Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 95

When she came to her senses, she was lying sprawled upon the far side of the bed. Her head was aching wildly; her body was stiff and sore; her face felt as if it were swollen to many times its normal size. In misery she dragged herself up and stood on the floor. She went to the bureau and stared at herself in the gla.s.s. Her face was indeed swollen, but not to actual disfigurement. Under her left eye there was a small cut from which the blood had oozed to smear and dry upon her left cheek. Upon her throat were faint bluish finger marks. The damage was not nearly so great as her throbbing nerves reported--the damage to her body. But--her soul--it was a crushed, trampled, degraded thing, lying p.r.o.ne and bleeding to death. "Shall I kill myself?" she thought. And the answer came in a fierce protest and refusal from every nerve of her intensely vital youth. She looked straight into her own eyes--without horror, without shame, without fear. "You are as low as the lowest," she said to her image--not to herself but to her image; for herself seemed spectator merely of that body and soul aching and bleeding and degraded.

It was the beginning of self-consciousness with her--a curious kind of self-consciousness--her real self, aloof and far removed, observing calmly, critically, impersonally the adventures of her body and the rest of her surface self.

She turned round to look again at the man who had outraged them. His eyes were open and he was gazing dreamily at her, as smiling and innocent as a child. When their eyes met, his smile broadened until he was showing his beautiful teeth. "You _are_ a beauty!" said he. "Go into the other room and get me a cigarette."

She continued to look fixedly at him.

Without change of expression he said gently, "Do you want another lesson in manners?"

She went to the door, opened it, entered the sitting-room. The other two had pulled open a folding bed and were lying in it, Jim's head on Maud's bosom, her arms round his neck. Both were asleep. His black beard had grown out enough to give his face a dirty and devilish expression. Maud looked far more youthful and much prettier than when she was awake. Susan put a cigarette between her lips, lit it, carried a box of cigarettes and a stand of matches in to Freddie.

"Light one for me," said he.

She obeyed, held it to his lips.

"Kiss me, first."

Her pale lips compressed.

"Kiss me," he repeated, far down in his eyes the vicious gleam of that boundlessly ferocious cruelty which is mothered not by rage but by pleasure.

She kissed him on the cheek.

"On the lips," he commanded.

Their lips met, and it was to her as if a hot flame, terrible yet thrilling, swept round and embraced her whole body.

"Do you love me?" he asked tenderly.

She was silent.

"You love me?" he asked commandingly.

"You can call it that if you like."

"I knew you would. I understand women. The way to make a woman love is to make her afraid."

She gazed at him. "I am not afraid," she said.

He laughed. "Oh, yes. That's why you do what I say--and always will."

"No," replied she. "I don't do it because I am afraid, but because I want to live."

"I should think! . . . You'll be all right in a day or so,"

said he, after inspecting her bruises. "Now, I'll explain to you what good friends we're going to be."

He propped himself in an att.i.tude of lazy grace, puffed at his cigarette in silence for a moment, as if arranging what he had to say. At last he began:

"I haven't any regular business. I wasn't born to work. Only d.a.m.n fools work--and the clever man waits till they've got something, then he takes it away from 'em. You don't want to work, either."

"I haven't been able to make a living at it," said the girl.

She was sitting cross-legged, a cover draped around her.

"You're too pretty and too clever. Besides, as you say, you couldn't make a living at it--not what's a living for a woman brought up as you've been. No, you can't work. So we're going to be partners."

"No," said Susan. "I'm going to dress now and go away."

Freddie laughed. "Don't be a fool. Didn't I say we were to be partners? . . . You want to keep on at the sporting business, don't you?"

Hers was the silence of a.s.sent.

"Well--a woman--especially a young one like you--is no good unless she has someone--some man--behind her. Married or single, respectable or lively, working or sporting--N. G. without a man. A woman alone doesn't amount to any more than a rich man's son."

There had been nothing in Susan's experience to enable her to dispute this.

"Now, I'm going to stand behind you. I'll see that you don't get pinched, and get you out if you do. I'll see that you get the best the city's got if you're sick--and so on. I've got a pull with the organization. I'm one of Finnegan's lieutenants.

Some day--when I'm older and have served my apprenticeship--I'll pull off something good. Meanwhile--I manage to live. I always have managed it--and I never did a stroke of real work since I was a kid--and never shall. G.o.d was mighty good to me when he put a few brains in this nut of mine."

He settled his head comfortably in the pillow and smiled at his own thoughts. In spite of herself Susan had been not only interested but attracted. It is impossible for any human being to contemplate mystery in any form without being fascinated.

And here was the profoundest mystery she had ever seen. He talked well, and his mode of talking was that of education, of refinement even. An extraordinary man, certainly--and in what a strange way!

"Yes," said he presently, looking at her with his gentle, friendly smile. "We'll be partners. I'll protect you and we'll divide what you make."

What a strange creature! Had he--this kindly handsome youth--done that frightful thing? No--no. It was another instance of the unreality of the outward life. _He_ had not done it, any more than she--her real self--had suffered it. Her reply to his restatement of the partnership was:

"No, thank you. I want nothing to do with it."

"You're dead slow," said he, with mild and patient persuasion.

"How would you get along at your business in this town if you didn't have a backer? Why, you'd be taking turns at the Island and the gutter within six months. You'd be giving all your money to some rotten cop or fly cop who couldn't protect you, at that. Or you'd work the street for some cheap cadet who'd beat you up oftener than he'd beat up the men who welched on you."

"I'll look out for myself," persisted she.

"Bless the baby!" exclaimed he, immensely amused. "How lucky that you found me! I'm going to take care of you in spite of yourself. Not for nothing, of course. You wouldn't value me if you got me for nothing. I'm going to help you, and you're going to help me. You need me, and I need you. Why do you suppose I took the trouble to tame you? What _you_ want doesn't go. It's what _I_ want."

He let her reflect on this a while. Then he went on:

"You don't understand about fellows like Jim and me--though Jim's a small potato beside me, as you'll soon find out.

Suppose you didn't obey orders--just as I do what Finnegan tells me--just as Finnegan does what the big shout down below says? Suppose you didn't obey--what then?"

"I don't know," confessed Susan.

"Well, it's time you learned. We'll say, you act stubborn.

You dress and say good-by to me and start out. Do you think I'm wicked enough to let you make a fool of yourself? Well, I'm not. You won't get outside the door before your good angel here will get busy. I'll be telephoning to a fly cop of this district. And what'll he do? Why, about the time you are halfway down the block, he'll pinch you. He'll take you to the station house. And in Police Court tomorrow the Judge'll give you a week on the Island for being a streetwalker."

Susan shivered. She instinctively glanced toward the window.

The rain was still falling, changing the City of the Sun into a city of desolation. It looked as though it would never see the sun again--and her life looked that way, also.

Freddie was smiling pleasantly. He went on: