed my way up where I thought out the dirty work for the
others to do, and I stayed under cover and made 'em bring the
big share of the profits to me. And they did it because I had
the brains to think out jobs that paid well and that could be
pulled off without getting pinched--at least, not always
getting pinched."
Palmer sipped his champagne, looked at her to see if she was
appreciative. "I thought you'd understand," said he. "I
needn't go into details. You remember about the women?"
"Yes, I remember," said Susan. "That was one step in the
ladder up?"
"It got me the money to make my first play for respectability.
I couldn't have got it any other way. I had extravagant
tastes--and the leader has to be always giving up to help this
fellow and that out of the hole. And I never did have luck
with the cards and the horses."
"Why did you want to be respectable?" she asked.
"Because that's the best graft," explained he. "It means the
most money, and the most influence. The coyotes that raid the
sheep fold don't get the big share--though they may get a good
deal. No, it's the shepherds and the owners that pull off the
most. I've been leader of coyotes. I'm graduating into
shepherd and proprietor."
"I see," said Susan. "You make it beautifully clear."
He bowed and smiled. "Thank you, kindly. Then, I'll go on.
I'm deep in the contracting business now. I've got a pot of
money put away. I've cut out the cards--except a little
gentlemen's game now and then, to help me on with the right
kind of people. Horses, the same way. I've got my political
pull copper-riveted. It's as good with the Republicans as
with Democrats, and as good with the reform crowd as with
either. My next move is to cut loose from the gang. I've put
a lot of lieutenants between me and them, instead of dealing
with them direct. I'm putting in several more fellows I'm not
ashamed to be seen with in Delmonico's."
"What's become of Jim?" asked Susan.
"Dead--a kike shot him all to pieces in a joint in Seventh
Avenue about a month ago. As I was saying, how do these big
multi-millionaires do the trick? They don't tell somebody to
go steal what they happen to want. They tell somebody they
want it, and that somebody else tells somebody else to get it,
and that somebody else passes the word along until it reaches
the poor devils who must steal it or lose their jobs. I
studied it all out, and I've framed up my game the same way.
Nowadays, every dollar that comes to me has been thoroughly
cleaned long before it drops into my pocket. But you're
wondering where _you_ come in."
"Women are only interested in what's coming to them," said Susan.
"Sensible men are the same way. The men who aren't--they work
for wages and salaries. If you're going to live off of other
people, as women and the rich do, you've got to stand steady,
day and night, for Number One. And now, here's where _you_
come in. You've no objection to being respectable?"
"I've no objection to not being disreputable."
"That's the right way to put it," he promptly agreed.
"Respectable, you know, doesn't mean anything but appearances.
People who are really respectable, who let it strike in,
instead of keeping it on the outside where it belongs--they
soon get poor and drop down and out."
Palmer's revelation of himself and of a philosophy which life
as it had revealed itself to her was incessantly urging her to
adopt so grappled her attention that she altogether forgot
herself. A man on his way to the scaffold who suddenly sees
and feels a cataclysm rocking the world about him forgets his
own plight. Unconsciously he was epitomizing, unconsciously
she was learning, the whole story of the progress of the race
upward from beast toward intellect--the brutal and bloody
building of the highway from the caves of darkness toward the
peaks of light. The source from which springs, and ever has
sprung, the cruelty of man toward man is the struggle of the
ambition of the few who see and insist upon better conditions,
with the inertia and incompetence of the many who have little
sight and less imagination. Ambition must use the inert
mass--must persuade it, if possible, must compel it by trick
or force if persuasion fails. But Palmer and Susan Lenox
were, naturally, not seeing the thing in the broad but only as
it applied to themselves.
"I've read a whole lot of history and biography," Freddie
went on, "and I've thought about what I read and about what's
going on around me. I tell you the world's full of cant. The
people who get there don't act on what is always preached.
The preaching isn't all lies--at least, I think not. But it
doesn't fit the facts a man or a woman has got to meet."
"I realized that long ago," said Susan.
