As she was leaving the
taxicab in Forty-fifth Street, she said:
"Send Rod home by noon, won't you? And don't tell him I know."
Miss Francklyn, who had been drinking greedily, began to cry.
Susan laughed. "Don't be a silly," she urged. "If I'm not
upset, why should you be? And how could I blame you two for
getting crazy about each other? I wouldn't spoil it for
worlds. I want to help it on."
"Don't you love him--really?" cried Constance, face and voice
full of the most thrilling theatricalism.
"I'm very fond of him," replied Susan. "We're old, old
friends. But as to love--I'm where you'll be a few months
from now."
Miss Francklyn dried her eyes. "Isn't it the devil!" she
exclaimed. "Why _can't_ it last?"
"Why, indeed," said Susan. "Good night--and don't forget to
send him by twelve o'clock." And she hurried up the steps
without waiting for a reply.
She felt that the time for action had again come--that critical
moment which she had so often in the past seen come and had
let pass unheeded. He was in love with another woman; he was
prosperous, assured of a good income for a long time, though
he wrote no more successes. No need to consider him. For
herself, then--what? Clearly, there could be no future for
her with Rod. Clearly, she must go.
Must go--must take the only road that offered. Up before
her--as in every mood of deep depression--rose the vision of
the old women of the slums--the solitary, bent, broken forms,
clad in rags, feet wrapped in rags--shuffling along in the
gutters, peering and poking among filth, among garbage, to get
together stuff to sell for the price of a drink.
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