THEY met the next morning with no sign in the manner of either
that there had been a drawn battle, that there was an armed
truce. She knew that he, like herself, was thinking of
nothing else. But until he had devised some way of certainly
conquering her he would wait, and watch, and pretend that he
was satisfied with matters as they were. The longer she
reflected the less uneasy she became--as to immediate danger.
In Paris the methods of violence he might have been tempted to
try in New York were out of the question. What remained? He
must realize that threats to expose her would be futile; also,
he must feel vulnerable, himself, to that kind of attack--a
feeling that would act as a restraint, even though he might
appreciate that she was the sort of person who could not in
any circumstances resort to it. He had not upon her a single
one of the holds a husband has upon a wife. True, he could
break with her. But she must appreciate how easy it would now
be for her in this capital of the idle rich to find some other
man glad to "protect" a woman so expert at gratifying man's
vanity of being known as the proprietor of a beautiful and
fashionable woman. She had discovered how, in the aristocracy
of European wealth, an admired mistress was as much a
necessary part of the grandeur of great nobles, great
financiers, great manufacturers, or merchants, as wife, as
heir, as palace, as equipage, as chef, as train of secretaries
and courtiers. She knew how deeply it would cut, to find
himself without his show piece that made him the envied of men
and the desired of women. Also, she knew that she had an even
stronger hold upon him--that she appealed to him as no other
woman ever had, that she had become for him a tenacious habit.
She was not afraid that he would break with her. But she
could not feel secure; in former days she had seen too far
into the mazes of that Italian mind of his, she knew too well
how patient, how relentless, how unforgetting he was. She
would have taken murder into account as more than a
possibility but for his intense and intelligent selfishness;
he would not risk his life or his liberty; he would not
deprive himself of his keenest pleasure. He was resourceful;
but in the circumstances what resources were there for him to
draw upon?
When he began to press upon her more money than ever, and to
buy her costly jewelry, she felt still further reassured.
Evidently he had been unable to think out any practicable
scheme; evidently he was, for the time, taking the course of
appeal to her generous instincts, of making her more and more
dependent upon his liberality.
Well--was he not right? Love might fail; passion might wane;
conscience, aiding self-interest with its usual servility,
might overcome the instincts of gratitude. But what power
could overcome the loyalty resting upon money interest? No
power but that of a longer purse than his. As she was not in
the mood to make pretenses about herself to herself, she
smiled at this cynical self-measuring. "But I shan't despise
myself for being so material," said she to herself, "until I
find a _genuine_ case of a woman, respectable or otherwise, who
has known poverty and escaped from it, and has then
voluntarily given up wealth to go back to it. I should not
stay on with him if he were distasteful to me. And that's
more than most women can honestly say. Perhaps even I should
not stay on if it were not for a silly, weak feeling of
obligation--but I can't be sure of that." She had seen too
much of men and women preening upon noble disinterested
motives when in fact their real motives were the most
calculatingly selfish; she preferred doing herself less than
justice rather than more.
She had fifty-five thousand francs on deposit at Munroe's--all
her very own. She had almost two hundred thousand francs'
worth of jewels, which she would be justified in keeping--at
least, she hoped she would think so--should there come a break
with Freddie. Yet in spite of this substantial prosperity--or
was it because of this prosperity?--she abruptly began again
to be haunted by the old visions, by warnings of the dangers
that beset any human being who has not that paying trade or
profession which makes him or her independent--gives him or
her the only unassailable independence.
The end with Freddie might be far away. But end, she saw,
there would be the day when he would somehow get her in his
power and so would drive her to leave him. For she could not
again become a slave. Extreme youth, utter inexperience, no
knowledge of real freedom--these had enabled her to endure in
former days. But she was wholly different now. She could not
sink back. Steadily she was growing less and less able to
take orders from anyone. This full-grown passion for freedom,
this intolerance of the least restraint--how dangerous, if she
should find herself in a position where she would have to put
up with the caprices of some man or drop down and down!