"There's a saying that you can't touch pitch without being
defiled. Well--you can't build without touching pitch--at
least not in a world where money's king and where those with
brains have to live off of those without brains by making 'em
work and showing 'em what to work at. It's a hell of a world,
but _I_ didn't get it up."
"And we've got to live in it," said she, "and get out of it
the things we want and need."
"That's the talk!" cried Palmer. "I see you're 'on.' Now--to
make a long story short--you and I can get what we want. We
can help each other. You were better born than I am--you've
had a better training in manners and dress and all the classy
sort of things. I've got the money--and brains enough to
learn with--and I can help you in various ways. So--I propose
that we go up together."
"We've got--pasts," said Susan.
"Who hasn't that amounts to anything? Mighty few. No one
that's made his own pile, I'll bet you. I'm in a position to
do favors for people--the people we'd need. And I'll get in a
position to do more and more. As long as they can make something
out of us--or hope to--do you suppose they'll nose into our pasts
and root things up that'd injure them as much as us?"
"It would be an interesting game, wouldn't it?" said Susan.
She was reflectively observing the handsome, earnest face
before her--an incarnation of intelligent ambition, a Freddie
Palmer who was somehow divesting himself of himself--was
growing up--away from the rotten soil that had nourished
him--up into the air--was growing strongly--yes, splendidly!
"And we've got everything to gain and nothing to lose,"
pursued he. "We'd not be adventurers, you see. Adventurers
are people who haven't any money and are looking round to try
to steal it. We'd have money. So, we'd be building solid,
right on the rock." The handsome young man--the strongest,
the most intelligent, the most purposeful she had ever met,
except possibly Brent--looked at her with an admiring
tenderness that moved her, the forlorn derelict adrift on the
vast, lonely, treacherous sea. "The reason I've waited for
you to invite you in on this scheme is that I tried you out
and I found that you belong to the mighty few people who do
what they say they'll do, good bargain or bad. It'd never
occur to you to shuffle out of trying to keep your word."
"It hasn't--so far," said Susan.
"Well--that's the only sort of thing worth talking about as
morality. Believe me, for I've been through the whole game
from chimney pots to cellar floor."
"There's another thing, too," said the girl.
"What's that?"
"Not to injure anyone else."
Palmer shook his head positively. "It's believing that and
acting on it that has kept you down in spite of your brains
and looks."
"That I shall never do," said the girl. "It may be
weakness--I guess it is weakness. But--I draw the line there."
"But I'm not proposing that you injure anyone--or proposing to
do it myself. As I said, I've got up where I can afford to be
good and kind and all that. And I'm willing to jump you up
over the stretch of the climb that can't be crossed without
being--well, anything but good and kind."
She was reflecting.
"You'll never get over that stretch by yourself. It'll always
turn you back."
"Just what do you propose?" she asked.
It gave her pleasure to see the keen delight her question,
with its implication of hope, aroused in him. Said he:
"That we go to Europe together and stay over there several
years--as long as you like as long as it's necessary. Stay
till our pasts have disappeared--work ourselves in with the
right sort of people. You say you're not married?"
"Not to the man I'm with."
"To somebody else?"
"I don't know. I was."
"Well--that'll be looked into and straightened out. And then
we'll quietly marry."
Susan laughed. "You're too fast," said she. "I'll admit I'm
interested. I've been looking for a road--one that doesn't
lead toward where we've come from. And this is the first road
that has offered. But I haven't agreed to go in with you
yet--haven't even begun to think it over. And if I did
agree--which I probably won't--why, still I'd not be willing
to marry. That's a serious matter. I'd want to be very, very
sure I was satisfied."
Palmer nodded, with a return of the look of admiration. "I
understand. You don't promise until you intend to stick, and
once you've promised all hell couldn't change you."
"Another thing--very unfortunate, too. It looks to me as if
I'd be dependent on you for money."
Freddie's eyes wavered. "Oh, we'd never quarrel about that,"
said he with an attempt at careless confidence.
