第185章

"Three or four hundred," said Ransome airily."A matter of a few weeks.""But I haven't anything like that," said Susan."I haven't so much as----""I comprehend perfectly," interrupted Ransome.She interested him, this unusual looking girl, with her attractive mingling of youth and experience.Her charm that tempted people to give her at once the frankest confidences, moved him to go out of his way to help her."You haven't the money," he went on.

"You must have it.So--I promised to place you, and I will.

I don't usually go so far in assisting my clients.It's not often necessary--and where it's necessary it's usually imprudent.However--I'll give you the address of a flat where there is a lady--a trustworthy, square sort, despite her--her profession.She will put you in the way of getting on a sound financial basis."Ransome spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, like a man stating a simple business proposition.Susan understood.She rose.Her expression was neither shock nor indignation; but it was none the less a negative.

"It's the regular thing, my dear," urged Ransome."To make a start, to get in right, you can't afford to be squeamish.The way I suggest is the simplest and most direct of several that all involve the same thing.And the surest.You look steady-headed--self-reliant.You look sensible----"Susan smiled rather forlornly."But I'm not," said she."Not yet."Ransome regarded her with a sympathy which she felt was genuine."I'm sorry, my dear.I've done the best I can for you.You may think it a very poor best--and it is.But"--he shrugged his shoulders--"I didn't make this world and its conditions for living.I may say also that I'm not the responsible party--the party in charge.However----"To her amazement he held out a five-dollar bill."Here's your fee back." He laughed at her expression."Oh, I'm not a robber," said he."I only wish I could serve you.I didn't think you were so--" his eyes twinkled--"so unreasonable, let us say.Among those who don't know anything about life there's an impression that my sort of people are in the business of dragging women down.Perhaps one of us occasionally does as bad--about a millionth part as bad--as the average employer of labor who skims his profits from the lifeblood of his employees.But as a rule we folks merely take those that are falling and help them to light easy--or even to get up again."Susan felt ashamed to take her money.But he pressed it on her."You'll need it," said he."I know how it is with a girl alone and trying to get a start.Perhaps later on you'll be more in the mood where I can help you.""Perhaps," said Susan.

"But I hope not.It'll take uncommon luck to pull you through--and I hope you'll have it.""Thank you," said Susan.He took her hand, pressed it friendlily--and she felt that he was a man with real good in him, more good than many who would have shrunk from him in horror.

She was waiting for a thrust from fate.But fate, disappointing as usual, would not thrust.It seemed bent on the malicious pleasure of compelling her to degrade herself deliberately and with calculation, like a woman marrying for support a man who refuses to permit her to decorate with any artificial floral concealments of faked-up sentiment the sordid truth as to what she is about.She searched within herself in vain for the scruple or sentiment or timidity or whatever it was that held her back from the course that was plainly inevitable.She had got down to the naked fundamentals of decency and indecency that are deep hidden by, and for most of us under, hypocrisies of conventionality.She had found out that a decent woman was one who respected her body and her soul, that an indecent woman was one who did not, and that marriage rites or the absence of them, the absence of financial or equivalent consideration, or its presence, or its extent or its form, were all irrelevant non-essentials.Yet--she hesitated, knowing the while that she was risking a greater degradation, and a stupid and fatal folly to boot, by shrinking from the best course open to her--unless it were better to take a dose of poison and end it all.She probably would have done that had she not been so utterly healthy, therefore overflowing with passionate love of life.Except in fiction suicide and health do not go together, however superhumanly sensitive the sore beset hero or heroine.Susan was sensitive enough;whenever she did things incompatible with our false and hypocritical and unscientific notions of sensitiveness, allowances should be made for her because of her superb and dauntless health.If her physical condition had been morbid, her conduct might have been, would have been, very different.

She was still hesitating when Saturday night came round again--swiftly despite long disheartening days, and wakeful awful nights.In the morning her rent would be due.She had a dollar and forty-five cents.