Beauty don't count, unless a
girl's got shrewdness. The streets are full of beauties
sellin' out for a bare living. They thought they couldn't help
winning, and they got left, and the plain girls who had to
hustle and manage have passed them. Go to Del's or Rector's or
the Waldorf or the Madrid or any of those high-toned places,
and see the women with the swell clothes and jewelry! The
married ones, and the other kind, both. Are they raving
tearing beauties? Not often. . . . The trouble with me is
I've been too good-hearted and too soft about being flattered.
I was too good looking, and a small easy living came too easy.
You--I'd say you were--that you had brains but were shy about
using them. What's the good of having them? Might as well be
a boob. Then, too, you've got to go to work and look out about
being too refined. The refined, nice ones goes the lowest--if
they get pushed--and this is a pushing world. You'll get
pushed just as far as you'll let 'em. Take it from me. I've
been down the line."
Susan's low spirits sank lower. These disagreeable truths--for
observation and experience made her fear they were
truths--filled her with despondency. What was the matter with
life? As between the morality she had been taught and the
practical morality of this world upon which she had been
cast, which was the right? How "take hold"? How avert the
impending disaster? What of the "good" should--_must_--she
throw away? What should--_must_--she cling to?
Mary Hinkle was shocked by the poor little room.
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