What real, secure support had she? None. Her building was
without solid foundations. Her struggle with Freddie was a
revelation and a warning. There were days when, driving about
in her luxurious car, she could do nothing but search among
the crowds in the streets for the lonely old women in rags,
picking and peering along the refuse of the cafés--weazened,
warped figures swathed in rags, creeping along, mumbling to
themselves, lips folded in and in over toothless gums.
One day Brent saw again the look she often could not keep from
her face when that vision of the dance hall in the slums was
horrifying her. He said impulsively:
"What is it? Tell me--what is it, Susan?"
It was the first and the last time he ever called her by her
only personal name. He flushed deeply. To cover his
confusion--and her own--she said in her most frivolous way:
"I was thinking that if I am ever rich I shall have more pairs
of shoes and stockings and take care of more orphans than
anyone else in the world."
"A purpose! At last a purpose!" laughed he. "Now you will go
to work."
Through Gourdain she got a French teacher--and her first woman friend.
The young widow he recommended, a Madame Clélie Délière, was
the most attractive woman she had ever known. She had all the
best French characteristics--a good heart, a lively mind, was
imaginative yet sensible, had good taste in all things. Like
most of the attractive French women, she was not beautiful,
but had that which is of far greater importance--charm. She
knew not a word of English, and it was perhaps Susan's chief
incentive toward working hard at French that she could not
really be friends with this fascinating person until she
learned to speak her language. Palmer--partly by nature,
partly through early experience in the polyglot tenement
district of New York--had more aptitude for language than had
Susan. But he had been lazy about acquiring French in a city
where English is spoken almost universally. With the coming of
young Madame Délière to live in the apartment, he became interested.
It was not a month after her coming when you might have seen
at one of the fashionable gay restaurants any evening a party
of four--Gourdain was the fourth--talking French almost
volubly. Palmer's accent was better than Susan's. She could
not--and felt she never could--get the accent of the
trans-Alleghany region out of her voice--and so long as that
remained she would not speak good French. "But don't let that
trouble you," said Clélie. "Your voice is your greatest
charm. It is so honest and so human. Of the Americans I have
met, I have liked only those with that same tone in their voices."
"But _I_ haven't that accent," said Freddie with raillery.
Madame Clélie laughed. "No--and I do not like you," retorted
she. "No one ever did. You do not wish to be liked. You
wish to be feared." Her lively brown eyes sparkled and the
big white teeth in her generous mouth glistened. "You wish to
be feared--and you _are_ feared, Monsieur Freddie."
"It takes a clever woman to know how to flatter with the
truth," said he. "Everybody always has been afraid of me--and
is--except, of course, my wife."
He was always talking of "my wife" now. The subject so
completely possessed his mind that he aired it unconsciously.
When she was not around he boasted of "my wife's" skill in the
art of dress, of "my wife's" taste, of "my wife's" shrewdness
in getting her money's worth. When she was there, he was
using the favorite phrase "my wife" this--"my wife" that--"my
wife" the other--until it so got on her nerves that she began
to wait for it and to wince whenever it came--never a wait of
many minutes. At first she thought he was doing this
deliberately either to annoy her or in pursuance of some
secret deep design. But she soon saw that he was not aware of
his inability to keep off the subject or of his obsession for
that phrase representing the thing he was intensely wishing
and willing--"chiefly," she thought, "because it is something
he cannot have." She was amazed at his display of such a
weakness. It gave her the chance to learn an important truth
about human nature--that self-indulgence soon destroys the
strongest nature--and she was witness to how rapidly an
inflexible will disintegrates if incessantly applied to an
impossibility. When a strong arrogant man, unbalanced by long
and successful self-indulgence, hurls himself at an obstruction,
either the obstruction yields or the man is destroyed.
