"Every woman does," replied she, unsuspicious."But Icare--well, not for merely fine clothes.But for the--the kind that show what sort of person is in them." She sighed."I wonder if I'll ever learn--and have money enough to carry out.It'll take so much--so much!" She laughed."I've got terribly extravagant ideas.But don't be alarmed--I keep them chained up."He was eying her unpleasantly.Suddenly she became confused.He thought it was because she was seeing and understanding his look and was frightened at his having caught her at last.In fact, it was because it all at once struck her that what she had innocently and carelessly said sounded like a hint or a reproach to him.He sneered:
"So you're crazy about finery--eh?"
"Oh, Rod!" she cried."You know I didn't mean it that way.Ilong for and dream about a whole lot of beautiful things, but nothing else in the world's in the same class with--with what we've got.""You needn't try to excuse yourself," said he in a tone that silenced her.
She wished she had not seen the woman who had thus put a cloud over their afternoon's happiness.But long after she had forgotten his queerness about what she said, she continued to remember that "perfect" woman--to see every detail of her exquisite toilet, so rare in a world where expensive-looking finery is regarded as the chief factor in the art of dress.How much she would have to learn before she could hope to dress like that!--learn not merely about dress but about the whole artistic side of life.For that woman had happened to cross Susan's vision at just the right moment--in development and in mood--to reveal to her clearly a world into which she had never penetrated--a world of which she had vaguely dreamed as she read novels of life in the lands beyond the seas, the life of palaces and pictures and statuary, of opera and theater, of equipages and servants and food and clothing of rare quality.She had rather thought such a life did not exist outside of novels and dreams.What she had seen of New York--the profuse, the gigantic but also the undiscriminating--had tended to strengthen the suspicion.But this woman proved her mistaken.
Our great forward strides are made unconsciously, are the results of apparently trivial, often unnoted impulses.Susan, like all our race, had always had vague secret dreams of ambition--so vague thus far that she never thought of them as impelling purposes in her life.Her first long forward stride toward changing these dreams from the vague to the definite was when Rod, before her on the horse on the way to Brooksburg, talked over his shoulder to her of the stage and made her feel that it was the life for her, the only life open to her where a woman could hope to be judged as human being instead of as mere instrument of sex.Her second long forward movement toward sharply defined ambition dated from the sight of the woman of the milliner's window--the woman who epitomized to Susan the whole art side of life that always gives its highest expression in some personal achievement--the perfect toilet, the perfect painting or sculpture, the perfect novel or play.
But Rod saw in her enthusiasm only evidence of a concealed longing for the money to indulge extravagant whims.With his narrowing interest in women--narrowed now almost to sex--his contempt for them as to their minds and their hearts was so far advancing that he hardly took the trouble to veil it with remnants of courtesy.If Susan had clearly understood--even if she had let herself understand what her increasing knowledge might have enabled her to understand--she would have hated him in spite of the hold gratitude and habit had given him upon her loyal nature--and despite the fact that she had, as far as she could see, no alternative to living with him but the tenements or the streets.
One day in midsummer she chanced to go into the Hotel Astor to buy a magazine.As she had not been there before she made a wrong turning and was forced to cross one of the restaurants.In a far corner, half hidden by a group of palms, she saw Rod at a small table with a strikingly pretty woman whose expression and dress and manner most energetically proclaimed the actress.The woman was leaning toward him, was touching his hand and looking into his eyes with that show of enthusiasm which raises doubts of sincerity in an experienced man and sets him to keeping an eye or a hand--or both--upon his money.Real emotion, even a professional expert at display of emotion, is rarely so adept at exhibiting itself.
It may have been jealousy that guided her to this swift judgment upon the character of the emotion correctly and charmingly expressing itself.If so, jealousy was for once a trustworthy guide.She turned swiftly and escaped unseen.The idea of trapping him, of confronting him, never occurred to her.She felt ashamed and self-reproachful that she had seen.Instead of the anger that fires a vain woman, whether she cares about a man or not, there came a profound humiliation.She had in some way fallen short; she had not given him all he needed; it must be that she hadn't it to give, since she had given him all she had.