"
"I've gone through a fire that has burned up every bit of me
that can burn," said she. "I've been wondering if what's left
isn't strong enough to do something with. I believe so--if
you'll help me."
"Help you? I--help anybody? Don't mock me, Susie."
"I don't know about anybody else," said she sweetly and gently,
"but I do know about me."
"No use--too late. I've lost my nerve." He began to sob.
"It's because I'm unstrung," explained he.
"Don't think I'm a poor contemptible fool of a whiner. . . .
Yes, I _am_ a whiner! Susie, I ought to have been the woman
and you the man. Weak--weak--weak!"
She turned the gas low, bent over him, kissed his brow,
caressed him. "Let's do the best we can," she murmured.
He put his arm round her. "I wonder if there _is_ any hope," he
said. "No--there couldn't be."
"Let's not hope," pleaded she. "Let's just do the best we can."
"What--for instance?"
"You know the theater people. You might write a little play--a
sketch--and you and I could act it in one of the ten-cent houses."
"That's not a bad idea!" exclaimed he. "A little comedy--about
fifteen or twenty minutes." And he cast about for a plot,
found the beginnings of one the ancient but ever acceptable
commonplace of a jealous quarrel between two lovers--"I'll lay
the scene in Fifth Avenue--there's nothing low life likes so
much as high life." He sketched, she suggested.
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