One morning early in February, as she was descending from her
auto in front of the apartment house, she saw Brent in the
doorway. Never had he looked so young or so well. His color
was fine, his face had become almost boyish; upon his skin and
in his eyes was that gloss of perfect health which until these
latter days of scientific hygiene was rarely seen after
twenty-five in a woman or after thirty in a man. She gathered
in all, to the smallest detail--such as the color of his
shirt--with a single quick glance. She knew that he had seen
her before she saw him--that he had been observing her. Her
happiest friendliest smile made her small face bewitching as
she advanced with outstretched hand.
"When did you come?" she asked.
"About an hour ago."
"From the Riviera?"
"No, indeed. From St. Moritz--and skating and skiing and
tobogganing. I rather hoped I looked it. Doing those things
in that air--it's being born again."
"I felt well till I saw you," said she. "Now I feel dingy and
half sick."
He laughed, his glance sweeping her from hat to boots.
Certainly his eyes could not have found a more entrancing
sight. She was wearing a beautiful dress of golden brown
cloth, sable hat, short coat and muff, brown suede boots laced
high upon her long slender calves. And when she had descended
from the perfect little limousine made to order for her, he
had seen a ravishing flutter of lingerie of pale violet silk.
The sharp air had brought no color to her cheeks to interfere
with the abrupt and fascinating contrast of their pallor with
the long crimson bow of her mouth. But her skin seemed
transparent and had the clearness of health itself. Everything
about her, every least detail, was of Parisian perfection.
"Probably there are not in the world," said he, "so many as a
dozen women so well put together as you are. No, not half a
dozen. Few women carry the art of dress to the point of genius."
"I see they had only frumps at St. Moritz this season,"
laughed she.
But he would not be turned aside. "Most of the well dressed
women stop short with being simply frivolous in spending so
much time at less than perfection--like the army of poets who
write pretty good verse, or the swarm of singers who sing
pretty well. I've heard of you many times this winter. You
are the talk of Paris."
She laughed with frank delight. It was indeed a pleasure to
discover that her pains had not been in vain.
"It is always the outsider who comes to the great city to show
it its own resources," he went on. "I knew you were going to
do this. Still happy?"
"Oh, yes."
But he had taken her by surprise. A faint shadow flitted
across her face. "Not so happy, I see."
"You see too much. Won't you lunch with us? We'll have it in
about half an hour."
He accepted promptly and they went up together. His glance
traveled round the drawing-room; and she knew he had noted all
the changes she had made on better acquaintance with her
surroundings and wider knowledge of interior furnishing. She
saw that he approved, and it increased her good humor. "Are you
hurrying through Paris on your way to somewhere else?" she asked.
"No, I stop here--I think--until I sail for America."
"And that will be soon?"
"Perhaps not until July. I have no plans. I've finished a
play a woman suggested to me some time ago. And I'm waiting."
A gleam of understanding came into her eyes. There was
controlled interest in her voice as she inquired:
"When is it to be produced?"
"When the woman who suggested it is ready to act in it."
"Do I by any chance know her?"
"You used to know her. You will know her again."
She shook her head slowly, a pensive smile hovering about her
eyes and lips. "No--not again. I have changed."
"We do not change," said he. "We move, but we do not change.
You are the same character you were when you came into the
world. And what you were then, that you will be when the
curtain falls on the climax of your last act. Your
circumstances will change--and your clothes--and your face,
hair, figure--but not _you_."
"Do you believe that?"
"I _know_ it."
She nodded slowly, the violet-gray eyes pensive. "Birds in
the strong wind--that's what we are. Driven this way or
that--or quite beaten down. But the wind doesn't change
sparrow to eagle--or eagle to gull--does it?"
She had removed her coat and was seated on an oval lounge
gazing into the open fire. He was standing before it, looking
taller and stronger than ever, in a gray lounging suit. A
cigarette depended loosely from the corner of his mouth. He
said abruptly:
"How are you getting on with your acting?"
She glanced in surprise.
"Gourdain," Brent explained. "He had to talk to somebody
about how wonderful you are. So he took to writing me--two
huge letters a week--all about you."
"I'm fond of him. And he's fond of Clélie. She's my----"
"I know all," he interrupted. "The tie between them is their
fondness for you. Tell me about the acting."
