"Oh, too bad! I was at the Gerald"s, at one of those darn rehearsals."
A silence.
"Oh, all right!" said Susan. A writhing sickness of spirit threatened to engulf her, but her voice was quiet.
"I"m sorry, Sue," Peter said quickly in a lower tone, "I couldn"t very well get out of it without having them all suspect. You can see that!"
Susan knew him so well! He had never had to do anything against his will. He couldn"t understand that his engagement entailed any obligations. He merely wanted always to be happy and popular, and have everyone else happy and popular, too.
"And what about this trip to j.a.pan with Mr. Gerald?" she asked.
There was another silence. Then Peter said, in an annoyed tone:
"Oh, Lord, that would probably be for a MONTH, or six weeks at the outside!"
"I see," said Susan tonelessly.
"I"ve got Forrest here with me to-night," said Peter, apropos of nothing.
"Oh, then I won"t keep you!" Susan said.
"Well," he laughed, "don"t be so polite about it!--I"ll see you to-morrow?"
"Surely," Susan said. "Good-night."
"Over the reservoir!" he said, and she hung up her receiver.
She did not sleep that night. Excitement, anger, shame kept her wakeful and tossing, hour after hour. Susan"s head ached, her face burned, her thoughts were in a mad whirl. What to do--what to do--what to do----!
How to get out of this tangle; where to go to begin again, away from these people who knew her and loved her, and would drive her mad with their sympathy and curiosity!
The clock struck three--four--five. At five o"clock Susan, suddenly realizing her own loneliness and loss, burst into bitter crying and after that she slept.
The next day, from the office, she wrote to Peter Coleman:
MY DEAR PETER:
I am beginning to think that our little talk in the office a week ago was a mistake, and that you think so. I don"t say anything of my own feelings; you know them. I want to ask you honestly to tell me of yours. Things cannot go on this way. Affectionately, SUSAN.
This was on Monday. On Tuesday the papers recorded everywhere Mr. Peter Coleman"s remarkable success in Mrs. Newton Gerald"s private theatricals. On Wednesday Susan found a letter from him on her desk, in the early afternoon, scribbled on the handsome stationery of his club.
MY DEAR SUSAN:
I shall always think that you are the bulliest girl I ever knew, and if you throw me down on that arrangement for our old age I shall certainly slap you on the wrist. But I know you will think better of it before you are forty-one! What you mean by "things" I don"t know. I hope you"re not calling ME a thing!
Forrest is pulling my arm off. See you soon.
Yours as ever, PETER.
The reading of it gave Susan a sensation of physical illness. She felt chilled and weak. How false and selfish and shallow it seemed; had Peter always been that? And what was she to do now, to-morrow and the next day and the next? What was she to do this moment, indeed? She felt as if thundering agonies had trampled the very life out of her heart; yet somehow she must look up, somehow face the office, and the curious eyes of the girls.
"Love-letter, Sue?" said Th.o.r.n.y, sauntering up with a bill in her hand.
"Valentine"s Day, you know!"
"No, darling; a bill," answered Susan, shutting it in a drawer.
She snapped up her light, opened her ledger, and dipped a pen in the ink.
PART TWO
Wealth
CHAPTER I
The days that followed were so many separate agonies, composed of an infinite number of lesser agonies, for Susan. Her only consolation, which weakened or strengthened with her moods, was that, inasmuch as this state of affairs was unbearable she would not be expected to bear it. Something must happen. Or, if nothing happened, she would simply disappear,--go on the stage, accept a position as a traveling governess or companion, run away to one of the big eastern cities where, under an a.s.sumed name, she might begin life all over again.
Hour after hour shame and hurt had their way with her. Susan had to face the office, to hide her heart from Th.o.r.n.y and the other girls, to be reminded by the empty desk in Mr. Brauer"s office, and by every glimpse she had of old Mr. Baxter, of the happy dreams she had once dreamed here in this same place.
But it was harder far at home. Mrs. Lancaster alternated between tender moods, when she discussed the whole matter mournfully from beginning to end, and moods of violent rebellion, when everyone but Susan was blamed for the bitter disappointment of all their hopes. Mary Lou compared Peter to Ferd Eastman, to Peter"s disadvantage. Virginia recommended quiet, patient endurance of whatever might be the will of Providence.
Susan hardly knew which att.i.tude humiliated and distressed her most.
All her thoughts led her into bitterness now, and she could be distracted only for a brief moment or two from the memories that pressed so close about her heart. Ah, if she only had a little money, enough to make possible her running away, or a profession into which she could plunge, and in which she could distinguish herself, or a great talent, or a father who would stand by her and take care of her----
And the bright head would go down on her hands, and the tears have their way.
"Headache?" Th.o.r.n.y would ask, full of sympathy.
"Oh, splitting!" And Susan would openly dry her eyes, and manage to smile.
Sometimes, in a softer mood, her busy brain straightened the whole matter out. Peter, returning from j.a.pan, would rush to her with a full explanation. Of course he cared for her--he had never thought of anything else--of course he considered that they were engaged! And Susan, after keeping him in suspense for a period that even Auntie thought too long, would find herself talking to him, scolding, softening, finally laughing, and at last--and for the first time!--in his arms.
Only a lovers" quarrel; one heard of them continually. Something to laugh about and to forget!
She took up the old feminine occupation of watching the post, weak with sudden hope when Mary Lou called up to her, "Letter for you on the mantel, Sue!" and sick with disappointment over and over again. Peter did not write.
Outwardly the girl went her usual round, perhaps a little thinner and with less laughter, but not noticeably changed. She basted cuffs into her office suit, and cleaned it with benzine, caught up her lunch and umbrella and ran for her car. She lunched and gossiped with Th.o.r.n.y and the others, walked uptown at noon to pay a gas-bill, took Virginia to the Park on Sundays to hear the music, or visited the Carrolls in Sausalito.
But inwardly her thoughts were like whirling web. And in its very center was Peter Coleman. Everything that Susan did began and ended with the thought of him. She never entered the office without the hope that a fat envelope, covered with his dashing scrawl, lay on the desk.
She never thought herself looking well without wishing that she might meet Peter that day, or looking ill that she did not fear it. She answered the telephone with a thrilling heart; it might be he! And she browsed over the social columns of the Sunday papers, longing and fearing to find his name. All day long and far into the night, her brain was busy with a reconciliation,--excuses, explanations, forgiveness. "Perhaps to-day," she said in the foggy mornings.
"To-morrow," said her undaunted heart at night.
The hope was all that sustained her, and how bitterly it failed her at times only Susan knew. Before the world she kept a brave face, evading discussion of Peter when she could, quietly enduring it when Mrs.
Lancaster"s wrath boiled over. But as the weeks went by, and the full wretchedness of the situation impressed itself upon her with quiet force, she sank under an overwhelming sense of wrong and loss. Nothing amazing was going to happen. She--who had seemed so free, so independent!--was really as fettered and as helpless as Virginia and Mary Lou. Susan felt sometimes as if she should go mad with suppressed feeling. She grew thin, dyspeptic, irritable, working hard, and finding her only relief in work, and reading in bed in the evening.
The days slowly pushed her further and further from those happy times when she and Peter had been such good friends, had gone about so joyfully together. It was a shock to Susan to realize that she had not seen him nor heard from him for a month--for two months--for three.