"You'll land it.You'll land it.I feel as if we had it with his O.K.on it."Susan shivered."Don't--don't count on me too much," she said hesitatingly."I'm not in very good spirits, I'm sorry to say.""A little pressed for money?" Jeffries hesitated, made an effort, blurted out what was for him, the business man, a giddy generosity."On your way out, stop at the cashier's.He'll give you this week's pay in advance." Jeffries hesitated, decided against dangerous liberality."Not ten, you understand, but say six.You see, you won't have been with us a full week." And he hurried away, frightened by his prodigality, by these hysterical impulses that were rushing him far from the course of sound business sense."As Jones says, I'm a generous old fool," he muttered."My soft heart'll ruin me yet."Jeffries sent Mary Hinkle home with Susan to carry the dress and hat, to help her make a toilet and to "start her off right." In the hour before they left the store there was offered a typical illustration of why and how "business" is able to suspend the normal moral sense and to substitute for it a highly ingenious counterfeit of supreme moral obligation to it.The hysterical Jeffries had infected the entire personnel with his excitement, with the sense that a great battle was impending and that the cause of the house, which was the cause of everyone who drew pay from it, had been intrusted to the young recruit with the fascinating figure and the sweet, sad face.And Susan's sensitive nature was soon vibrating in response to this feeling.It terrified her that she, the inexperienced, had such grave responsibility.It made her heart heavy to think of probable failure, when the house had been so good to her, had taken her in, had given her unusual wages, had made it possible for her to get a start in life, had intrusted to her its cause, its chance to retrieve a bad season and to protect its employees instead of discharging a lot of them.
"Have you got long white gloves?" asked Mary Hinkle, as they walked up Broadway, she carrying the dress and Susan the hat box.
"Only a few pairs of short ones."
"You must have long white gloves--and a pair of white stockings.""I can't afford them."
"Oh, Jeffries told me to ask you--and to go to work and buy them if you hadn't."They stopped at Wanamaker's.Susan was about to pay, when Mary stopped her."If you pay," said she, "maybe you'll get your money back from the house, and maybe you won't.If I pay, they'll not make a kick on giving it back to me."The dress Mary had selected was a simple white batiste, cut out at the neck prettily, and with the elbow sleeves that were then the fashion."Your arms and throat are lovely," said Mary.
"And your hands are mighty nice, too--that's why I'm sure you've never been a real working girl--leastways, not for a long time.When you get to the restaurant and draw off your gloves in a slow, careless, ladylike kind of way, and put your elbows on the table--my, how he will take on!" Mary looked at her with an intense but not at all malignant envy."If you don't land high, it'll be because you're a fool.And you ain't that.""I'm afraid I am," replied Susan."Yes, I guess I'm what's called a fool--what probably is a fool.""You want to look out then," warned Miss Hinkle."You want to go to work and get over that.Beauty don't count, unless a girl's got shrewdness.The streets are full of beauties sellin' out for a bare living.They thought they couldn't help winning, and they got left, and the plain girls who had to hustle and manage have passed them.Go to Del's or Rector's or the Waldorf or the Madrid or any of those high-toned places, and see the women with the swell clothes and jewelry! The married ones, and the other kind, both.Are they raving tearing beauties? Not often....The trouble with me is I've been too good-hearted and too soft about being flattered.
I was too good looking, and a small easy living came too easy.
You--I'd say you were--that you had brains but were shy about using them.What's the good of having them? Might as well be a boob.Then, too, you've got to go to work and look out about being too refined.The refined, nice ones goes the lowest--if they get pushed--and this is a pushing world.You'll get pushed just as far as you'll let 'em.Take it from me.I've been down the line."Susan's low spirits sank lower.These disagreeable truths--for observation and experience made her fear they were truths--filled her with despondency.What was the matter with life? As between the morality she had been taught and the practical morality of this world upon which she had been cast, which was the right? How "take hold"? How avert the impending disaster? What of the "good" should--_must_--she throw away? What should--_must_--she cling to?
Mary Hinkle was shocked by the poor little room."This is no place for a lady!" cried she."But it won't last long--not after tonight, if you play your cards halfway right.""I'm very well satisfied," said Susan."If I can only keep this!"She felt no interest in the toilet until the dress and hat were unpacked and laid out upon the bed.At sight of them her eyes became a keen and lively gray--never violet for that kind of emotion--and there surged up the love of finery that dwells in every normal woman--and in every normal man--that is put there by a heredity dating back through the ages to the very beginning of conscious life--and does not leave them until life gives up the battle and prepares to vacate before death.
