"So do I," said Susan, smiling.
"Do you really mind my going? Really--honestly?"There wasn't a flaw in Susan's look or tone."If you tried to stay with me, I'd run away from you.""And if I do get him, I can help you.Once he's mine----" Etta rounded out her sentence with an expression of countenance which it was well her adoring rescuer did not see.Not that it lacked womanliness; "womanly" is the word that most exactly describes it--and always will exactly describe such expressions--and the thoughts behind--so long as men compel women to be just women, under penalty of refusing them support if they are not so.
Redmond came in, and Etta left him alone with Susan."Well, has Etta told you?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the girl.She looked at him--simply a look, but the violet-gray eyes had an unusual seeming of seeing into minds and hearts, an expression that was perhaps the more disquieting because it was sympathetic rather than critical.
His glance shifted.He was a notably handsome young fellow--too young for any display of character in his face, or for any development of it beyond the amiable, free and easy lover of a jolly good time that is the type repeated over and over again among the youth of the comfortable classes that send their sons to college.
"Are you going with her?" he asked.
"No," said Susan.
Redmond's face fell."I hoped you liked me a little better than that," said he.
"It isn't a question of you."
"But it's a question of _you_ with me," he cried."I'm in love with you, Lorna.I'm--I'm tempted to say all sorts of crazy things that I think but haven't the courage to act on." He kneeled down beside her, put his arms round her waist."I'm crazy about you, Lorna.
...Tell me--Were you--Had you been--before we met?""Yes," said Susan.
"Why don't you deny it?" he exclaimed."Why don't you fool me, as Etta fooled Gus?""Etta's story is different from mine," said Susan."She's had no experience at all, compared to me.""I don't believe it," declared he."I know she's been stuffing Fatty, has made him think that you led her away.But I can soon knock those silly ideas out of his silly head----""It's the truth," interrupted Susan, calmly.
"No matter.You could be a good woman." Impulsively, "If you'll settle down and be a good woman, I'll marry you."Susan smiled gently."And ruin your prospects?""I don't care for prospects beside you.You _are_ a good woman--inside.The better I know you the less like a fast woman you are.Won't you go to work, Lorna, and wait for me?"Her smile had a little mockery in it now--perhaps to hide from him how deeply she was moved."No matter what else I did, I'd not wait for you, Johnny.You'd never come.You're not a Johnny-on-the-spot.""You think I'm weak--don't you?" he said.Then, as she did not answer, "Well, I am.But I love you, all the same."For the first time he felt that he had touched her heart.The tears sprang to her eyes, which were not at all gray now but all violet, as was their wont when she was deeply moved.She laid her hands on his shoulders."Oh, it's so good to be loved!" she murmured.
He put his arms around her, and for the moment she rested there, content--yes, content, as many a woman who needed love less and craved it less has been content just with being loved, when to make herself content she has had to ignore and forget the personality of the man who was doing the loving--and the kind of love it was.Said he:
"Don't you love me a little enough to be a good woman and wait till I set up in the law?"She let herself play with the idea, to prolong this novel feeling of content.She asked, "How long will that be?""I'll be admitted in two years.I'll soon have a practice.My father's got influence."Susan looked at him sadly, slowly shook her head."Two years--and then several years more.And I working in a factory--or behind a counter--from dawn till after dark--poor, hungry--half-naked--wearing my heart out--wearing my body away----" She drew away from him, laughed."I was fooling, John--about marrying.I liked to hear you say those things.Icouldn't marry you if I would.I'm married already.""_You_!"
She nodded.
"Tell me about it--won't you?"
She looked at him in astonishment, so amazing seemed the idea that she could tell anyone that experience.It would be like voluntarily showing a hideous, repulsive scar or wound, for sometimes it was scar, and sometimes open wound, and always the thing that made whatever befell her endurable by comparison.
She did not answer his appeal for her confidence but went on, "Anyhow, nothing could induce me to go to work again.You don't realize what work means--the only sort of work I can get to do.
It's--it's selling both body and soul.I prefer----"He kissed her to stop her from finishing her sentence.
"Don't--please," he pleaded."You don't understand.In this life you'll soon grow hard and coarse and lose your beauty and your health--and become a moral and physical wreck."She reflected, the grave expression in her eyes--the expression that gave whoever saw it the feeling of dread as before impending tragedy."Yes--I suppose so," she said."But----Any sooner than as a working girl living in a dirty hole in a tenement? No--not so soon.And in this life I've got a chance if I'm careful of my health and--and don't let things touch _me_.In that other--there's no chance--none!""What chance have you got in this life?"
"I don't know exactly.I'm very ignorant yet.At worst, it's simply that I've got no chance in either life--and this life is more comfortable.""Comfortable! With men you don't like frightful men----""Were you ever cold?" asked Susan.
But it made no impression upon him who had no conception of the cold that knows not how it is ever to get warm again.He rushed on:
