The driver kept his promise; eleven o'clock found them bursting into Sternberg's, over the Rhine--a famous department store for Germans of all classes.They had an hour, and they made good use of it.Etta was for yielding to Fatty's generous urgings and buying right and left.But Susan would not have it.She told the men what she and Etta would take--a simple complete outfit, and no more.Etta wanted furs and finery.Susan kept her to plain, serviceable things.Only once did she yield.When Etta and Fatty begged to be allowed a big showy hat, Susan yielded--but gave John leave to buy her only the simplest of simple hats."You needn't tell _me_ any yarns about your birth and breeding," said he in a low tone so that Etta should not hear.
But that subject did not interest Susan."Let's forget it,"said she, almost curtly."I've cut out the past--and the future.
Today's enough for me."
"And for me, too," protested he."I hope you're having as good fun as I am.""This is the first time I've really laughed in nearly a year,"said she."You don't know what it means to be poor and hungry and cold--worst of all, cold.""You unhappy child," said John tenderly.
But Susan was laughing again, and making jokes about a wonderful German party dress all covered with beads and lace and ruffles and embroidery.When they reached the shoe department, Susan asked John to take Fatty away.He understood that she was ashamed of their patched and holed stockings, and hastened to obey.They were making these their last purchases when the big bell rang for the closing."I'm glad these poor tired shopgirls and clerks are set free," said John.
It was one of those well-meaning but worthless commonplaces of word-kindness that get for their utterance perhaps exaggerated credit for "good heart." Susan, conscience-stricken, halted.
"And I never once thought of them!" she exclaimed."It just shows.""Shows what?"
"Oh, nothing.Come on.I must forget that, for I can't be happy again till I do.I understand now why the comfortable people can be happy.They keep from knowing or they make themselves forget.""Why not?" said John."What's the use in being miserable about things that can't be helped?""No use at all," replied the girl.She laughed."I've forgotten."The carriage was so filled with their bundles that they had some difficulty in making room for themselves--finally accomplished it by each girl sitting on her young man's lap.They drove to a quietly placed, scrupulously clean little hotel overlooking Lincoln Park."We're going to take rooms here and dress,"explained Fatty."Then we'll wander out and have some supper."By this time Susan and Etta had lost all sense of strangeness.
The spirit of adventure was rampant in them as in a dreaming child.And the life they had been living--what they had seen and heard and grown accustomed to--made it easy for them to strike out at once and briskly in the new road, so different from the dreary and cruel path along which they had been plodding.They stood laughing and joking in the parlor while the boys registered; then the four went up to two small but comfortable and fascinatingly clean rooms with a large bathroom between.
"Fatty and I will go down to the bar while you two dress," said John.
"Not on your life!" exclaimed Fatty."We'll have the bar brought up to us."But John, fortified by Susan's look of gratitude for his tactfulness, whispered to his friend--what Susan could easily guess.And Fatty said, "Oh, I never thought of it.Yes, we'll give 'em a chance.Don't be long, girls.""Thank you," said Susan to John.
"That's all right.Take your time."
Susan locked the hall door behind the two men.She rushed to the bathroom, turned on the hot water."Oh, Etta!" she cried, tears in her eyes, a hysterical sob in her throat."A bathtub again!"Etta too was enthusiastic; but she had not that intense hysterical joy which Susan felt--a joy that can be appreciated only by a person who, clean by instinct and by lifelong habit, has been shut out from thorough cleanliness for long months of dirt and foul odors and cold.It was no easy matter to become clean again after all those months.But there was plenty of soap and brushes and towels, and at last the thing was accomplished.
Then they tore open the bundles and arrayed themselves in the fresh new underclothes, in the simple attractive costumes of jacket, blouse and skirt.Susan had returned to her class, and had brought Etta with her.
"What shall we do with these?" asked Etta, pointing disdainfully with the toe of her new boot to the scatter of the garments they had cast off.
Susan looked down at it in horror.She could not believe that _she_ had been wearing such stuff--that it was the clothing of all her associates of the past six months--was the kind of attire in which most of her fellow-beings went about the beautiful earth, She shuddered."Isn't life dreadful?" she cried.And she kicked together the tattered, patched, stained trash, kicked it on to a large piece of heavy wrapping paper she had spread out upon the floor.Thus, without touching her discarded self, she got it wrapped up and bound with a strong string.She rang for the maid, gave her a quarter and pointed to the bundle."Please take that and throw it away," she said.
When the maid was gone Etta said: "I'm mighty glad to have it out of the room.""Out of the room?" cried Susan."Out of my heart.Out of my life."They put on their hats, admired themselves in the mirror, and descended--Susan remembering halfway that they had left the lights on and going back to turn them off.The door boy summoned the two young men to the parlor.They entered and exclaimed in real amazement.For they were facing two extremely pretty young women, one dark, the other fair.The two faces were wreathed in pleased and grateful smiles.
"Don't we look nice?" demanded Etta.
"Nice!" cried Fatty."We sure did draw a pair of first prizes--didn't we, Johnny?"John did not reply.He was gazing at Susan.Etta had young beauty but it was of the commonplace kind.In Susan's face and carriage there was far more than beauty."Where _did_ you come from?" said John to her in an undertone."And _where_ are you going?""Out to supper, I hope," laughed she.
"Your eyes change--don't they? I thought they were violet.Now I see they're gray--gray as can be."