"Oh--Clélie and I have been going to the theater every few
days--to help me with French. She is mad about acting, and
there's nothing I like better."
"Also, _you_ simply have to have occupation."
She nodded. "I wasn't brought up to fit me for an idler.
When I was a child I was taught to keep busy--not at nothing,
but at something. Freddie's a lot better at it than I."
"Naturally," said Brent. "You had a home, with order and a
system--an old-fashioned American home. He--well, he hadn't."
"Clélie and I go at our make-believe acting quite seriously.
We have to--if we're to fool ourselves that it's an occupation."
"Why this anxiety to prove to me that you're not really serious?"
Susan laughed mockingly for answer, and went on:
"You should see us do the two wives in 'L'Enigme'--or mother
and daughter in that diary scene in 'L'Autre Danger'!"
"I must. . . . When are you going to resume your career?"
She rose, strolled toward an open door at one end of the
salon, closed it--strolled toward the door into the hall,
glanced out, returned without having closed it. She then said:
"Could I study here in Paris?"
Triumph gleamed in his eyes. "Yes. Boudrin--a splendid
teacher--speaks English. He--and I--can teach you."
"Tell me what I'd have to do."
"We would coach you for a small part in some play that's to be
produced here."
"In French?"
"I'll have an American girl written into a farce. Enough to
get you used to the stage--to give you practice in what he'll
teach you--the trade side of the art."
"And then?"
"And then we shall spend the summer learning your part in my
play. Two or three weeks of company rehearsals in New York in
September. In October--your name out over the Long Acre
Theater in letters of fire."
"Could that be done?"
"Even if you had little talent, less intelligence, and no
experience. Properly taught, the trade part of every art is
easy. Teachers make it hard partly because they're dull,
chiefly because there'd be small money for them if they taught
quickly, and only the essentials. No, journeyman acting's no
harder to learn than bricklaying or carpentering. And in
America--everywhere in the world but a few theaters in Paris
and Vienna--there is nothing seen but journeyman acting. The
art is in its infancy as an art. It even has not yet been
emancipated from the swaddling clothes of declamation. Yes,
you can do well by the autumn. And if you develop what I
think you have in you, you can leap with one bound into fame.
In America or England, mind you--because there the acting is
all poor to 'pretty good'."
"You are sure it could be done? No--I don't mean that.
I mean, is there really a chance--any chance--for me to
make my own living? A real living?"
"I guarantee," said Brent.
She changed from seriousness to a mocking kind of gayety--that
is, to a seriousness so profound that she would not show it.
And she said:
"You see I simply must banish my old women--and that hunchback
and his piano. They get on my nerves."
He smiled humorously at her. But behind the smile his
gaze--grave, sympathetic--pierced into her soul, seeking the
meaning he knew she would never put into words.
At the sound of voices in the hall she said:
"We'll talk of this again."
At lunch that day she, for the first time in many a week,
listened without irritation while Freddie poured forth his
unending praise of "my wife." As Brent knew them intimately,
Freddie felt free to expatiate upon all the details of
domestic economy that chanced to be his theme, with the
exquisite lunch as a text. He told Brent how Susan had made
a study of that branch of the art of living; how she had
explored the unrivaled Parisian markets and groceries and
shops that dealt in specialties; how she had developed their
breakfasts, dinners, and lunches to works of art. It is
impossible for anyone, however stupid, to stop long in Paris
without beginning to idealize the material side of life--for
the French, who build solidly, first idealize food, clothing,
and shelter, before going on to take up the higher side of
life--as a sane man builds his foundation before his first
story, and so on, putting the observation tower on last of
all, instead of making an ass of himself trying to hang his
tower to the stars. Our idealization goes forward haltingly
and hypocritically because we try to build from the stars
down, instead of from the ground up. The place to seek the
ideal is in the homely, the commonplace, and the necessary.
An ideal that does not spring deep-rooted from the soil of
practical life may be a topic for a sermon or a novel or for
idle conversation among silly and pretentious people. But
what use has it in a world that must _live_, and must be taught
to live?
