Susan started nervously at that explosive exclamation."I--Ihaven't got a trunk--only a few things in a shawl strap.""Well, I never!"
Mrs.Wylie tossed her head, clucked her tongue disgustedly against the roof of her mouth."But I suppose if Mr.Ellison says so, why you can stay.""Thank you," said Susan humbly.Even if it would not have been basest ingratitude to betray her friend, Mr.Wylie, still she would not have had the courage to confess the truth about Mr.
Ellison and so get herself ordered into the street."I--I think I'll go for my things.""The custom is to pay in advance," said Mrs.Wylie sharply.
"Oh, yes--of course," stammered Susan.
She seated herself on the wooden chair and opened out her purse.
She found the five among her few bills, extended it with trembling fingers toward Mrs.Wylie.At the same time she lifted her eyes.The woman's expression as she bored into the pocketbook terrified her.Never before had she seen the savage greediness that is bred in the city among the people who fight against fearful odds to maintain their respectability and to save themselves from the ever threatened drop to the despised working class.
"Thank you, " said Mrs.Wylie, taking the bill as if she were conferring a favor upon Susan."I make everybody pay promptly.
The first of the week or out they go! I used to be easy and Icame near going down."
"Oh, I shouldn't stay a minute if I couldn't pay," said the girl."I'm going to look for something right away.""Well, I don't want to discourage you, but there's a great many out of work.Still, I suppose you'll be able to wheedle some man into giving you a job.But I warn you I'm very particular about morals.If I see any signs----" Mrs.Wylie did not finish her sentence.Any words would have been weaker than her look.
Susan colored and trembled.Not at the poisonous hint as to how money could be got to keep on paying for that room, for the hint passed wide of Susan.She was agitated by the thought: if Mrs.
Wylie should learn that she was not respectable! If Mrs.Wylie should learn that she was nameless--was born in disgrace so deep that, no matter how good she might be, she would yet be classed with the wicked.
"I'm down like a thousand of brick on any woman that is at all loose with the men," continued the landlady."I never could understand how any woman could so far forget herself." And the woman whom the men had all her life been helping to their uttermost not to "forget herself" looked sharp suspicion and envy at Susan, the lovely.Why are women of the Mrs.Wylie sort so swift to suspect? Can it be that in some secret chamber of their never assailed hearts there lurks a longing--a feeling as to what they would do if they had the chance? Mrs.Wylie continued, "I hope you have strict Christian principles?""I was brought up Presbyterian," said Susan anxiously.She was far from sure that in Cincinnati and by its Mrs.Wylies Presbyterian would be regarded as Christian.
"There's your kind of a church a few squares from here," was all Mrs.Wylie deigned to reply.Susan suspected a sneer at Presbyterianism in her accent.
