"Shut your mouth, you loafer!" shrieked Mrs. Lange. And she
turned to Susan. "You gutter hussy, get on your clothes and
clear out!"
"But--Mrs. Lange----" began Susan.
"Clear out!" she shouted, opening the outer hall. "Dress
mighty damn quick and clear out!"
"Mother, you'll wake the people upstairs," pleaded Lange--and
Susan had never before realized how afraid of his wife the
little man was. "For God's sake, listen to sense."
"After I've thrown you--into the streets," cried his wife,
beside herself with jealous fury. "Get dressed, I tell you!"
she shouted at Susan.
And the girl hurried into her clothes, making no further
attempt to speak. She knew that to plead and to explain would
be useless; even if Mrs. Lange believed, still she would drive
from the house the temptation to her husband. Lange, in a
quaking, cowardly whine, begged his wife to be sensible and
believe his burglar story. But with each half-dozen words he
uttered, she interrupted to hurl obscene epithets at him or at
Susan. The tenants of the upstairs flats came down. She told
her wrongs to a dozen half-clad men, women and children; they
took her side at once, and with the women leading showered vile
insults upon Susan. The uproar was rising, rising. Lange
cowered in a corner, crying bitterly like a whipped child.
Susan, only partly dressed, caught up her hat and rushed into
the hall.
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