第271章

"I'm very fond of him," replied Susan."We're old, old friends.But as to love--I'm where you'll be a few months from now."Miss Francklyn dried her eyes."Isn't it the devil!" she exclaimed."Why _can't_ it last?""Why, indeed," said Susan."Good night--and don't forget to send him by twelve o'clock." And she hurried up the steps without waiting for a reply.

She felt that the time for action had again come--that critical moment which she had so often in the past seen come and had let pass unheeded.He was in love with another woman; he was prosperous, assured of a good income for a long time, though he wrote no more successes.No need to consider him.For herself, then--what? Clearly, there could be no future for her with Rod.Clearly, she must go.

Must go--must take the only road that offered.Up before her--as in every mood of deep depression--rose the vision of the old women of the slums--the solitary, bent, broken forms, clad in rags, feet wrapped in rags--shuffling along in the gutters, peering and poking among filth, among garbage, to get together stuff to sell for the price of a drink.The old women of the tenements, the old women of the gutters, the old women drunk and dancing as the lecherous-eyed hunchback played the piano.

She must not this time wait and hesitate and hope; this time she must take the road that offered--and since it must be taken she must advance along it as if of all possible roads it was the only one she would have freely chosen.

Yet after she had written and sent off the note to Palmer, a deep sadness enveloped her--a grief, not for Rod, but for the association, the intimacy, their life together, its sorrows and storms perhaps more than the pleasures and the joys.When she left him before, she had gone sustained by the feeling that she was doing it for him, was doing a duty.Now, she was going merely to save herself, to further herself.Life, life in that great and hard school of practical living, New York, had given her the necessary hardiness to go, aided by Rod's unfaithfulness and growing uncongeniality.But not while she lived could she ever learn to be hard.She would do what she must--she was no longer a fool.But she could not help sighing and crying a little as she did it.

It was not many minutes after noon when Spenser came.He looked so sheepish and uncomfortable that Susan thought Constance had told him.But his opening sentence of apology was:

"I took too many nightcaps and Fitz had to lug me home with him.""Really?" said Susan."How disappointed Constance must have been!"Spenser was not a good liar.His face twisted and twitched so that Susan laughed outright."Why, you look like a caught married man," cried she."You forget we're both free.""Whatever put that crazy notion in your head--about Miss Francklyn?" demanded he.

"When you take me or anyone for that big a fool, Rod, you only show how foolish you yourself are," said she with the utmost good humor."The best way to find out how much sense a person has is to see what kind of lies he thinks'll deceive another person.""Now--don't get jealous, Susie," soothed he."You know how a man is."The tone was correctly contrite, but Susan felt underneath the confidence that he would be forgiven--the confidence of the egotist giddied by a triumph.Said she:

"Don't you think mine's a strange way of acting jealous?""But you're a strange woman."

Susan looked at him thoughtfully."Yes, I suppose I am," said she."And you'll think me stranger when I tell you what I'm going to do."He started up in a panic.And the fear in his eyes pleased her, at the same time that it made her wince.

She nodded slowly."Yes, Rod--I'm leaving."

"I'll drop Constance," cried he."I'll have her put out of the company.""No--go on with her till you've got enough--or she has.""I've got enough, this minute," declared he with convincing energy and passion."You must know, dearest, that to me Constance--all the women I've ever seen--aren't worth your little finger.You're all that they are, and a whole lot more besides." He seized her in his arms."You wouldn't leave me--you couldn't! You understand how men are--how they get these fits of craziness about a pair of eyes or a figure or some trick of voice or manner.But that doesn't affect the man's heart.I love you, Susan.I adore you."She did not let him see how sincerely he had touched her.Her eyes were of their deepest violet, but he had never learned that sign.She smiled mockingly; the fingers that caressed his hair were trembling."We've tided each other over, Rod.

The play's a success.You're all right again--and so am I.

Now's the time to part."

"Is it Brent, Susie?"

"I quit him last week."

"There's no one else.You're going because of Constance!"She did not deny."You're free and so am I," said she practically."I'm going.So--let's part sensibly.Don't make a silly scene."She knew how to deal with him--how to control him through his vanity.He drew away from her, chilled and sullen."If you can live through it, I guess I can," said he."You're making a damn fool of yourself--leaving a man that's fond of you--and leaving when he's successful.""I always was a fool, you know," said she.She had decided against explaining to him and so opening up endless and vain argument.It was enough that she saw it was impossible to build upon or with him, saw the necessity of trying elsewhere--unless she would risk--no, invite--finding herself after a few months, or years, back among the drift, back in the underworld.

He gazed at her as she stood smiling gently at him--smiling to help her hide the ache at her heart, the terror before the vision of the old women of the tenement gutters, earning the wages, not of sin, not of vice, not of stupidity, but of indecision, of over-hopefulness--of weakness.Here was the kind of smile that hurts worse than tears, that takes the place of tears and sobs and moans.But he who had never understood her did not understand her now.Her smile infuriated his vanity."You can _laugh!_" he sneered.