Freddie was unaware that he was describing a further
development of Susan--a course she was taking in the
university of experience--she who had passed through its
common school, its high school, its college. To him her
clever housekeeping offered simply another instance of her
cleverness in general. His discourse was in bad taste. But
its bad taste was tolerable because he was interesting--food,
like sex, being one of those universal subjects that command
and hold the attention of all mankind. He rose to no mean
height of eloquence in describing their dinner of the evening
before--the game soup that brought to him visions of a hunting
excursion he had once made into the wilds of Canada; the way
the _barbue_ was cooked and served; the incredible duck--and
the salad! Clélie interrupted to describe that salad as like
a breath of summer air from fields and limpid brooks. He
declared that the cheese--which Susan had found in a shop in
the Marche St. Honoré--was more wonderful than the most
wonderful _petit Suisse_. "And the coffee!" he exclaimed.
"But you'll see in a few minutes. We have _coffee_ here."
"_Quelle histoire!_" exclaimed Brent, when Freddie had
concluded. And he looked at Susan with the ironic, quizzical
gleam in his eyes.
She colored. "I am learning to live," said she. "That's what
we're on earth for--isn't it?"
"To learn to live--and then, to live," replied he.
She laughed. "Ah, that comes a little later."
"Not much later," rejoined he, "or there's no time left for it."
It was Freddie who, after lunch, urged Susan and Clélie to
"show Brent what you can do at acting."
"Yes--by all means," said Brent with enthusiasm.
And they gave--in one end of the salon which was well suited
for it--the scene between mother and daughter over the stolen
diary, in "L'Autre Danger." Brent said little when they
finished, so little that Palmer was visibly annoyed. But
Susan, who was acquainted with his modes of expression, felt
a deep glow of satisfaction. She had no delusions about her
attempts; she understood perfectly that they were simply crude
attempts. She knew she had done well--for her--and she knew
he appreciated her improvement.
"That would have gone fine--with costumes and scenery--eh?"
demanded Freddie of Brent.
"Yes," said Brent absently. "Yes--that is--Yes."
Freddie was dissatisfied with this lack of enthusiasm. He
went on insistently:
"I think she ought to go on the stage--she and Madame Clélie, too."
"Yes," said Brent, between inquiry and reflection.
"What do _you_ think?"
"I don't think she ought," replied Brent. "I think she
_must_." He turned to Susan. "Would you like it?"
Susan hesitated. Freddie said--rather lamely, "Of course she
would. For my part, I wish she would."
"Then I will," said Susan quietly.
Palmer looked astounded. He had not dreamed she would assent.
He knew her tones--knew that the particular tone meant
finality. "You're joking," cried he, with an uneasy laugh.
"Why, you wouldn't stand the work for a week. It's hard
work--isn't it, Brent?"
"About the hardest," said Brent. "And she's got practically
everything still to learn."
"Shall we try, Clélie?" said Susan.
Young Madame Délière was pale with eagerness. "Ah--but that
would be worth while!" cried she.
"Then it's settled," said Susan. To Brent: "We'll make the
arrangements at once--today."
Freddie was looking at her with a dazed expression. His
glance presently drifted from her face to the fire, to rest
there thoughtfully as he smoked his cigar. He took no part in
the conversation that followed. Presently he left the room
without excusing himself. When Clélie seated herself at the
piano to wander vaguely from one piece of music to another,
Brent joined Susan at the fire and said in English:
"Palmer is furious."
"I saw," said she.
"I am afraid. For--I know him."
She looked calmly at him. "But I am not."
"Then you do not know him."
The strangest smile flitted across her face.
After a pause Brent said: "Are you married to him?"
Again the calm steady look. Then: "That is none of your business."
"I thought you were not," said Brent, as if she had answered
his question with a clear negative. He added, "You know I'd
not have asked if it had been 'none of my business.'"
"What do you mean?"
