"That"s true," said Susan, done since she had got what she sought. "I shan"t say another word. When Mr. Brent comes back, will you tell him I sent for you to ask you to thank him for me--and say to him that I found something else for which I hope I"m better suited?"
"I"m so glad," said Garvey, hysterically. "I"m delighted.
And I"m sure he will be, too. For I"m sure he liked you, personally--and I must say I was surprised when he went. But I must not say that sort of thing. Indeed, I know nothing, Miss Lenox--I a.s.sure you----"
"And please tell him," interrupted Susan, "that I"d have written him myself, only I don"t want to bother him."
"Oh, no--no, indeed. Not that, Miss Lenox. I"m so sorry.
But I"m only the secretary. I can"t say anything."
It was some time before Susan could get rid of him, though he was eager to be gone. He hung in the doorway, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. disconnectedly, dropping and picking up his hat, perspiring profusely, shaking hands again and again, and so exciting her pity for his misery of the good-hearted weak that she was for the moment forgetful of her own plight. Long before he went, he had greatly increased her already strong belief in Brent"s generosity of character--for, thought she, he"d have got another secretary if he hadn"t been too kind to turn adrift so helpless and foolish a creature. Well--he should have no trouble in getting rid of her.
She was seeing little of Spenser and they were saying almost nothing to each other. When he came at night, always very late, she was in bed and pretended sleep. When he awoke, she got breakfast in silence; they read the newspapers as they ate. And he could not spare the time to come to dinner. As the decisive moment drew near, his fears dried up his confident volubility. He changed his mind and insisted on her coming to the theater for the final rehearsals. But "Shattered Lives" was not the sort of play she cared for, and she was wearied by the profane and tedious wranglings of the stage director and the authors, by the stupidity of the actors who had to be told every little intonation and gesture again and again. The agitation, the labor seemed grotesquely out of proportion to the triviality of the matter at issue. At the first night she sat in a box from which Spenser, in a high fever and twitching with nervousness, watched the play, gliding out just before the lights were turned up for the intermission. The play went better than she had expected, and the enthusiasm of the audience convinced her that it was a success before the fall of the curtain on the second act.
With the applause that greeted the chief climax--the end of the third act--Spenser, Sperry and Fitzalan were convinced.
All three responded to curtain calls. Susan had never seen Spenser so handsome, and she admired the calmness and the cleverness of his brief speech of thanks. That line of footlights between them gave her a new point of view on him, made her realize how being so close to his weaknesses had obscured for her his strong qualities--for, unfortunately, while a man"s public life is determined wholly by his strong qualities, his intimate life depends wholly on his weaknesses.
She was as fond of him as she had ever been; but it was impossible for her to feel any thrill approaching love. Why?
She looked at his fine face and manly figure; she recalled how many good qualities he had. Why had she ceased to love him?
She thought perhaps some mystery of physical lack of sympathy was in part responsible; then there was the fact that she could not trust him. With many women, trust is not necessary to love; on the contrary, distrust inflames love. It happened not to be so with Susan Lenox. "I do not love him. I can never love him again. And when he uses his power over me, I shall begin to dislike him." The lost illusion! The dead love! If she could call it back to life! But no--there it lay, coffined, the gray of death upon its features. Her heart ached.
After the play Fitzalan took the authors and the leading lady, Constance Francklyn, and Miss Lenox to supper in a private room at Rector"s. This was Miss Francklyn"s first trial in a leading part. She had small ability as an actress, having never risen beyond the primer stage of mere posing and declamation in which so many players are halted by their vanity--the universal human vanity that is content with small triumphs, or with purely imaginary triumphs. But she had a notable figure of the lank, serpentine kind and a bad, sensual face that harmonized with it. Especially in artificial light she had an uncanny allure of the elemental, the wild animal in the jungle. With every disposition and effort to use her physical charms to further herself she would not have been still struggling at twenty-eight, had she had so much as a thimbleful of intelligence.
"Several times," said Sperry to Susan as they crossed Long Acre together on the way to Rector"s, "yes, at least half a dozen times to my knowledge, Constance had had success right in her hands. And every time she has gone crazy about some cheap actor or sport and has thrown it away."
"But she"ll get on now," said Susan.
"Perhaps," was Sperry"s doubting reply. "Of course, she"s got no brains. But it doesn"t take brains to act--that is, to act well enough for cheap machine-made plays like this. And nowadays playwrights have learned that it"s useless to try to get actors who can act. They try to write parts that are actor-proof."
"You don"t like your play?" said Susan.
"Like it? I love it. Isn"t it going to bring me in a pot of money? But as a play"--Sperry laughed. "I know Spenser thinks it"s great, but--there"s only one of us who can write plays, and that"s Brent. It takes a clever man to write a clever play. But it takes a genius to write a clever play that"ll draw the d.a.m.n fools who buy theater seats. And Robert Brent now and then does the trick. How are you getting on with your ambition for a career?"
Susan glanced nervously at him. The question, coming upon the heels of talk about Brent, filled her with alarm lest Rod had broken his promise and had betrayed her confidence. But Sperry"s expression showed that she was probably mistaken.
"My ambition?" said she. "Oh--I"ve given it up."
"The thought of work was too much for you--eh?"
Susan shrugged her shoulders.
