Surely--surely--there would be small difficulty in placing his play when there were so many theaters, all eager for plays.
They debated going to the theater, decided against it, as they were tired from the journey and the excitement of crowding new sensations."I've never been to a real theater in my life," said Susan."I want to be fresh the first time I go.""Yes," cried Rod."That's right.Tomorrow night.That _will_ be an experience!" And they read the illuminated signs, inspected the show windows, and slowly strolled back toward the hotel.As they were recrossing Union Square, Spenser said, "Have you noticed how many street girls there are? We must have passed a thousand.Isn't it frightful?""Yes," said Susan.
Rod made a gesture of disgust, and said with feeling, "How low a woman must have sunk before she could take to that life!""Yes," said Susan.
"So low that there couldn't possibly be left any shred of feeling or decency anywhere in her." Susan did not reply.
"It's not a question of morals, but of sensibility," pursued he.
"Some day I'm going to write a play or a story about it.A woman with anything to her, who had to choose between that life and death, wouldn't hesitate an instant.She couldn't.Astreetwalker!" And again he made that gesture of disgust.
"Before you write," said Susan, in a queer, quiet voice, "you'll find out all about it.Maybe some of these girls--most of them--all of them--are still human beings.It's not fair to judge people unless you know.And it's so easy to say that someone else ought to die rather than do this or that.""You can't imagine yourself doing such a thing," urged he.
Susan hesitated, then--"Yes," she said.
Her tone irritated him."Oh, nonsense! You don't know what you're talking about.""Yes," said Susan.
"Susie!" he exclaimed, looking reprovingly at her.
She met his eyes without flinching."Yes," she said."I have."He stopped short and his expression set her bosom to heaving.
But her gaze was steady upon his."Why did you tell me!" he cried."Oh, it isn't so--it can't be.You don't mean exactly that.""Yes, I do," said she.
"Don't tell me! I don't want to know." And he strode on, she keeping beside him.
"I can't let you believe me different from what I am," replied she."Not you.I supposed you guessed.""Now I'll always think of it--whenever I look at you....Isimply can't believe it....You spoke of it as if you weren't ashamed.""I'm not ashamed," she said."Not before you.There isn't anything I've done that I wouldn't be willing to have you know.
I'd have told you, except that I didn't want to recall it.You know that nobody can live without getting dirty.The thing is to want to be clean--and to try to get clean afterward--isn't it?""Yes," he admitted, as if he had not been hearing."I wish you hadn't told me.I'll always see it and feel it when I look at you.""I want you to," said she."I couldn't love you as I do if Ihadn't gone through a great deal."
"But it must have left its stains upon you," said he.Again he stopped short in the street, faced her at the curb, with the crowd hurrying by and jostling them."Tell me about it!" he commanded.
She shook her head."I couldn't." To have told would have been like tearing open closed and healed wounds.Also it would have seemed whining--and she had utter contempt for whining."I'll answer any question, but I can't just go on and tell.""You deliberately went and did--that?"
"Yes."
"Haven't you any excuse, any defense?"
She might have told him about Burlingham dying and the need of money to save him.She might have told him about Etta--her health going--her mind made up to take to the streets, with no one to look after her.She might have made it all a moving and a true tale--of self-sacrifice for the two people who had done most for her.But it was not in her simple honest nature to try to shift blame.So all she said was:
"No, Rod."
"And you didn't want to kill yourself first?""No.I wanted to live.I was dirty--and I wanted to be clean.Iwas hungry--and I wanted food.I was cold--that was the worst.
I was cold, and I wanted to get warm.And--I had been married--but I couldn't tell even you about that--except--after a woman's been through what I went through then, nothing in life has any real terror or horror for her."He looked at her long."I don't understand," he finally said.
"Come on.Let's go back to the hotel."
She walked beside him, making no attempt to break his gloomy silence.They went up to their room and she sat on the lounge by the window.He lit a cigarette and half sat, half lay, upon the bed.After a long time he said with a bitter laugh, "And I was so sure you were a good woman!""I don't feel bad," she ventured timidly."Am I?""Do you mean to tell me," he cried, sitting up, "that you don't think anything of those things?""Life can be so hard and cruel, can make one do so many----""But don't you realize that what you've done is the very worst thing a woman can do?""No," said she."I don't....I'm sorry you didn't understand.
I thought you did--not the details, but in a general sort of way.I didn't mean to deceive you.That would have seemed to me much worse than anything I did.""I might have known! I might have known!" he cried--rather theatrically, though sincerely withal--for Mr.Spenser was a diligent worker with the tools of the play-making trade."Ilearned who you were as soon as I got home the night I left you in Carrolton.They had been telephoning about you to the village.So I knew about you.""About my mother?" asked she."Is that what you mean?""Oh, you need not look so ashamed," said he, graciously, pityingly.
"I am not ashamed," said she.But she did not tell him that her look came from an awful fear that he was about to make her ashamed of him.
"No, I suppose you aren't," he went on, incensed by this further evidence of her lack of a good woman's instincts."I really ought not to blame you.You were born wrong--born with the moral sense left out.""Yes, I suppose so," said she, wearily.
"If only you had lied to me--told me the one lie!" cried he.