"If you had been his wife, I could not have gone on. I've all
the reverence for a home of the man who has never had one.
I'd not take part in a home-breaking. But--since you are free----"
"I shall never be anything else but free. It's because I wish
to make sure of my freedom that I'm going into this."
Palmer appeared in the doorway.
That night the four and Gourdain dined together, went to the
theater and afterward to supper at the Cafe de Paris.
Gourdain and young Madame Délière formed an interesting,
unusually attractive exhibit of the parasitism that is as
inevitable to the rich as fleas to a dog. Gourdain was a
superior man, Clélie a superior woman. There was nothing of
the sycophant, or even of the courtier, about either. Yet
they already had in their faces that subtle indication of the
dependent that is found in all professional people who
habitually work for and associate with the rich only. They
had no sense of dependence; they were not dependents, for they
gave more than value received. Yet so corrupting is the
atmosphere about rich people that Gourdain, who had other rich
clients, no less than Clélie who got her whole living from
Palmer, was at a glance in the flea class and not in the dog
class. Brent looked for signs of the same thing in Susan's
face. The signs should have been there; but they were not.
"Not yet," thought he. "And never will be now."
Palmer's abstraction and constraint were in sharp contrast to
the gayety of the others. Susan drank almost nothing. Her
spirits were soaring so high that she did not dare stimulate
them with champagne. The Cafe de Paris is one of the places
where the respectable go to watch _les autres_ and to catch a
real gayety by contagion of a gayety that is mechanical and
altogether as unreal as play-acting. There is something
fantastic about the official temples of Venus; the
pleasure-makers are so serious under their masks and the
pleasure-getters so quaintly dazzled and deluded. That is,
Venus's temples are like those of so many other religions in
reverence among men--disbelief and solemn humbuggery at the
altar; belief that would rather die than be undeceived, in the
pews. Palmer scarcely took his eyes from Susan's face. It
amused and pleased her to see how uneasy this made Brent--and
how her own laughter and jests aggravated his uneasiness to
the point where he was almost showing it. She glanced round
that brilliant room filled with men and women, each of them
carrying underneath the placidity of stiff evening shirt or
the scantiness of audacious evening gown the most
fascinating emotions and secrets--love and hate and jealousy,
cold and monstrous habits and desires, ruin impending or
stealthily advancing, fortune giddying to a gorgeous climax,
disease and shame and fear--yet only signs of love and
laughter and lightness of heart visible. And she wondered
whether at any other table there was gathered so curious an
assemblage of pasts and presents and futures as at the one
over which Freddie Palmer was presiding somberly. . . . Then her
thoughts took another turn. She fell to noting how each man
was accompanied by a woman--a gorgeously dressed woman, a
woman revealing, proclaiming, in every line, in every
movement, that she was thus elaborately and beautifully
toiletted to please man, to appeal to his senses, to gain his
gracious approval. It was the world in miniature; it was an
illustration of the position of woman--of her own position.
Favorite; pet. Not the equal of man, but an appetizer, a
dessert. She glanced at herself in the glass, mocked her own
radiant beauty of face and form and dress. Not really a full
human being; merely a decoration. No more; and no worse off
than most of the women everywhere, the favorites licensed or
unlicensed of law and religion. But just as badly off, and
just as insecure. Free! No rest, no full breath until
freedom had been won! At any cost, by straight way or
devious--free!
"Let's go home," said she abruptly. "I've had enough of this."
She was in a dressing gown, all ready for bed and reading,
when Palmer came into her sitting-room. She was smoking, her
gaze upon her book. Her thick dark hair was braided close to
her small head. There was delicate lace on her nightgown,
showing above the wadded satin collar of the dressing gown.
He dropped heavily into a chair.
"If anyone had told me a year ago that a skirt could make a
damn fool of me," said he bitterly, "I'd have laughed in his
face. Yet--here I am! How nicely I did drop into your trap
today--about the acting!"
"Trap?"