A sardonic grin flitted over Sperry"s Punch-like face. "The more I see of women, the less I think of "em," said he. "But I suppose the men"d be lazy and worthless too, if nature had given "em anything that"d sell or rent. . . . Somehow I"m disappointed in _you_, though."
That ended the conversation until they were sitting down at the table. Then Sperry said:
"Are you offended by my frankness a while ago?"
"No," replied Susan. "The contrary. Some day your saying that may help me."
"It"s quite true, there"s something about you--a look--a manner--it makes one feel you could do things if you tried."
"I"m afraid that "something" is a fraud," said she. No doubt it was that something that had misled Brent--that had always deceived her about herself. No, she must not think herself a self-deceived dreamer. Even if it was so, still she must not think it. She must say to herself over and over again "Brent or no Brent, I shall get on--I shall get on" until she had silenced the last disheartening doubt.
Miss Francklyn, with Fitzalan on her left and Spenser on her right, was seated opposite Susan. About the time the third bottle was being emptied the attempts of Spenser and Constance to conceal from her their doings became absurd. Long before the supper was over there had been thrust at her all manner of proofs that Spenser was again untrue, that he was whirling madly in one of those cyclonic infatuations which soon wore him out and left him to return contritely to her. Sperry admired Susan"s manners as displayed in her unruffled serenity--an admiration which she did not in the least deserve. She was in fact as deeply interested as she seemed in his discussion of plays and acting, ill.u.s.trated by Brent"s latest production. By the time the party broke up, Susan had in spite of herself collected a formidable array of incriminating evidence, including the stealing of one of Constance"s jeweled show garters by Spenser under cover of the tablecloth and a swift kiss in the hall when Constance went out for a moment and Spenser presently suspended his drunken praises of himself as a dramatist, and appointed himself a committee to see what had become of her.
At the door of the restaurant, Spenser said:
"Susan, you and Miss Francklyn take a taxicab. She"ll drop you at our place on her way home. Fitz and Sperry and I want one more drink."
"Not for me," said Sperry savagely, with a scowl at Constance.
But Fitzalan, whose arm Susan had seen Rod press, remained silent.
"Come on, my dear," cried Miss Francklyn, smiling sweet insolent treachery into Susan"s face.
Susan smiled sweetly back at her. As she was leaving the taxicab in Forty-fifth Street, she said:
"Send Rod home by noon, won"t you? And don"t tell him I know."
Miss Francklyn, who had been drinking greedily, began to cry.
Susan laughed. "Don"t be a silly," she urged. "If I"m not upset, why should you be? And how could I blame you two for getting crazy about each other? I wouldn"t spoil it for worlds. I want to help it on."
"Don"t you love him--really?" cried Constance, face and voice full of the most thrilling theatricalism.
"I"m very fond of him," replied Susan. "We"re old, old friends. But as to love--I"m where you"ll be a few months from now."
Miss Francklyn dried her eyes. "Isn"t it the devil!" she exclaimed. "Why _can"t_ it last?"
"Why, indeed," said Susan. "Good night--and don"t forget to send him by twelve o"clock." And she hurried up the steps without waiting for a reply.
She felt that the time for action had again come--that critical moment which she had so often in the past seen come and had let pa.s.s unheeded. He was in love with another woman; he was prosperous, a.s.sured of a good income for a long time, though he wrote no more successes. No need to consider him. For herself, then--what? Clearly, there could be no future for her with Rod. Clearly, she must go.
Must go--must take the only road that offered. Up before her--as in every mood of deep depression--rose the vision of the old women of the slums--the solitary, bent, broken forms, clad in rags, feet wrapped in rags--shuffling along in the gutters, peering and poking among filth, among garbage, to get together stuff to sell for the price of a drink. The old women of the tenements, the old women of the gutters, the old women drunk and dancing as the lecherous-eyed hunchback played the piano.
She must not this time wait and hesitate and hope; this time she must take the road that offered--and since it must be taken she must advance along it as if of all possible roads it was the only one she would have freely chosen.
Yet after she had written and sent off the note to Palmer, a deep sadness enveloped her--a grief, not for Rod, but for the a.s.sociation, the intimacy, their life together, its sorrows and storms perhaps more than the pleasures and the joys. When she left him before, she had gone sustained by the feeling that she was doing it for him, was doing a duty. Now, she was going merely to save herself, to further herself. Life, life in that great and hard school of practical living, New York, had given her the necessary hardiness to go, aided by Rod"s unfaithfulness and growing uncongeniality. But not while she lived could she ever learn to be hard. She would do what she must--she was no longer a fool. But she could not help sighing and crying a little as she did it.
It was not many minutes after noon when Spenser came. He looked so sheepish and uncomfortable that Susan thought Constance had told him. But his opening sentence of apology was:
"I took too many nightcaps and Fitz had to lug me home with him."
"Really?" said Susan. "How disappointed Constance must have been!"
Spenser was not a good liar. His face twisted and twitched so that Susan laughed outright. "Why, you look like a caught married man," cried she. "You forget we"re both free."
"Whatever put that crazy notion in your head--about Miss Francklyn?" demanded he.
"When you take me or anyone for that big a fool, Rod, you only show how foolish you yourself are," said she with the utmost good humor. "The best way to find out how much sense a person has is to see what kind of lies he thinks"ll deceive another person."
"Now--don"t get jealous, Susie," soothed he. "You know how a man is."