"You"re down in the heart about something. Love?"
Susan was silent.
"Cut love out. Cut it out, my dear. That ain"t the way to get on. Love"s a good consolation prize, if you ain"t going to get anywhere, and know you ain"t. And it"s a good first prize after you"ve arrived and can afford the luxuries of life. But for a man--or a woman--that"s pushing up, it"s sheer ruination!
Cut it out!"
"I am cutting it out," said Susan. "But that takes time."
"Not if you"ve got sense. The way to cut anything out is--cut it out!--a quick slash--just cut. If you make a dozen little slashes, each of them hurts as much as the one big slash--and the dozen hurt twelve times as much--bleed twelve times as much--put off the cure a lot more than twelve times as long."
He had Susan"s attention for the first time.
"Do you know why women don"t get on?"
"Tell me," said she. "That"s what I want to hear."
"Because they don"t play the game under the rules. Now, what does a man do? Why, he stakes everything he"s got--does whatever"s necessary, don"t stop at _nothing_ to help him get there. How is it with women? Some try to be virtuous--when their bodies are their best a.s.sets. G.o.d! I wish I"d "a" had your looks and your advantages as a woman to help me. I"d be a millionaire this minute, with a house facing this Park and a yacht and all the rest of it. A woman that"s squeamish about her virtue can"t hope to win--unless she"s in a position to make a good marriage. As for the loose ones, they are as big fools as the virtuous ones. The virtuous ones lock away their best a.s.set; the loose ones throw it away. Neither one _use_ it.
Do you follow me?"
"I think so." Susan was listening with a mind made abnormally acute by the champagne she had freely drunk. The coa.r.s.e bluntness and directness of the man did not offend her. It made what he said the more effective, producing a rude arresting effect upon her nerves. It made the man himself seem more of a person. Susan was beginning to have a kind of respect for him, to change her first opinion that he was merely a vulgar, pushing commonplace.
"Never thought of that before?"
"Yes--I"ve thought of it. But----" She paused.
"But--what?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Never mind. Some womanish heart nonsense, I suppose. Do you see the application of what I"ve said to you and me?"
"Go on." She was leaning forward, her elbows on the closed doors of the hansom, her eyes gazing dreamily into the moonlit dimness of the cool woods through which they were driving.
"You don"t want to stick at ten per?"
"No."
"It"ll be less in a little while. Models don"t last. The work"s too hard."
"I can see that."
"And anyhow it means tenement house."
"Yes. Tenement house."
"Well--what then? What"s your plan?"
"I haven"t any."
"Haven"t a plan--yet want to get on! Is that good sense?
Did ever anybody get anywhere without a plan?"
"I"m willing to work. I"m going to work. I _am_ working."
"Work, of course. n.o.body can keep alive without working. You might as well say you"re going to breathe and eat--Work don"t amount to anything, for getting on. It"s the kind of work--working in a certain direction--working with a plan."
"I"ve got a plan. But I can"t begin at it just yet."
"Will it take money?"
"Some."
"Have you got it?"
"No," replied Susan. "I"ll have to get it."
"As an honest working girl?" said he with good-humored irony.
Susan laughed. "It does sound ridiculous, doesn"t it?" said she.
"Here"s another thing that maybe you haven"t counted in.
Looking as you do, do you suppose men that run things"ll let you get past without paying toll? Not on your life, my dear.
If you was ugly, you might after several years get twenty or twenty-five by working hard--unless you lost your figure first.
But the men won"t let a good looker rise that way. Do you follow me?"
"Yes."
"I"m not talking theory. I"m talking life. Take you and me for example. I can help you--help you a lot. In fact I can put you on your feet. And I"m willing. If you was a man and I liked you and wanted to help you, I"d make you help me, too.
I"d make you do a lot of things for me--maybe some of "em not so very nice--maybe some of "em downright dirty. And you"d do "em, as all young fellows, struggling up, have to. But you"re a woman. So I"m willing to make easier terms. But I can"t help you with you not showing any appreciation. That wouldn"t be good business--would it?--to get no return but, "Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Gideon. So sweet of you. I"ll remember you in my prayers." Would that be sensible?"
"No," said Susan.
"Well, then! If I do you a good turn, you"ve got to do me a good turn--not one that I don"t want done, but one I do want done. Ain"t I right? Do you follow me?"
"I follow you."
Some vague accent in Susan"s voice made him feel dissatisfied with her response. "I hope you do," he said sharply. "What I"m saying is dresses on your back and dollars in your pocket--and getting on in the world--if you work it right."
"Getting on in the world," said Susan, pensively.
"I suppose that"s a sneer."
"Oh, no. I was only thinking."
"About love being all a woman needs to make her happy, I suppose?"
"No. Love is--Well, it isn"t happiness."