"Oh, I admit I built and baited and set it, myself--ass that I
was! But it was your trap--yours and Brent's, all the
same. . . . A skirt--and not a clean one, at that."
She lowered the book to her lap, took the cigarette from
between her lips, looked at him. "Why not be reasonable,
Freddie?" said she calmly. Language had long since lost its
power to impress her. "Why irritate yourself and annoy me
simply because I won't let you tyrannize over me? You know
you can't treat me as if I were your property. I'm not your
wife, and I don't have to be your mistress."
"Getting ready to break with me eh?"
"If I wished to go, I'd tell you--and go."
"You'd give me the shake, would you?--without the slightest
regard for all I've done for you!"
She refused to argue that again. "I hope I've outgrown doing
weak gentle things through cowardice and pretending it's
through goodness of heart."
"You've gotten hard--like stone."
"Like you--somewhat." And after a moment she added, "Anything
that's strong is hard--isn't it? Can a man or a woman get
anywhere without being able to be what you call 'hard' and
what I call 'strong'?"
"Where do _you_ want to get?" demanded he.
She disregarded his question, to finish saying what was in her
mind--what she was saying rather to give herself a clear look
at her own thoughts and purposes than to enlighten him about
them. "I'm not a sheltered woman," pursued she. "I've got no
one to save me from the consequences of doing nice, sweet,
womanly things."
"You've got me," said he angrily.
"But why lean if I'm strong enough to stand alone? Why weaken
myself just to gratify your mania for owning and bossing? But
let me finish what I was saying. I never got any quarter
because I was a woman. No woman does, as a matter of fact;
and in the end, the more she uses her sex to help her shirk,
the worse her punishment is. But in my case----
"I was brought up to play the weak female, to use my sex as my
shield. And that was taken from me and--I needn't tell _you_
how I was taught to give and take like a man--no, not like a
man--for no man ever has to endure what a woman goes through
if she is thrown on the world. Still, I'm not whining. Now
that it's all over I'm the better for what I've been through.
I've learned to use all a man's weapons and in addition I've
got a woman's."
"As long as your looks last," sneered he.
"That will be longer than yours," said she pleasantly, "if you
keep on with the automobiles and the champagne. And when my
looks are gone, my woman's weapons. . .
"Why, I'll still have the man's weapons left--shan't
I?--knowledge, and the ability to use it."
His expression of impotent fury mingled with compelled
admiration and respect made his face about as unpleasant to
look at as she had ever seen it. But she liked to look. His
confession of her strength made her feel stronger. The sense
of strength was a new sensation with her--new and delicious.
Nor could the feeling that she was being somewhat cruel
restrain her from enjoying it.
"I have never asked quarter," she went on. "I never shall.
If fate gets me down, as it has many a time, why I'll he able
to take my medicine without weeping or whining. I've never
asked pity. I've never asked charity. That's why I'm here,
Freddie--in this apartment, instead of in a filthy tenement
attic--and in these clothes instead of in rags--and with you
respecting me, instead of kicking me toward the gutter. Isn't
that so?"
He was silent.
"Isn't it so?" she insisted.
"Yes," he admitted. And his handsome eyes looked the love so
near to hate that fills a strong man for a strong woman when
they clash and he cannot conquer. "No wonder I'm a fool about
you," he muttered.
"I don't purpose that any man or woman shall use me," she went
on, "in exchange for merely a few flatteries. I insist that
if they use me, they must let me use them. I shan't be mean
about it, but I shan't be altogether a fool, either. And what
is a woman but a fool when she lets men use her for nothing
but being called sweet and loving and womanly? Unless that's
the best she can do, poor thing!"
"You needn't sneer at respectable women."
"I don't," replied she. "I've no sneers for anybody. I've
discovered a great truth, Freddie the deep-down equality of
all human beings--all of them birds in the same wind and
battling with it each as best he can. As for myself--with
money, with a career that interests me, with position that'll
give me any acquaintances and friends that are congenial, I
don't care what is said of me."
