Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 45

"Where do they ask for work?"

She had been attracted to him because his was the one face within view not suggesting temper or at least bad humor. It was more than pleasant, it was benign. He inclined toward Susan with an air that invited confidence and application for balm for a wounded spirit. The instant the nature of her inquiry penetrated through his pose to the man himself, there was a swift change to lofty disdain--the familiar att.i.tude of workers toward fellow-workers of what they regard as a lower cla.s.s. Evidently he resented her having beguiled him by the false air of young lady into wasting upon her, mere servility like himself, a display reserved exclusively for patrons. It was Susan's first experience of this sn.o.bbishness; it at once humbled her into the dust. She had been put in her place, and that place was not among people worthy of civil treatment. A girl of his own cla.s.s would have flashed at him, probably would have "jawed" him.

Susan meekly submitted; she was once more reminded that she was an outcast, one for whom the respectable world had no place. He made some sort of reply to her question, in the tone the usher of a fashionable church would use to a stranger obviously not in the same set as the habitues. She heard the tone, but not the words; she turned away to seek the street again. She wandered on--through the labyrinth of streets, through the crowds on crowds of strangers.

Ten dollars a week! She knew little about wages, but enough to realize the hopelessness of her quest. Ten dollars a week--and her own keep beside. The faces of the crowds pushing past her and jostling her made her heartsick. So much sickness, and hara.s.sment, and discontent--so much unhappiness! Surely all these sad hearts ought to be kind to each other. Yet they were not; each soul went selfishly alone, thinking only of its own burden.

She walked on and on, thinking, in this disconnected way characteristic of a good intelligence that has not yet developed order and sequence, a theory of life and a purpose. It had always been her habit to walk about rather than to sit, whether indoors or out. She could think better when in motion physically. When she was so tired that she began to feel weak, she saw a shaded square, with benches under the trees. She entered, sat down to rest. She might apply to the young doctor.

But, no. He was poor--and what chance was there of her ever making the money to pay back? No, she could not take alms; than alms there was no lower way of getting money. She might return to Mr. Blynn and accept his offer. The man in all his physical horror rose before her. No, she could not do that. At least, not yet. She could entertain the idea as a possibility now. She remembered her wedding--the afternoon, the night. Yes, Blynn's offer involved nothing so horrible as that--and she had lived through that. It would be cowardice, treachery, to shrink from anything that should prove necessary in doing the square thing by the man who had done so much for her. She had said she would die for Burlingham; she owed even that to him, if her death would help him. Had she then meant nothing but mere lying words of pretended grat.i.tude? But Blynn was always there; something else might turn up, and her dollar and eighty cents would last another day or so, and the ten dollars were not due for six days. No, she would not go to Blynn; she would wait, would take his advice--"think it over."

A man was walking up and down the shaded alley, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing the bench where she sat. She observed him, saw that he was watching her. He was a young man--a very young man--of middle height, strongly built. He had crisp, short dark hair, a darkish skin, amiable blue-gray eyes, pleasing features. She decided that he was of good family, was home from some college on vacation. He was wearing a silk shirt, striped flannel trousers, a thin serge coat of an attractive shade of blue. She liked his looks, liked the way he dressed. It pleased her that such a man should be interested in her; he had a frank and friendly air, and her sad young heart was horribly lonely. She pretended not to notice him; but after a while he walked up to her, lifting his straw hat.

"Good afternoon," said he. When he showed his strong sharp teeth in an amiable smile, she thought of Sam Wright--only this man was not weak and mean looking, like her last and truest memory picture of Sam--indeed, the only one she had not lost.

"Good afternoon," replied she politely. For in spite of Burlingham's explanations and cautionings she was still the small-town girl, unsuspicious toward courtesy from strange men.

Also, she longed for someone to talk with. It had been weeks since she had talked with anyone nearer than Burlingham to her own age and breeding.

"Won't you have lunch with me?" he asked. "I hate to eat alone."

