Often--perhaps most often--abstraction means only mental fogginess.But Susan happened to be of those who can concentrate--can think things out.And that afternoon, oblivious of the beauty around her, even unconscious of where she was, she studied the world of reality--that world whose existence, even the part of it lying within ourselves, we all try to ignore or to evade or to deny, and get soundly punished for our folly.
Taking advantage of the floods of light Mabel Connemora had let in upon her--full light where there had been a dimness that was equal to darkness--she drew from the closets of memory and examined all the incidents of her life--all that were typical or for other reasons important.One who comes for the first time into new surroundings sees more, learns more about them in a brief period than has been seen and known by those who have lived there always.After a few hours of recalling and reconstructing Susan Lenox understood Sutherland probably better than she would have understood it had she lived a long eventless life there.And is not every Sutherland the world in miniature?
She also understood her own position--why the world of respectability had cast her out as soon as she emerged from childhood--why she could not have hoped for the lot to which other girls looked forward--why she belonged with the outcasts, in a world apart--and must live her life there.She felt that she could not hope to be respected, loved, married.She must work out her destiny along other lines.She understood it all, more clearly than would have been expected of her.And it is important to note that she faced her future without repining or self-pity, without either joy or despondency.She would go on;she would do as best she could.And nothing that might befall could equal what she had suffered in the throes of the casting out.
Burlingham roused her from her long reverie.He evidently had come straight from his nap--stocking feet, shirt open at the collar, trousers sagging and face shiny with the sweat that accumulates during sleep on a hot day."Round that bend ahead of us is Sutherland," said he, pointing forward.
Up she started in alarm.
"Now, don't get fractious," cried he cheerfully."We'll not touch shore for an hour, at least.And nobody's allowed aboard.
You can keep to the cabin.I'll see that you're not bothered.""And--this evening?"
"You can keep to the dressing-room until the show's over and the people've gone ashore.And tomorrow morning, bright and early, we'll be off.I promised Pat a day for a drunk at Sutherland.He'll have to postpone it.I'll give him three at Jeffersonville, instead."Susan put on her sunbonnet as soon as the show boat rounded the bend above town.Thus she felt safe in staying on deck and watching the town drift by.She did not begin to think of going into the cabin until Pat was working the boat in toward the landing a square above the old familiar wharf-boat."What day is this?" she asked Eshwell.
"Saturday."
Only Saturday! And last Monday--less than five days ago--she had left this town for her Cincinnati adventure.She felt as if months, years, had passed.The town seemed strange to her, and she recalled the landmarks as if she were revisiting in age the scenes of youth.How small the town seemed, after Cincinnati!
And how squat! Then----
She saw the cupola of the schoolhouse.Its rooms, the playgrounds flashed before her mind's eye--the teachers she had liked--those she had feared--the face of her uncle, so kind and loving--that same face, with hate and contempt in it----She hurried into the cabin, tears blinding her eyes, her throat choked with sobs.
The Burlingham Floating Palace of Thespians tied up against the float of Bill Phibbs's boathouse--a privilege for which Burlingham had to pay two dollars.Pat went ashore with a sack of handbills to litter through the town.Burlingham followed, to visit the offices of the two evening newspapers and by "handing them out a line of smooth talk"--the one art whereof he was master--to get free advertising.Also there were groceries to buy and odds and ends of elastic, fancy crepe, paper muslin and the like for repairing the shabby costumes.The others remained on board, Eshwell and Tempest to guard the boat against the swarms of boys darting and swooping and chattering like a huge flock of impudent English sparrows.An additional--and the chief--reason for Burlingham's keeping the two actors close was that Eshwell was a drunkard and Tempest a gambler.Neither could be trusted where there was the least temptation.Each despised the other's vice and despised the other for being slave to it.
Burlingham could trust Eshwell to watch Tempest, could trust Tempest to watch Eshwell.
Susan helped Mabel with the small and early supper--cold chicken and ham, fried potatoes and coffee.Afterward all dressed in the cabin.Some of the curtains for dividing off the berths were drawn, out of respect to Susan not yet broken to the ways of a mode of life which made privacy and personal modesty impossible--and when any human custom becomes impossible, it does not take human beings long to discover that it is also foolish and useless.The women had to provide for a change of costumes.As the dressing-room behind the stage was only a narrow space between the back drop and the forward wall of the cabin, dressing in it was impossible, so Mabel and Vi put on a costume of tights, and over it a dress.Susan was invited to remain and help.The making-up of the faces interested her; she was amazed by the transformation of Mabel into youthful loveliness, with a dairy maid's bloom in place of her pallid pastiness.On the other hand, make-up seemed to bring out the horrors of Miss Anstruther's big, fat, yet hollow face, and to create other and worse horrors--as if in covering her face it somehow uncovered her soul.When the two women stripped and got into their tights, Susan with polite modesty turned away.
