"They were torn all to pieces.I threw them away.I'll get you some more in the morning."He dropped back again, a scowl upon his face."I've got no money--not a damn cent.I did half a day's work on the docks and made enough to quiet me last night." He raised himself.
"I can work again.Give me my clothes!"
"They're gone," said Susan."They were completely used up."This brought back apparently anything but dim memory of what his plight had been."How'd I happen to get so clean?""Clara and I washed you off a little.You had fallen down."He lay silent a few minutes, then said in a hesitating, ashamed tone, "My troubles have made me a boor.I beg your pardon.
You've been tremendously kind to me."
"Oh, it wasn't much.Don't you feel sleepy?""Not a bit." He dragged himself from the bed."But _you_ do.
I must go."
She laughed in the friendliest way."You can't.You haven't any clothes."He passed his hand over his face and coughed violently, she holding his head and supporting his emaciated shoulders.After several minutes of coughing and gagging, gasping and groaning and spitting, he was relieved by the spasm and lay down again.
When he got his breath, he said--with rest between words--"I'd ask you to send for the ambulance, but if the doctors catch me, they'll lock me away.I've got consumption.Oh, I'll soon be out of it."Susan sat silent.She did not dare look at him lest he should see the pity and horror in her eyes.
"They'll find a cure for it," pursued he."But not till the day after I'm gone.That is the way my luck runs.Still, Idon't see why I should care to stay--and I don't! Have you any more of that whiskey?"Susan brought out the bottle again, gave him the last of the whiskey--a large drink.He sat up, sipping it to make it last.
He noted the long row of books on the shelf fastened along the wall beside the bed, the books and magazines on the table.
Said he:
"As fond of reading as ever, I see?"
"Fonder," said she."It takes me out of myself.""I suppose you read the sort of stuff you really like, now--not the things you used to read to make old Drumley think you were cultured and intellectual.""No--the same sort," replied she, unruffled by his contemptuous, unjust fling."Trash bores me.""Come to think of it, I guess you did have pretty good taste in books."But he was interested in himself, like all invalids; and, like them, he fancied his own intense interest could not but be shared by everyone.He talked on and on of himself, after the manner of failures--told of his wrongs, of how friends had betrayed him, of the jealousies and enmities his talents had provoked.Susan was used to these hard-luck stories, was used to analyzing them.With the aid of what she had worked out as to his character after she left him, she had no difficulty in seeing that he was deceiving himself, was excusing himself.
But after all she had lived through, after all she had discovered about human frailty, especially in herself, she was not able to criticize, much less condemn, anybody.Her doubts merely set her to wondering whether he might not also be self-deceived as to his disease.
"Why do you think you've got consumption?" asked she.
"I was examined at the free dispensary up in Second Avenue the other day.I've suspected what was the matter for several months.They told me I was right.""But the doctors are always making mistakes.I'd not give up if I were you.""Do you suppose I would if I had anything to live for?""I was thinking about that a while ago--while you were asleep.""Oh, I'm all in.That's a cinch."
"So am I," said she."And as we've nothing to lose and no hope, why, trying to do something won't make us any worse off....
We've both struck the bottom.We can't go any lower." She leaned forward and, with her earnest eyes fixed upon him, said, "Rod--why not try--together?"He closed his eyes.
"I'm afraid I can't be of much use to you," she went on."But you can help me.And helping me will make you help yourself.
I can't get up alone.I've tried.No doubt it's my fault.Iguess I'm one of those women that aren't hard enough or self-confident enough to do what's necessary unless I've got some man to make me do it.Perhaps I'd get the--the strength or whatever it is, when I was much older.But by that time in my case--I guess it'd be too late.Won't you help me, Rod?"He turned his head away, without opening his eyes.
"You've helped me many times--beginning with the first day we met.""Don't," he said."I went back on you.I did sprain my ankle, but I could have come.""That wasn't anything," replied she."You had already done a thousand times more than you needed to do."His hand wandered along the cover in her direction.She touched it.Their hands clasped.
"I lied about where I got the money yesterday.I didn't work.
I begged.Three of us--from the saloon they call the Owl's Chute--two Yale men--one of them had been a judge--and I.
We've been begging for a week.We were going out on the road in a few days--to rob.Then--I saw you--in that old women's dance hall--the Venusberg, they call it.""You've come down here for me, Rod.You'll take me back?
You'll save me from the Venusberg?"
"I couldn't save anybody.Susie, at bottom I'm N.G.Ialways was--and I knew it.Weak--vain.But you! If you hadn't been a woman--and such a sweet, considerate one you'd have never got down here.""Such a fool," corrected Susan."But, once I get up, I'll not be so again.I'll fight under the rules, instead of acting in the silly way they teach us as children.""Don't say those hard things, Susie!"
"Aren't they true?"
"Yes, but I can't bear to hear them from a woman....Itold you that you hadn't changed.But after I'd looked at you a while I saw that you have.You've got a terrible look in your eyes--wonderful and terrible.You had something of that look as a child--the first time I saw you.""The day after my marriage," said the girl, tearing her face away.