Little Maud would go on the grill."
She ordered and slowly drank another whiskey before she
recalled what she had set out to confide. By way of a fresh
start she said, "What do you think of Freddie?"
"I don't know," replied Susan. And it was the truth. Her
instinctive belief in a modified kind of fatalism made her
judgments of people--even of those who caused her to
suffer--singularly free from personal bitterness. Freddie, a
mere instrument of destiny, had his good side, his human side,
she knew. At his worst he was no worse than the others, And
aside from his queer magnetism, there was a certain force in
him that compelled her admiration; at least he was not one of
the petty instruments of destiny. He had in him the same
quality she felt gestating within herself. "I don't know what
to think," she repeated.
Maud had been reflecting while Susan was casting about, as she
had many a time before, for her real opinion of her master who
was in turn the slave of Finnegan, who was in his turn the
slave of somebody higher up, she didn't exactly know who--or
why--or the why of any of it--or the why of the grotesque
savage purposeless doings of destiny in general. Maud now
burst out:
"I don't care. I'm going to put you wise if I die for it."
"Don't," said Susan. "I don't want to know."
"But I've _got_ to tell you. Do you know what Freddie's going to do?"
Susan smiled disdainfully.
Pages:
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781