If the success under discussion was a woman's, it
was always how her boss or employer had "got stuck on her" and
had given her an easier job with good pay so that she could
wear clothes more agreeable to his eyes and to his touch. Now
and then it was a wonderful dazzling success--some girl had got
her rich employer so "dead crazy" about her that he had taken
her away from work altogether and had set her up in a flat with
a servant and a "swell trap"; there was even talk of marriage.
Was it true? Were the Sunday school books through and through
lies--ridiculous, misleading lies, wicked lies--wicked because
they hid the shameful truth that ought to be proclaimed from
the housetops? Susan was not sure. Perhaps envy twisted
somewhat these tales of rare occasional successes told by the
workers to each other. But certain it was that, wherever she
had the opportunity to see for herself, success came only by
hardness of heart, by tricks and cheats. Certain it was also
that the general belief among the workers was that success
could be got in those ways only--and this belief made the
falsehood, if it was a falsehood, or the partial truth, if it
was a twisted truth, full as poisonous as if it had been true
throughout. Also, if the thing were not true, how came it that
everyone in practical life believed it to be so--how came it
that everyone who talked in praise of honesty and virtue
looked, as he talked, as if he were canting and half expected
to be laughed at?
All about her as badly off as she, or worse off.
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