As her plan unfolded itself fully to his understanding, which
needed only a hint to enable it to grasp all, he forgot his
rage for a moment in his interest and admiration. Said he:
"You've used me. Now you're going to use Brent--eh?
Well--what will you give _him_ in exchange?"
"He wants someone to act certain parts in certain plays."
"Is that _all_ he wants?"
"He hasn't asked anything else."
"And if he did?"
"Don't be absurd. You know Brent."
"He's not in love with you," assented Palmer. "He doesn't
want you that way. There's some woman somewhere, I've
heard--and he doesn't care about anybody but her."
He was speaking in a careless, casual way, watching her out of
the corner of his eye. And she, taken off guard, betrayed in
her features the secret that was a secret even from herself.
He sprang up with a bound, sprang at her, caught her up out of
her chair, the fingers of one hand clasping her throat.
"I thought so!" he hissed. "You love him--damn you! You love
him! You'd better look out, both of you!"
There came a knock at the door between her bedroom and that of
Madame Clélie. Palmer released her, stood panting, with
furious eyes on the door from which the sound had come. Susan
called, "It's all right, Clélie, for the present." Then she
said to Palmer, "I told Clélie to knock if she ever heard
voices in this room--or any sound she didn't understand." She
reseated herself, began to massage her throat where his
fingers had clutched it. "It's fortunate my skin doesn't mar
easily," she went on. "What were you saying?"
"I know the truth now. You love Brent. That's the milk in
the cocoanut."
She reflected on this, apparently with perfect tranquillity,
apparently with no memory of his furious threat against her
and against Brent. She said:
"Perhaps I was simply piqued because there's another woman."
"You are jealous."
"I guess I was--a little."
"You admit that you love him, you----"
He checked himself on the first hissing breath of the foul
epithet. She said tranquilly:
"Jealousy doesn't mean love. We're jealous in all sorts of
ways--and of all sorts of things."
"Well--_he_ cares nothing about _you_."
"Nothing."
"And never will. He'd despise a woman who had been----"
"Don't hesitate. Say it. I'm used to hearing it,
Freddie--and to being it. And not 'had been' but 'is.' I
still am, you know."
"You're not!" he cried. "And never were--and never could
be--for some unknown reason, God knows why."
She shrugged her shoulders, lit another cigarette. He went on:
"You can't get it out of your head that because he's
interested in you he's more or less stuck on you. That's the
way with women. The truth is, he wants you merely to act in
his plays."
"And I want that, too."
"You think I'm going to stand quietly by and let this thing go
on--do you?"
She showed not the faintest sign of nervousness at this
repetition, more carefully veiled, of his threat against
her--and against Brent. She chose the only hopeful course;
she went at him boldly and directly. Said she with amused
carelessness:
"Why not? He doesn't want me. Even if I love him, I'm not
giving him anything you want."
"How do you know what I want?" cried he, confused by this
unexpected way of meeting his attack. "You think I'm simply
a brute--with no fine instincts or feelings----"
She interrupted him with a laugh. "Don't be absurd, Freddie,"
said she. "You know perfectly well you and I don't call out the
finer feelings in each other. If either of us wanted that
sort of thing, we'd have to look elsewhere."
"You mean Brent--eh?"
She laughed with convincing derision. "What nonsense!" She
put her arms round his neck, and her lips close to his. The
violet-gray eyes were half closed, the perfume of the smooth
amber-white skin, of the thick, wavy, dark hair, was in his
nostrils. And in a languorous murmur she soothed his
subjection to a deep sleep with, "As long as you give me what
I want from you, and I give you what you want from me why
should we wrangle?"
And with a smile he acquiesced. She felt that she had ended
the frightful danger--to Brent rather than to herself--that
suddenly threatened from those wicked eyes of Palmer's. But
it might easily come again. She did not dare relax her
efforts, for in the succeeding days she saw that he was like
one annoyed by a constant pricking from a pin hidden in the
clothing and searched for in vain. He was no longer jealous
of Brent. But while he didn't know what was troubling him, he
did know that he was uncomfortable.