I only _suspect_ myself. But I _know_ most men would.
No, I don't blame the ladies. Why not have a nice easy time?
Only one short life--and then--the worms."
She was struggling with the re-aroused insane terror of a fall
back to the depths whence she had once more just come--and she
felt that, if she fell again, it would mean the very end of
hope. It must have been instinct or accident, for it
certainly was not any prompting from her calm expression, that
moved him to say:
"Now, tell me _your_ troubles. I've told you mine. . . . You
surely must have some?"
Susan forced a successful smile of raillery. "None to speak
of," evaded she.
When she reached home there was a telegram--from Brent:
Compelled to sail suddenly. Shall be back in a few weeks.
Don't mind this annoying interruption. R. B.
A very few minutes after she read these words, she was at work
on the play. But--a very few minutes thereafter she was
sitting with the play in her lap, eyes gazing into the black
and menacing future. The misgivings of the night before had
been fed and fattened into despairing certainties by the
events of the day. The sun was shining, never more brightly;
but it was not the light of her City of the Sun. She stayed
in all afternoon and all evening. During those hours before
she put out the light and shut herself away in the dark a
score of Susans, every one different from every other, had
been seen upon the little theater of that lodging house
parlor-bedroom.
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