She, faint from hunger, simply could not help obvious hesitation before saying, "I don't think I care for any."

"You haven't had yours--have you?"

"No."

"May I sit down?"

She moved along the bench to indicate that he might, without definitely committing herself.

He sat, took off his hat. He had a clean, fresh look about the neck that pleased her. She was weary of seeing grimy, sweaty people, and of smelling them. Also, except the young doctor, since Roderick Spenser left her at Carrolltown she had talked with no one of her own age and cla.s.s--the cla.s.s in which she had been brought up, the cla.s.s that, after making her one of itself, had cast her out forever with its mark of shame upon her. Its mark of shame--burning and stinging again as she sat beside this young man!

"You're sad about something?" suggested he, himself nearly as embarra.s.sed as she.

"My friend's ill. He's got typhoid."

"That is bad. But he'll get all right. They always cure typhoid, nowadays--if it's taken in time and the nursing's good.

Everything depends on the nursing. I had it a couple of years ago, and pulled through easily."

Susan brightened. He spoke so confidently that the appeal to her young credulity toward good news and the hopeful, cheerful thing was irresistible. "Oh, yes--he'll be over it soon," the young man went on, "especially if he's in a hospital where they've got the facilities for taking care of sick people. Where is he?"

"In the hospital--up that way." She moved her head vaguely in the direction of the northwest.

"Oh, yes. It's a good one--for the pay patients. I suppose for the poor devils that can't pay"--he glanced with careless sympathy at the dozen or so tramps on benches nearby--"it's like all the rest of 'em--like the whole world, for that matter. It must be awful not to have money enough to get on with, I mean.

I'm talking about men." He smiled cheerfully. "With a woman--if she's pretty--it's different, of course."

The girl was so agitated that she did not notice the sly, if shy, hint in the remark and its accompanying glance. Said she:

"But it's a good hospital if you pay?"

"None better. Maybe it's good straight through. I've only heard the servants' talk--and servants are such liars. Still--I'd not want to trust myself to a hospital unless I could pay. I guess the common people have good reason for their horror of free wards. Nothing free is ever good."

The girl's face suddenly and startlingly grew almost hard, so fierce was the resolve that formed within her. The money must be got--_must!_--and would. She would try every way she could think of between now and to-morrow; then--if she failed she would go to Blynn.

The young man was saying: "You're a stranger in town?"

"I was with a theatrical company on a show boat. It sank."

His embarra.s.sment vanished. She saw, but she did not understand that it was because he thought he had "placed" her--and that her place was where he had hoped.

"You _are_ up against it!" said he. "Come have some lunch. You'll feel better."

The good sense of this was unanswerable. Susan hesitated no longer, wondered why she had hesitated at first. "Well--I guess I will." And she rose with a frank, childlike alacrity that amused him immensely.

"You don't look it, but you've been about some--haven't you?"

"Rather," replied she.

"I somehow thought you knew a thing or two."

They walked west to Race Street. They were about the same height. Her costume might have been fresher, might have suggested to an expert eye the pa.s.sed-on clothes of a richer relative; but her carriage and the fine look of skin and hair and features made the defects of dress unimportant. She seemed of his cla.s.s--of the cla.s.s comfortable, well educated, and well-bred. If she had been more experienced, she would have seen that he was satisfied with her appearance despite the curious looking little package, and would have been flattered. As it was, her interest was absorbed in things apart from herself. He talked about the town--the amus.e.m.e.nts, the good times to be had at the over-the-Rhine beer halls, at the hilltop gardens, at the dances in the pavilion out at the Zoo. He drew a lively and charming picture, one that appealed to her healthy youth, to her unsatisfied curiosity, to her pa.s.sionate desire to live the gay, free city life of which the small town reads and dreams.

"You and I can go round together, can't we? I haven't got much, but I'll not try to take your time for nothing, of course. That wouldn't be square. I'm sure you'll have no cause to complain.

