Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 111

"Look out! You'll burn yourself!" cried he.

She started, threw the match into the slop jar. "How do you feel?" inquired she.

"Like the devil," he answered. "But then I haven't known what it was to feel any other way for several months except when I couldn't feel at all." A long silence, both smoking, he thinking, she furtively watching him. "You haven't changed so much," he finally said. "At least, not on the outside."

"More on the outside than on the inside," said she. "The inside doesn't change much. There I'm almost as I was that day on the big rock. And I guess you are, too--aren't you?"

"The devil I am! I've grown hard and bitter."

"That's all outside," declared she. "That's the sh.e.l.l--like the scab that stays over the sore spot till it heals."

"Sore spot? I'm nothing but sore spots. I've been treated like a dog."

And he proceeded to talk about the only subject that interested him--himself. He spoke in a defensive way, as if replying to something she had said or thought. "I've not got down in the world without d.a.m.n good excuse. I wrote several plays, and they were tried out of town. But we never could get into New York. I think Brent was jealous of me, and his influence kept me from a hearing. I know it sounds conceited, but I'm sure I'm right."

"Brent?" said she, in a queer voice. "Oh, I think you must be mistaken. He doesn't look like a man who could do petty mean things. No, I'm sure he's not petty."

"Do you know him?" cried Spenser, in an irritated tone.

"No. But--someone pointed him out to me once--a long time ago--one night in the Martin. And then--you'll remember--there used to be a great deal of talk about him when we lived in Forty-third Street. You admired him tremendously."

"Well, he's responsible," said Spenser, sullenly. "The men on top are always trampling down those who are trying to climb up.

He had it in for me. One of my friends who thought he was a decent chap gave him my best play to read. He returned it with some phrases about its showing talent--one of those phrases that don't mean a d.a.m.n thing. And a few weeks ago--" Spenser raised himself excitedly--"the thieving hound produced a play that was a clean steal from mine. I'd be laughed at if I protested or sued. But I _know_, curse him!"

He fell back shaking so violently that his cigarette dropped to the sheet. Susan picked it up, handed it to him. He eyed her with angry suspicion. "You don't believe me, do you?" he demanded.

"I don't know anything about it," replied she. "Anyhow, what does it matter? The man I met on that show boat--the Mr.

Burlingham I've often talked about--he used to say that the dog that stopped to lick his scratches never caught up with the prey."

He flung himself angrily in the bed. "You never did have any heart--any sympathy. But who has? Even Drumley went back on me--let 'em put a roast of my last play in the _Herald_--a telegraphed roast from New Haven--said it was a dead failure.

And who wrote it? Why, some newspaper correspondent in the pay of the _Syndicate_--and that means Brent. And of course it was a dead failure. So--I gave up--and here I am. . . . This your room?"

"Yes."

"Where's this nights.h.i.+rt come from?"

"It belongs to the friend of the girl across the hall." He laughed sneeringly. "The h.e.l.l it does!" mocked he. "I understand perfectly. I want my clothes."

"No one is coming," said Susan. "There's no one to come."

He was looking round the comfortable little room that was the talk of the whole tenement and was stirring wives and fast women alike to "do a little fixing up." Said he:

"A nice little nest you've made for him. You always were good at that."

"I've made it for myself," said she. "I never bring men here."

"I want my clothes," cried he. "I haven't sunk that low, you----!"

The word he used did not greatly disturb Susan. The sh.e.l.l she had formed over herself could ward off brutal contacts of languages no less than of the other kinds. It did, however, shock her a little to hear Rod Spenser use a word so crude.

"Give me my clothes," he ordered, waving his fists in a fierce, feeble gesture.

"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 d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sed 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, I don'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 a.n.a.lyzing 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.