AT the lunch hour the next day Mary Hinkle knocked at the garret in Clinton Place.Getting no answer, she opened the door.At the table close to the window was Susan in a nightgown, her hair in disorder as if she had begun to arrange it and had stopped halfway.Her eyes turned listlessly in Mary's direction--dull eyes, gray, heavily circled.
"You didn't answer, Miss Sackville.So I thought I'd come in and leave a note," explained Mary.Her glance was avoiding Susan's.
"Come for the dress and hat?" said Susan."There they are."And she indicated the undisturbed bed whereon hat and dress were carelessly flung.
"My, but it's hot in this room!" exclaimed Mary."You must move up to my place.There's a room and bath vacant--only seven per."Susan seemed not to hear.She was looking dully at her hands upon the table before her.
"Mr.Jeffries sent me to ask you how you were.He was worried because you didn't come." With a change of voice, "Mr.Gideon telephoned down the order a while ago.Mr.Jeffries says you are to keep the dress and hat.""No," said Susan."Take them away with you.""Aren't you coming down this afternoon?"
"No," replied Susan."I've quit."
"Quit?" cried Miss Hinkle.Her expression gradually shifted from astonishment to pleased understanding."Oh, I see!
You've got something better."
"No.But I'll find something."
Mary studied the situation, using Susan's expressionless face as a guide.After a time she seemed to get from it a clew.
With the air of friendly experience bent on aiding helpless inexperience she pushed aside the dress and made room for herself on the bed."Don't be a fool, Miss Sackville," said she."If you don't like that sort of thing--you know what Imean--why, you can live six months--maybe a year--on the reputation of what you've done and their hope that you'll weaken down and do it again.That'll give you time to look round and find something else.For pity's sake, don't turn yourself loose without a job.You got your place so easy that you think you can get one any old time.There's where you're wrong.Believe me, you played in luck--and luck don't come round often.I know what I'm talking about.So I say, don't be a fool!""I am a fool," said Susan.
"Well--get over it.And don't waste any time about it, either.""I can't go back," said Susan stolidly."I can't face them.""Face who?" cried Mary."Business is business.Everybody understands that.All the people down there are crazy about you now.You got the house a hundred-thousand-dollar order.
You don't _suppose_ anybody in business bothers about how an order's got--do you?""It's the way __I__ feel--not the way _they_ feel.""As for the women down there--of course, there's some that pretend they won't do that sort of thing.Look at 'em--at their faces and figures--and you'll see why they don't.Of course a girl keeps straight when there's nothing in not being straight--leastways, unless she's a fool.She knows that if the best she can do is marry a fellow of her own class, why she'd only get left if she played any tricks with them cheap skates that have to get married or go without because they're too poor to pay for anything--and by marrying can get that and a cook and a washwoman and mender besides--and maybe, too, somebody who can go out and work if they're laid up sick.But if a girl sees a chance to get on----don't be a fool, Miss Sackville."Susan listened with a smile that barely disturbed the stolid calm of her features."I'm not going back," she said.
Mary Hinkle was silenced by the quiet finality of her voice.
Studying that delicate face, she felt, behind its pallid impassiveness, behind the refusal to return, a reason she could not comprehend.She dimly realized that she would respect it if she could understand it; for she suspected it had its origin somewhere in Susan's "refined ladylike nature." She knew that once in a while among the women she was acquainted with there did happen one who preferred death in any form of misery to leading a lax life--and indisputable facts had convinced her that not always were these women "just stupid ignorant fools."She herself possessed no such refinement of nerves or of whatever it was.She had been brought up in a loose family and in a loose neighborhood.She was in the habit of making all sorts of pretenses, because that was the custom, while being candid about such matters was regarded as bad form.She was not fooled by these pretenses in other girls, though they often did fool each other.In Susan, she instinctively felt, it was not pretense.It was something or other else--it was a dangerous reality.She liked Susan; in her intelligence and physical charm were the possibilities of getting far up in the world; it seemed a pity that she was thus handicapped.Still, perhaps Susan would stumble upon some worth while man who, attempting to possess her without marriage and failing, would pay the heavy price.There was always that chance--a small chance, smaller even than finding by loose living a worth while man who would marry you because you happened exactly to suit him--to give him enough only to make him feel that he wanted more.Still, Susan was unusually attractive, and luck sometimes did come a poor person's way--sometimes.
"I'm overdue back," said Mary."You want me to tell 'em that?""Yes."
"You'll have hard work finding a job at anything like as much as ten per.I've got two trades, and I couldn't at either one.""I don't expect to find it."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Take what I can get--until I've been made hard enough--or strong enough--or whatever it is--to stop being a fool."This indication of latent good sense relieved Miss Hinkle.
"I'll tell 'em you may be down tomorrow.Think it over for another day."Susan shook her head."They'll have to get somebody else."And, as Miss Hinkle reached the threshold, "Wait till I do the dress up.You'll take it for me?""Why send the things back?" urged Mary."They belong to you.
God knows you earned 'em."
Susan, standing now, looked down at the finery."So I did.
