"I didn"t mind nearly as much as I thought I would. Yes, I"ll get used to it."
"You mustn"t," said Susan.
"But I"ve got to."
"We"ve got to do it, but we haven"t got to get used to it,"
replied Susan.
Etta was still puzzling at this when the dinner now came--a fine, thick broiled steak, the best steak Susan had ever seen, and the best food Etta had ever seen.
They had happened upon one of those famous Cincinnati chop houses where in plain surroundings the highest quality of plain food is served. "You _are_ hungry, aren"t you, Lorna?" said Etta.
"Yes--I"m hungry," declared Susan. "Cut it--quick."
"Draught beer or bottled?" asked the waiter.
"Bring us draught beer," said Etta. "I haven"t tasted beer since our restaurant burned."
"I never tasted it," said Susan. "But I"ll try it tonight."
Etta cut two thick slices from the steak, put them on Susan"s plate with some of the beautifully browned fried potatoes.
"Gracious, they have good things to eat here!" she exclaimed.
Then she cut two thick slices for herself, and filled her mouth.
Her eyes glistened, the color came into her pale cheeks. "Isn"t it _grand_!" she cried, when there was room for words to pa.s.s out.
"Grand," agreed Susan, a marvelous change of expression in her face also.
The beer came. Etta drank a quarter of the tall gla.s.s at once.
Susan tasted, rather liked the fresh bitter-sweet odor and flavor. "Is it--very intoxicating?" she inquired.
"If you drink enough," said Etta. "But not one gla.s.s."
Susan took quite a drink. "I feel a lot less tired already,"
declared she.
"Me too," said Etta. "My, what a meal! I never had anything like this in my life. When I think what we"ve been through! Lorna, will it _last_?"
"We mustn"t think about that," said Susan.
"Tell me what happened to you."
"Nothing. He gave me the money, that was all."
"Then we"ve got seven dollars--seven dollars and twenty cents, with what we brought away from home with us."
"Seven dollars--and twenty cents," repeated Susan thoughtfully.
Then a queer smile played around the corners of her mouth.
"Seven dollars--that"s a week"s wages for both of us at Matson"s."
"But I"d go back to honest work tomorrow--if I could find a good job," Etta said eagerly--too eagerly. "Wouldn"t you, Lorna?"
"I don"t know," replied Susan. She had the inability to make pretenses, either to others or to herself, which characterizes stupid people and also the large, simple natures.
"Oh, you can"t mean that!" protested Etta. Instead of replying Susan began to talk of what to do next. "We must find a place to sleep, and we must buy a few things to make a better appearance."
"I don"t dare spend anything yet," said Etta. "I"ve got only my two dollars. Not that when this meal"s paid for."
"We"re going to share even," said Susan. "As long as either has anything, it belongs to both."
The tears welled from Etta"s eyes. "You are too good, Lorna!
You mustn"t be. It isn"t the way to get on. Anyhow, I can"t accept anything from you. You wouldn"t take anything from me."
"We"ve got to help each other up," insisted Susan. "We share even--and let"s not talk any more about it. Now, what shall we get? How much ought we to lay out?"
The waiter here interrupted. "Beg pardon, young ladies," said he. "Over yonder, at the table four down, there"s a couple of gents that"d like to join you. I seen one of "em flash quite a roll, and they acts too like easy spenders."
As Susan was facing that way, she examined them. They were young men, rather blond, with smooth faces, good-natured eyes and mouths; they were well dressed--one, the handsomer, notably so.
Susan merely glanced; both men at once smiled at her with an unimpertinent audacity that probably came out of the champagne bottle in a silver bucket of ice on their table.
"Shall I tell "em to come over?" said the waiter.
"Yes," replied Susan.
She was calm, but Etta twitched with nervousness, saying, "I wish I"d had your experience. I wish we didn"t look so dreadful--me especially. _I_"m not pretty enough to stand out against these awful clothes."
The two men were pushing eagerly toward them, the taller and less handsome slightly in advance. He said, his eyes upon Susan, "We were lonesome, and you looked a little that way too. We"re much obliged." He glanced at the waiter. "Another bottle of the same."
"I don"t want anything to drink," said Susan.
"Nor I," chimed in Etta. "No, thank you."
The young man waved the waiter away with, "Get it for my friend and me, then." He smiled agreeably at Susan. "You won"t mind my friend and me drinking?"
"Oh, no."
"And maybe you"ll change your mind," said the shorter man to Etta. "You see, if we all drink, we"ll get acquainted faster.
Don"t you like champagne?"
"I never tasted it," Etta confessed.
"Neither did I," admitted Susan.
"You"re sure to like it," said the taller man to Susan--his friend presently addressed him as John. "Nothing equal to it for making friends. I like it for itself, and I like it for the friends it has made me."
Champagne was not one of the commonplaces of that modest chop house. So the waiter opened the bottle with much ceremony. Susan and Etta startled when the cork popped ceilingward in the way that in such places is still regarded as fashionable. They watched with interested eyes the pouring of the beautiful pale amber liquid, were fascinated when they saw how the bubbles surged upward incessantly, imprisoned joys thronging to escape.
And after the first gla.s.s, the four began to have the kindliest feelings for each other. Sorrow and shame, poverty and foreboding, took wings unto themselves and flew away. The girls felt deliciously warm and contented, and thought the young men charming--a splendid change from the coa.r.s.e, badly dressed youths of the tenement, with their ignorant speech and rough, misshapen hands. They were ashamed of their own hands, were painfully self-conscious whenever lifting the gla.s.s to the lips brought them into view. Etta"s hands in fact were not so badly spoiled as might have been expected, considering her long years of rough work; the nails were in fairly good condition and the skin was rougher to the touch than to the sight. Susan"s hands had not really been spoiled as yet. She had been proud of them and had taken care of them; still, they were not the hands of a lady, but of a working girl. The young men had gentlemen"s hands--strong, evidently exercised only at sports, not at degrading and deforming toil.
The shorter and handsomer youth, who answered to the name of Fatty, for obvious but not too obvious reasons, addressed himself to Etta. John--who, it came out, was a Chicagoan, visiting Fatty--fell to Susan. The champagne made him voluble; he was soon telling all about himself--a senior at Ann Arbor, as was Fatty also; he intended to be a lawyer; he was fond of a good, time was fond of the girls--liked girls who were gay rather than respectable ones--"because with the prim girls you have to quit just as the fun ought really to begin."