Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 123

"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 a.s.s. 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 G.o.d, 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sionately; 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 pa.s.sion, that she did not love him; but not love itself can move the heart more deeply than grat.i.tude 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 rea.s.sured; 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 pa.s.sion, 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.