Susan closed the door, accepted the glass, laughed into his eyes.The whiskey was once more asserting its power.She took about half the drink before she set the glass down.
The young man said, "Your name's Queenie, mine's Freddie." He came to her, holding her gaze fast by the piercing look from his handsome eyes.He put his arms round her and kissed her full upon the pale, laughing lips.His eyes were still smiling in pleasant mockery; yet his kiss burned and stung, and the grip of his arm round her shoulders made her vaguely afraid.
Her smile died away.The grave, searching, wondering expression reappeared in the violet-gray eyes for a moment.
"You're all right," said he."Except those pale lips.You're going to be my girl.That means, if you ever try to get away from me unless I let you go--I'll kill you--or worse." And he laughed as if he had made the best joke in the world.But she saw in his eyes a sparkle that seemed to her to have something of the malignance of the angry serpent's.
She hastily finished her drink.
Maud was jerking off her clothes, crying, "I want to get out of these nasty wet rags." The steam heat was full on; the sitting-room, the whole suite, was intensely warm.Maud hung her skirt over the back of a chair close to the radiator, took off her shoes and stockings and put them to dry also.In her chemise she curled herself on a chair, lit a cigarette and poured a drink.Her feet were not bad, but neither were they notably good; she tucked them out of sight.She looked at Susan."Get off those wet things," urged she, "or you'll take your death.""In a minute," said Susan, but not convincingly.
Freddie forced another drink and a cigarette upon her.As a girl at home in Sutherland, she had several times--she and Ruth--smoked cigarettes in secrecy, to try the new London and New York fashion, announced in the newspapers and the novels.
So the cigarette did not make her uncomfortable."Look at the way she's holding it?" cried Maud, and she and the men burst out laughing.Susan laughed also and, Freddie helping, practiced a less inexpert manner.Jim, the dark young man with the sullen heavy countenance, rang for more sandwiches and another bottle of whiskey.Susan continued to drink but ate nothing.
"Have a sandwich," said Freddie.
"I'm not hungry."
"Well, they say that to eat and drink means to die of paresis, while to only drink means dying of delirium tremens.I guess you're right.I'd prefer the d.t.'s.It's quicker and livelier."Jim sang a ribald song with some amusing comedy business.Maud told several stories whose only claim to point lay in their frankness about things not usually spoken."Don't you tell any more, Maudie," advised Freddie."Why is it that a woman never takes up a story until every man on earth has heard it at least twice?" The sandwiches disappeared, the second bottle of whiskey ran low.Maud told story after story of how she had played this man and that for a sucker--was as full of such tales and as joyous and self-pleased over them as an honest salesman telling his delighted, respectable, pew-holding employer how he has "stuck" this customer and that for a "fancy" price.
Presently Maud again noticed that Susan was in her wet clothes and cried out about it.Susan pretended to start to undress.
Freddie and Jim suddenly seized her.She struggled, half laughing; the whiskey was sending into her brain dizzying clouds.She struggled more fiercely.But it was in vain.
"Gee, you _have_ got a prize, Freddie!" exclaimed Jim at last, angry."A regular tartar!""A damn handsome one," retorted Freddie."She's even got feet."Susan, amid the laughter of the others, darted for the bedroom.
Cowering in a corner, trying to cover herself, she ordered Freddie to leave her.He laughed, seized her in his iron grip.
She struck at him, bit him in the shoulder.He gave a cry of pain and drove a savage blow into her cheek.Then he buried his fingers in her throat and the gleam of his eyes made her soul quail.
"Don't kill me!" she cried, in the clutch of cowardice for the first time.It was not death that she feared but the phantom of things worse than death that can be conjured to the imagination by the fury of a personality which is utterly reckless and utterly cruel."Don't kill me!" she shrieked.
"What the hell are you doing?" shouted Jim from the other room.
"Shut that door," replied Freddie."I'm going to attend to my lady friend."As the door slammed, he dragged Susan by the throat and one arm to the bed, flung her down."I saw you were a high stepper the minute I looked at you," said he, in a pleasant, cooing voice that sent the chills up and down her spine."I knew you'd have to be broke.Well, the sooner it's done, the sooner we'll get along nicely." His blue eyes were laughing into hers.With the utmost deliberation he gripped her throat with one hand and with the other began to slap her, each blow at his full strength.Her attempts to scream were only gasps.Quickly the agony of his brutality drove her into unconsciousness.Long after she had ceased to feel pain, she continued to feel the impact of those blows, and dully heard her own deep groans.
