第264章

"I'll admit, when you left I was wild and did tell 'em to take you in as soon as they found you.But that was a long time ago.And I never meant them to disturb a woman who was living respectably with her husband.There may have been--yes, there was a time when I'd have done that--and worse.But not any more.You say I haven't changed.Well, you're wrong.In some ways I have.I'm climbing up, as I always told you Iwould--and as a man gets up he sees things differently.At least, he acts differently.I don't do _that_ kind of dirty work, any more.""I'm glad to hear it," murmured Susan for lack of anything else to say.

He was as handsome as ever, she saw--had the same charm of manner--a charm owing not a little of its potency to the impression he made of the man who would dare as far as any man, and then go on to dare a step farther--the step from which all but the rare, utterly unafraid man shrinks.His look at her could not but appeal to her vanity as woman, and to her woman's craving for being loved; at the same time it agitated her with specters of the days of her slavery to him.

He said:

"_You_'ve changed--a lot.And all to the good.The only sign is rouge on your lips and that isn't really a sign nowadays.

But then you never did look the professional--and you weren't."His eyes were appealingly tender as he gazed at her sweet, pensive face, with its violet-gray eyes full of mystery and sorrow and longing.And the clear pallor of her skin, and the slender yet voluptuous lines of her form suggested a pale, beautiful rose, most delicate of flowers yet about the hardiest.

"So--you've married and settled down?"

"No," replied Susan."Neither the one nor the other.""Why, you told----"

"I'm supposed to be a married woman."

"Why didn't you give your name and address at the police station?" said he."They'd have let you go at once.""Yes, I know," replied she."But the newspapers would probably have published it.So--I couldn't.As it is I've been worrying for fear I'd be recognized, and the man would get a write-up.""That was square," said he."Yes, it'd have been a dirty trick to drag him in."It was the matter-of-course to both of them that she should have protected her "friend." She had simply obeyed about the most stringent and least often violated article in the moral code of the world of outcasts.If Freddie's worst enemy in that world had murdered him, Freddie would have used his last breath in shielding him from the common foe, the law.

"If you're not married to him, you're free," said Freddie with a sudden new kind of interest in her.

"I told you I should always be free."

They remained facing each other a moment.When she moved to go, he said:

"I see you've still got your taste in dress--only more so."She smiled faintly, glanced at his clothing.He was dressed with real fashion.He looked Fifth Avenue at its best, and his expression bore out the appearance of the well-bred man of fortune."I can return the compliment," said she."And you too have improved."At a glance all the old fear of him had gone beyond the possibility of return.For she instantly realized that, like all those who give up war upon society and come in and surrender, he was enormously agitated about his new status, was impressed by the conventionalities to a degree that made him almost weak and mildly absurd.He was saying:

"I don't think of anything else but improving--in every way.

And the higher I get the higher I want to go....That was a dreadful thing I did to you.I wasn't to blame.It was part of the system.A man's got to do at every stage whatever's necessary.But I don't expect you to appreciate that.I know you'll never forgive me.""I'm used to men doing dreadful things."

"_You_ don't do them."

"Oh, I was brought up badly--badly for the game, I mean.But I'm doing better, and I shall do still better.I can't abolish the system.I can't stand out against it--and live.

So, I'm yielding--in my own foolish fashion.""You don't lay up against me the--the--you know what I mean?"The question surprised her, so far as it aroused any emotion.

She answered indifferently:

"I don't lay anything up against anybody.What's the use? Iguess we all do the best we can--the best the system'll let us."And she was speaking the exact truth.She did not reason out the causes of a state of mind so alien to the experiences of the comfortable classes that they could not understand it, would therefore see in it hardness of heart.In fact, the heart has nothing to do with this attitude in those who are exposed to the full force of the cruel buffetings of the storms that incessantly sweep the wild and wintry sea of active life.They lose the sense of the personal.Where they yield to anger and revenge upon the instrument the blow fate has used it to inflict, the resentment is momentary.The mood of personal vengeance is characteristic of stupid people leading uneventful lives--of comfortable classes, of remote rural districts.She again moved to go, this time putting out her hand with a smile.He said, with an awkwardness most significant in one so supple of mind and manner:

"I want to talk to you.I've got something to propose--something that'll interest you.Will you give me--say, about an hour?"She debated, then smiled."You will have me arrested if I refuse?"He flushed scarlet."You're giving me what's coming to me,"said he."The reason--one reason--I've got on so well is that I've never been a liar.""No--you never were that."

"You, too.It's always a sign of bravery, and bravery's the one thing I respect.Yes, what I said I'd do always I did.

That's the only way to get on in politics--and the crookeder the politics the more careful a man has to be about acting on the level.I can borrow a hundred thousand dollars without signing a paper--and that's more than the crooks in Wall Street can do--the biggest and best of them.So, when I told you how things were with me about you, I was on the level.""I know it," said Susan."Where shall we go? I can't ask you to come home with me.""We might go to tea somewhere----"