"You can't make steel without soot and dirt. You can't make
anything without dirt. That's why the nice, prim, silly
world's full of cabinets exhibiting little chips of raw
material polished up neatly in one or two spots. That's why
there are so few men and women--and those few have had to make
themselves, or are made by accident. You're an accident, I
suppose. The women who amount to anything usually are. The
last actress I tried to do anything with might have become a
somebody if it hadn't been for one thing: She had a hankering
for respectability--a yearning to be a society person--to be
thought well of by society people. It did for her."
"I'll not sink on that rock," said Susan cheerfully.
"No secret longing for social position?"
"None. Even if I would, I couldn't."
"That's one heavy handicap out of the way. But I'll not let
myself begin to hope until I find out whether you've got
incurable and unteachable vanity. If you have--then, no hope.
If you haven't--there's a fighting chance."
"You forget my compact," Susan reminded him.
"Oh--the lover--Spenser."
Brent reflected, strolled to the big window, his hands deep in
his pockets. Susan took advantage of his back to give way to
her own feelings of utter amazement and incredulity. She
certainly was not dreaming. And the man gazing out at the
window was certainly flesh and blood--a great man, if voluble
and eccentric.
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