Gideon understood as well as did they why they left."I don't think I've seen you before, my dear," said he to Susan.
"I came only this morning," replied she.
"I like to know everybody I deal with.We must get better acquainted.You've got the best figure in the business--the very best.""Thank you," said Susan with a grave, distant smile.
"Got a date for dinner tonight?" inquired he; and, assuming that everything would yield precedence to him, he did not wait for a reply, but went on, "Tell me your address.I'll send a cab for you at seven o'clock.""Thank you," said Susan, "but I can't go."
Gideon smiled."Oh, don't be shy.Of course you'll go.Ask Jeffries.He'll tell you it's all right.""There are reasons why I'd rather not be seen in the restaurants.""That's even better.I'll come in the cab myself and we'll go to a quiet place."His eyes smiled insinuatingly at her.Now that she looked at him more carefully he was unusually attractive for a man of his type--had strength and intelligence in his features, had a suggestion of mastery, of one used to obedience, in his voice.
His teeth were even and sound, his lips firm yet not too thin.
"Come," said he persuasively."I'll not eat you up--" with a gay and gracious smile--"at least I'll try not to."Susan remembered what Miss Hinkle had told her.She saw that she must either accept the invitation or give up her position.
She said:
"Very well," and gave him her address.
Back came Jeffries and Miss Hinkle carrying the first of the wraps.Gideon waved them away."You've shown 'em to me before," said he."I don't want to see 'em again.Give me the evening gowns."Susan withdrew, soon to appear in a dress that left her arms and neck bare.Gideon could not get enough of this.Jeffries kept her walking up and down until she was ready to drop with weariness of the monotony, of the distasteful play of Gideon's fiery glance upon her arms and shoulders and throat.Gideon tried to draw her into conversation, but she would--indeed could--go no further than direct answers to his direct questions."Never mind," said he to her in an undertone.
"I'll cheer you up this evening.I think I know how to order a dinner."Her instant conquest of the difficult and valuable Gideon so elated Jeffries that he piled the work on her.He used her with every important buyer who came that day.The temperature was up in the high nineties, the hot moist air stood stagnant as a barnyard pool; the winter models were cruelly hot and heavy.All day long, with a pause of half an hour to eat her roll and drink a glass of water, Susan walked up and down the show parlors weighted with dresses and cloaks, furs for arctic weather.The other girls, even those doing almost nothing, were all but prostrated.It was little short of intolerable, this struggle to gain the "honest, self-respecting living by honest work" that there was so much talk about.Toward five o'clock her nerves abruptly and completely gave way, and she fainted--for the first time in her life.At once the whole establishment was in an uproar.Jeffries cursed himself loudly for his shortsightedness, for his overestimating her young strength."She'll look like hell this evening," he wailed, wringing his hands like a distracted peasant woman."Maybe she won't be able to go out at all."She soon came round.They brought her whiskey, and afterward tea and sandwiches.And with the power of quick recuperation that is the most fascinating miracle of healthy youth, she not only showed no sign of her breakdown but looked much better.
And she felt better.We shall some day understand why it is that if a severe physical blow follows upon a mental blow, recovery from the physical blow is always accompanied by a relief of the mental strain.Susan came out of her fit of faintness and exhaustion with a different point of view--as if time had been long at work softening her, grief.Spenser seemed part of the present no longer, but of the past--a past far more remote than yesterday.
Mary Hinkle sat with her as she drank the tea."Did you make a date with Gid?" inquired she.Her tone let Susan know that the question had been prompted by Jeffries.
"He asked me to dine with him, and I said I would.""Have you got a nice dress--dinner dress, I mean?""The linen one I'm wearing is all.My other dress is for cooler weather.""Then I'll give you one out of stock--I mean I'll borrow one for you.This dinner's a house affair, you know--to get Gid's order.It'll be worth thousands to them.""There wouldn't be anything to fit me on such short notice,"said Susan, casting about for an excuse for not wearing borrowed finery.
"Why, you've got a model figure.I'll pick you out a white dress--and a black and white hat.I know 'em all, and I know one that'll make you look simply lovely."Susan did not protest.She was profoundly indifferent to what happened to her.Life seemed a show in which she had no part, and at which she sat a listless spectator.A few minutes, and in puffed Jeffries, solicitous as a fussy old bird with a new family.
"You're a lot better, ain't you?" cried he, before he had looked at her."Oh, yes, you'll be all right.And you'll have a lovely time with Mr.Gideon.He's a perfect gentleman--knows how to treat a lady....The minute I laid eyes on you Isaid to myself, said I, `Jeffries, she's a mascot.' And you are, my dear.You'll get us the order.But you mustn't talk business with him, you understand?""Yes," said Susan, wearily.
"He's a gentleman, you know, and it don't do to mix business and social pleasures.You string him along quiet and ladylike and elegant, as if there wasn't any such things as cloaks or dresses in the world.He'll understand all right....If you land the order, my dear, I'll see that you get a nice present.A nice dress--the one we're going to lend you--if he gives us a slice.The dress and twenty-five in cash, if he gives us all.How's that?""Thank you," said Susan."I'll do my best."
