The end came--these matters of the exact moment of
inevitable events are unimportant but have a certain melancholy
interest--the end came when she made choice where there was no
choice, in the cab with Gideon.
For better or for worse she was free. She was ready to begin
her career.
IV
AFTER a few days, when she was viewing her situation in a
calmer, more normal mood with the practical feminine eye, she
regretted that she had refused Gideon's money. She was proud
of that within herself which had impelled and compelled her to
refuse it; but she wished she had it. Taking it, she felt,
would have added nothing to her humiliation in her own sight;
and for what he thought of her, one way or the other, she cared
not a pin. It is one of the familiar curiosities of human
inconsistency which is at bottom so completely consistent, that
she did not regret having refused his far more valuable offer
to aid her.
She did not regret even during those few next days of
disheartening search for work. We often read how purpose can
be so powerful that it compels. No doubt if Susan's purpose
had been to get temporary relief--or, perhaps, had it been to
get permanent relief by weaving a sex spell--she would in that
desperate mood have been able to compel. Unfortunately she was
not seeking to be a pauper or a parasite; she was trying to
find steady employment at living wages--that is, at wages above
the market value for female and for most male--labor.
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