At sight of him she had nerved herself, had keyed herself up toward recklessness.She was in for it.She would put it through.No futile cowardly shrinking and whimpering! Why not try to get whatever pleasure there was a chance for?
But--Sherry's--was it safe? Yes, almost any of the Fifth Avenue places--except the Waldorf, possibly--was safe enough.
The circuit of Spenser and his friends lay in the more Bohemian Broadway district.He had taken her to Sherry's only once, to see as part of a New York education the Sunday night crowd of fashionable people."If you like," said she.
Gideon beamed.He would be able to show off his prize! As they drove away Susan glanced at the front parlor windows, saw the curtains agitated, felt the three friendly, excited faces palpitating.She leaned from the cab window, waved her hand, smiled.The three faces instantly appeared and immediately hid again lest Gideon should see.
But Gideon was too busy planning conversation.He knew Miss Sackville was "as common as the rest of 'em--and an old hand at the business, no doubt." But he simply could not abruptly break through the barrier; he must squirm through gradually.
"That's a swell outfit you've got on," he began.
"Yes," replied Susan with her usual candor."Miss Hinkle borrowed it out of the stock for me to wear."Gideon was confused.He knew how she had got the hat and dress, but he expected her to make a pretense.He couldn't understand her not doing it.Such candor--any kind of candor--wasn't in the game of men and women as women had played it in his experience.The women--all sorts of women--lied and faked at their business just as men did in the business of buying and selling goods.And her voice--and her way of speaking--they made him feel more than ever out of his class.
He must get something to drink as soon as it could be served;that would put him at his ease.Yes--a drink--that would set him up again.And a drink for her--that would bring her down from this queer new kind of high horse."I guess she must be a top notcher--the real thing, come down in the world--and not out of the near silks.But she'll be all right after a drink.
One drink of liquor makes the whole world kin." That last thought reminded him of his own cleverness and he attacked the situation afresh.But the conversation as they drove up the avenue was on the whole constrained and intermittent--chiefly about the weather.Susan was observing--and feeling--and enjoying.Up bubbled her young spirits perpetually renewed by her healthy, vital youth of body.She was seeing her beloved City of the Sun again.As they turned out of the avenue for Sherry's main entrance Susan realized that she was in Forty-fourth Street.The street where she and Spenser had lived!--had lived only yesterday.No--not yesterday--impossible!
Her eyes closed and she leaned back in the cab.
Gideon was waiting to help her alight.He saw that something was wrong; it stood out obviously in her ghastly face.He feared the carriage men round the entrance would "catch on" to the fact that he was escorting a girl so unused to swell surroundings that she was ready to faint with fright."Don't be foolish," he said sharply.Susan revived herself, descended, and with head bent low and trembling body entered the restaurant.In the agitation of getting a table and settling at it Gideon forgot for the moment her sickly pallor.
He began to order at once, not consulting her--for he prided himself on his knowledge of cookery and assumed that she knew nothing about it."Have a cocktail?" asked he."Yes, of course you will.You need it bad and you need it quick."She said she preferred sherry.She had intended to drink nothing, but she must have aid in conquering her faintness and overwhelming depression.Gideon took a dry martini; ordered a second for himself when the first came, and had them both down before she finished her sherry."I've ordered champagne," said he."I suppose you like sweet champagne.Most ladies do, but I can't stand seeing it served even.""No--I like it very dry," said Susan.
Gideon glinted his eyes gayly at her, showed his white jaguar teeth."So you're acquainted with fizz, are you?" He was feeling his absurd notion of inequality in her favor dissipate as the fumes of the cocktails rose straight and strong from his empty stomach to his brain."Do you know, I've a sort of feeling that we're going to like each other a lot.I think we make a handsome couple--eh--what's your first name?""Lorna."
"Lorna, then.My name's Ed, but everybody calls me Gid."As soon as the melon was served, he ordered the champagne opened."To our better acquaintance," said he, lifting his glass toward her.
"Thank you," said she, in a suffocated voice, touching her glass to her lips.
He was too polite to speak, even in banter, of what he thought was the real cause of her politeness and silence.But he must end this state of overwhelmedness at grand surroundings.Said he:
"You're kind o' shy, aren't you, Lorna? Or is that your game?""I don't know.You've had a very interesting life, haven't you? Won't you tell me about it?""Oh--just ordinary," replied he, with a proper show of modesty.
And straightway, as Susan had hoped, he launched into a minute account of himself--the familiar story of the energetic, aggressive man twisting and kicking his way up from two or three dollars a week.Susan seemed interested, but her mind refused to occupy itself with a narrative so commonplace.
After Rod and his friends this boastful business man was dull and tedious.Whenever he laughed at an account of his superior craft--how he had bluffed this man, how he had euchered that one--she smiled.And so in one more case the common masculine delusion that women listen to them on the subject of themselves, with interest and admiration as profound as their own, was not impaired.
