Clara, dressed to go to dinner with her lover, was waiting to arrange about their meeting to make together the usual rounds in the evening."I've got an hour before I'm due at the hospital," said Susan."Let's go down to Kelly's for a drink."While they were going and as they sat in the clean little back room of Kelly's well ordered and select corner saloon, Clara gave her all the news she had gathered in an afternoon of visits among their acquaintances--how, because of a neighborhood complaint, there was to be a fake raid on Gussie's opium joint at midnight; that Mazie had caught a frightful fever; and that Nettie was dying in Governeur of the stab in the stomach her lover had given her at a ball three nights before; that the police had raised the tariff for sporting houses, and would collect seventy-five and a hundred a month protection money where the charge had been twenty-five and fifty--the plea was that the reformers, just elected and hoping for one term only, were compelling a larger fund from vice than the old steady year-in-and-year-out ruling crowd.
"And they may raise _us_ to fifteen a week," said Clara, "though I doubt it.They'll not cut off their nose to spite their face.If they raised the rate for the streets they'd drive two-thirds of the girls back to the factories and sweat shops.You're not listening, Lorna.What's up?""Nothing."
"Your fellow's not had a relapse?"
"No--nothing."
"Need some money? I can lend you ten.I did have twenty, but I gave Sallie and that little Jew girl who's her side partner ten for the bail bondsman.They got pinched last night for not paying up to the police.They've gone crazy about that prize fighter--at least, he thinks he is--that Joe O'Mara, and they're giving him every cent they make.It's funny about Sallie.She's a Catholic and goes to mass regular.And she keeps straight on Sunday--no money'll tempt her--I've seen it tried.Do you want the ten?""No.I've got plenty."
"We must look in at that Jolly Rovers' ball tonight.There'll be a lot of fellows with money there.
"We can sure pull off something pretty good.Anyhow, we'll have fun.But you don't care for the dances.Well, they are a waste of time.And because the men pay for a few bum drinks and dance with a girl, they don't want to give up anything more.How's she to live, I want to know?""Would you like to get out of this, Clara?" interrupted Susan, coming out of her absent-mindedness.
"Would I! But what's the use of talking?"
"But I mean, would you _really?_"
"Oh--if there was something better.But is there? I don't see how I'd be as well off, respectable.As I said to the rescue woman, what is there in it for a `reclaimed' girl, as they call it? When they ask a man to reform they can offer him something--and he can go on up and up.But not for girls.
Nothing doing but charity and pity and the second table and the back door.I can make more money at this and have a better time, as long as my looks last.And I've turned down already a couple of chances to marry--men that wouldn't have looked at me if I'd been in a store or a factory or living out.I may marry.""Don't do that," said Susan."Marriage makes brutes of men, and slaves of women.""You speak as if you knew."
"I do," said Susan, in a tone that forbade question.
"I ain't exactly stuck on the idea myself," pursued Clara.
"And if I don't, why when my looks are gone, where am I worse off than I'd be at the same age as a working girl? If I have to get a job then, I can get it--and I'll not be broken down like the respectable women at thirty--those that work or those that slop round boozing and neglecting their children while their husbands work.Of course, there's chances against you in this business.But so there is in every business.Suppose I worked in a factory and lost a leg in the machinery, like that girl of Mantell, the bricklayer's? Suppose I get an awful disease--to hear some people talk you'd think there wasn't any chances of death or horrible diseases at respectable work.Why, how could anybody be worse off than if they got lung trouble and boils as big as your fist like those girls over in the tobacco factory?""You needn't tell me about work," said Susan."The streets are full of wrecks from work--and the hospitals--and the graveyard over on the Island.You can always go to that slavery.But I mean a respectable life, with everything better.""Has one of those swell women from uptown been after you?""No.This isn't a pious pipe dream."
"You sound like it.One of them swell silk smarties got at me when I was in the hospital with the fever.She was a bird--she was.She handed me a line of grand talk, and I, being sort of weak with sickness, took it in.Well, when she got right down to business, what did she want me to do? Be a dressmaker or a lady's maid.Me work twelve, fourteen, God knows how many hours--be too tired to have any fun--travel round with dead ones--be a doormat for a lot of cheap people that are tryin' to make out they ain't human like the rest of us._Me!_ And when I said, `No, thank you,' what do you think?""Did she offer to get you a good home in the country?" said Susan.
"That was it.The _country!_ The nerve of her! But I called her bluff, all right, all right.I says to her, `Are you going to the country to live?' And she reared at _me_ daring to question _her_, and said she wasn't.`You'd find it dead slow, wouldn't you?' says I.And she kind o' laughed and looked almost human.`Then,' says I, `no more am I going to the country.I'll take my chances in little old New York,' I says.""I should think so!" exclaimed Susan.
"I'd like to be respectable, if I could afford it.But there's nothing in that game for poor girls unless they haven't got no looks to sell and have to sell the rest of themselves for some factory boss to get rich off of while they get poorer and weaker every day.And when they say `God' to me, I say, `Who's he? He must be somebody that lives up on Fifth Avenue.We ain't seen him down our way.'""I mean, go on the stage," resumed Susan.