"No," replied she quietly. "For the best of reasons. I'd not
consider going into any arrangement where I'd be dependent on
a man for money. I've had my experience. I've learned my
lesson. If I lived with you several years in the sort of
style you've suggested--no, not several years but a few
months--you'd have me absolutely at your mercy. You'd
thought of that, hadn't you?"
His smile was confession.
"I'd develop tastes for luxuries and they'd become
necessities." Susan shook her head. "No--that would be
foolish--very foolish."
He was watching her so keenly that his expression was covert
suspicion. "What do you suggest?" he asked.
"Not what you suspect," replied she, amused. "I'm not making
a play for a gift of a fortune. I haven't anything to suggest."
There was a long silence, he turning his glass slowly and from
time to time taking a little of the champagne thoughtfully.
She observed him with a quizzical expression. It was apparent
to her that he was debating whether he would be making a fool
of himself if he offered her an independence outright.
Finally she said:
"Don't worry, Freddie. I'd not take it, even if you screwed
yourself up to the point of offering it."
He glanced up quickly and guiltily. "Why not?" he said.
"You'd be practically my wife. I can trust you. You've had
experience, so you can't blame me for hesitating. Money puts
the devil in anybody who gets it--man or woman. But I'll
trust you----" he laughed--"since I've got to."
"No. The most I'd take would be a salary. I'd be a sort
of companion."
"Anything you like," cried he. This last suspicion born of a
life of intimate dealings with his fellow-beings took flight.
"It'd have to be a big salary because you'd have to dress and
act the part. What do you say? Is it a go?"
"Oh, I can't decide now."
"When?"
She reflected. "I can tell you in a week."
He hesitated, said, "All right--a week."
She rose to go. "I've warned you the chances are against my
accepting."
"That's because you haven't looked the ground over," replied
he, rising. Then, after a nervous moment, "Is the--is the----"
He stopped short.
"Go on," said she. "We must be frank with each other."
"If the idea of living with me is--is disagreeable----" And
again he stopped, greatly embarrassed--an amazing indication
of the state of mind of such a man as he--of the depth of his
infatuation, of his respect, of his new-sprung awe of
conventionality.
"I hadn't given it a thought," replied she. "Women are not
especially sensitive about that sort of thing."
"They're supposed to be. And I rather thought you were."
She laughed mockingly. "No more than other women," said she.
"Look how they marry for a home--or money--or social
position--and such men! And look how they live with men year
after year, hating them. Men never could do that."
"Don't you believe it," replied he. "They can, and they do.
The kept man--in and out of marriage--is quite a feature of
life in our chaste little village."
Susan looked amused. "Well--why not?" said she. "Everybody's
simply got to have money nowadays."
"And working for it is slow and mighty uncertain."
Her face clouded. She was seeing the sad wretched past from
filthy tenement to foul workshop. She said:
"Where shall I send you word?"
"I've an apartment at Sherry's now."
"Then--a week from today."
She put out her hand. He took it, and she marveled as she
felt a tremor in that steady hand of his. But his voice was
resolutely careless as he said, "So long. Don't forget how
much I want or need you. And if you do forget that, think of
the advantages--seeing the world with plenty of money--and all
the rest of it. Where'll you get such another chance? You'll
not be fool enough to refuse."
She smiled, said as she went, "You may remember I used to be
something of a fool."
"But that was some time ago. You've learned a lot since
then--surely."
"We'll see. I've become--I think--a good deal of a--of a New Yorker."
"That means frank about doing what the rest of the world does
under a stack of lies. It's a lovely world, isn't it?"
"If I had made it," laughed Susan, "I'd not own up to the fact."
She laughed; but she was seeing the old women of the
slums--was seeing them as one sees in the magic mirror the
vision of one's future self. And on the way home she said to
herself, "It was a good thing that I was arrested today. It
reminded me. It warned me. But for it, I might have gone on
to make a fool of myself." And she recalled how it had been
one of Burlingham's favorite maxims that everything is for the
best, for those who know how to use it.