What do you say?"

"Maybe," replied the girl, all at once absent-minded. Her brain was wildly busy with some ideas started there by his significant words, by his flirtatious glances at her, by his way of touching her whenever he could make opportunity. Evidently there was an alternative to Blynn.

"You like a good time, don't you?" said he.

"Rather!" exclaimed she, the violet eyes suddenly very violet indeed and sparkling. Her spirits had suddenly soared. She was acting like one of her age. With that blessed happy hopefulness of healthy youth, she had put aside her sorrows--not because she was frivolous but for the best of all reasons, because she was young and superbly vital. Said she: "I'm crazy about dancing--and music."

"I only needed to look at your feet--and ankles--to know that,"

ventured he the "ankles" being especially audacious.

She was pleased, and in youth's foolish way tried to hide her pleasure by saying, "My feet aren't exactly small."

"I should say not!" protested he with energy. "Little feet would look like the mischief on a girl as tall as you are. Yes, we can have a lot of fun."

They went into a large restaurant with fly fans speeding. Susan thought it very grand--and it was the grandest restaurant she had ever been in. They sat down--in a delightfully cool place by a window looking out on a little plot of green with a colladium, a fountain, some oleanders in full and fragrant bloom; the young man ordered, with an ease that fascinated her, an elaborate lunch--soup, a chicken, with salad, ice cream, and fresh peaches. Susan had a menu in her hand and as he ordered she noted the prices. She was dazzled by his extravagance--dazzled and frightened--and, in a curious, vague, unnerving way, fascinated. Money--the thing she must have for Burlingham in whose case "everything depended on the nursing." In the brief time this boy and she had been together, he, without making an effort to impress, had given her the feeling that he was of the best city cla.s.s, that he knew the world--the high world. Thus, she felt that she must be careful not to show her "greenness."

She would have liked to protest against his extravagance, but she ventured only the timid remonstrance, "Oh, I'm not a bit hungry."

She thought she was speaking the truth, for the ideas whirling so fast that they were dim quite took away the sense of hunger.

But when the food came she discovered that she was, on the contrary, ravenous--and she ate with rising spirits, with a feeling of content and hope. He had urged her to drink wine or beer, but she refused to take anything but a gla.s.s of milk; and he ended by taking milk himself. He was looking more and more boldly and ardently into her eyes, and she received his glances smilingly. She felt thoroughly at ease and at home, as if she were back once more among her own sort of people--with some element of disagreeable constraint left out.

Since she was an outcast, she need not bother about the small restraints the girls felt compelled to put upon themselves in the company of boys. n.o.body respected a "b.a.s.t.a.r.d," as they called her when they spoke frankly. So with nothing to lose she could at least get what pleasure there was in freedom. She liked it, having this handsome, well-dressed young man making love to her in this grand restaurant where things were so good to eat and so excitingly expensive. He would not regard her as fit to a.s.sociate with his respectable mother and sisters. In the casts of respectability, her place was with Jeb Ferguson! She was better off, clear of the whole unjust and horrible business of respectable life, clear of it and free, frankly in the outcast cla.s.s. She had not realized--and she did not realize--that a.s.sociation with the players of the show boat had made any especial change in her; in fact, it had loosened to the sloughing point the whole skin of her conventional training--that surface skin which seems part of the very essence of our being until something happens to force us to shed it.

Crises, catastrophes, may scratch that skin, or cut clear through it; but only the gentle, steady, everywhere-acting prying-loose of day and night a.s.sociation can change it from a skin to a loose envelope ready to be shed at any moment.

"What are you going to do?" asked the young man, when the acquaintance had become a friendship--which was before the peaches and ice cream were served.

"I don't know," said the girl, with the secretive instinct of self-reliance hiding the unhappiness his abrupt question set to throbbing again.

"Honestly, I've never met anyone that was so congenial. But maybe you don't feel that way?"