When she
saw this picture in the department store, she felt at once a
sympathy between that woman and herself, felt she was for the
first time seeing another soul like her own, one that would
have understood her strange sense of innocence in the midst of
her own defiled and depraved self--a core of unsullied nature.
Everyone else in the world would have mocked at this notion of
a something within--a true self to which all that seemed to be
her own self was as external as her clothing; this woman of the
photograph would understand. So, there she hung--Susan's one
prized possession.
The question of dressing for this interview with Brent was
most important. Susan gave it much thought before she began to
dress, changed her mind again and again in the course of
dressing. Through all her vicissitudes she had never lost her
interest in the art of dress or her skill at it--and despite
the unfavorable surroundings she had steadily improved; any
woman anywhere would instantly have recognized her as one of
those few favored and envied women who know how to get together
a toilet. She finally chose the simplest of the half dozen
summer dresses she had made for herself--a plain white lawn,
with a short skirt. It gave her an appearance of extreme
youth, despite her height and the slight stoop in her
shoulders--a mere drooping that harmonized touchingly with the
young yet weary expression of her face.
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