Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

f that she had no thought but going on indefinitely as his obedient and devoted mistress. The hardiest and best growths are the growths inward-where they have sun and air from without. She had

was much alone; that meant many hours every day which could not but be spent by a mind like hers in reading and in thinking. Only those who have observed the difference aloneness makes in mental development, where there is a good mind, can appreciate how rapidly, how broadly, Susan expanded. She read plays more than any other kind of l

in other directions, also. Every Sunday, indeed almost every day, sh

t stuff?" said Drumley, when

can tell what may h

applying to the case of a woman who had to live on what she made at the start, who was without experience and without a family to help her. All around her had been women who were making their way; but few indeed of them-even of those regarded as successful-were getting along without outside aid of some kind. So when she read or thought or inquired about work

impossible, at least for the time. Later on she would try for it; there was in her mind not a doubt of that, for unsuspected of any who knew her there lay, beneath her sweet and gentle exterior, beneath her appearance of having been created especially for love and laughter and sympathy,

a model figure. The advertisements she had cut out were for cloak models. Within an hour after she left Forty-fourth Street, she found at Jeffries and Jonas, in Broadway

e near the door as she entered. "We'll see how you shape

bristled; his small, sly brown eyes twinkled with good nature and with sensuality. His skin had the pallor that suggests kidney trouble. His words issued from his thick mouth as if he were tasting each beforehand-and

stroked every part of her person, laughing and chuckling the while. "My, but you are

marrie

've got

ver worn

rld, and I've never been untrue to her. A look over the fence occasionally-but not an inch out of the pasture. Don't stiffen yourself like that. I can't judge, when you do. Not too much hips-neither sides nor back. F

it pay?"

wages. I started on two fifty. But I

it," was her innoc

then-nine

hesi

us are big easy spenders. But I'm supposed to know nothing about that. You'll find out from the other girls." He chuckled. "

getting splendid wages, not merely for a beginner but for any woman of the working class. Except in rare occasional instances wages and salaries for women were kept down below the standard of decency by woman's peculiar position-by such conditions as that most women took up work as a temporary makeshift or to piece out a family's earnings, and that almost any woman could supplement-and so many did supplement-their earnings at labor with as large or larger earnings in the stealthy shameful way. Where was there a trade that would bring a girl ten dollars a week at the start? Even if she were a semi-professional, a stenogr

o'clock," said Jeffries. "Y

es

er-maybe a rich one. No-you'll not have to sleep alone long, my dear." And he

accustomed. Also, experience had taught her that, as things go with girls of the working class, his treatment was courteous, considerate, chivalrous almost. With men in absolute control

hily. The odors-or, rather, the visions they evoked-made her sick at heart. For the moment she came from under the spell of her peculiar trait-her power to do without whimper or vain gesture of revolt the inevitable thing, whatever it was. She paused to steady herself, half leaning against a lofty up-piling of winter cloaks. A girl, young at first glance, not nearly so young thereafter, suddenly appeared before her-a

the girl with

izzy for t

you've had

asier," Susan replied

ing for a job. But

He too

yself that he would

greeably. "He pick

partment

ng of the eyes. "Oh, Gideon's our biggest cust

live," said Susan. "Some p

do you wan

n't afford more than twelve or f

ive on the ten," was the re

all I'

mercenary eyes twinkling rakishly. "Well-

e, so long a

and all kinds of things come through the cracks from the other apartments. You must

es

ds and houses here need a lot of money in their business. You've got either to take a room or part of one in with some tenement family, respectabl

es

ommon! You'll want to be free to have your gentlemen friends come-and at the same time a room

t to see anyo

ced, then went on w

s. Tucker, up in Clinton Place near University Place-an elegant neighborhood-that is, the north side of the street. The so

got to,"

'll write down the name and address of

said Susan, in response to the

name! You've been

m never

eating as soon as I felt bad, and n

aid Susan. "Is it g

octors. You've ne

ve worked i

eren't brought up to that. I'll write the address." And she went back through the showroom, presently to reappear with a card whi

e she was clinging at the edge of the precipice. And what hope was there that she would get back to firm ground? Certainly not by "honest labor." Back to the tenement! "Yes, I'm on the way back," she said to herself. However, she pulled the loose bell-knob and was admitted to a dingy, dusty hallway by a maid so redolent of stale perspiration that it was noticeable even in the hall's strong saturation of smells of cheap cookery. The parlor furniture was rapidly going to pieces; the chromos and prints hung crazily a

heart-and to Susan in those days of aloneness, of uncertainty, of the feeling of hopelessness, goodness of heart seemed the supreme charm. Such a woman as a landlady, and a landlady in New York, was pathetically absurd. Even

are the kind I like to have in the house. So if you want it I'll let it to you for fourteen a month. And I do hope you'll pay as

ologetic tone made her sick at heart, as a sensitive human being m

ked herself. "No, I don't mean that. They do the best they can-a

, abnormally bruised and tender of heart that morning, almost to tears.

ave you had

, but I couldn't seem to refuse credit or to collect bills. Then I came here. This looks like losing, too. But I'm sure I'll come out all right. Th

this two small windows were set. The furniture was a tiny bed, white and clean as to its linen, a table, two chairs, a small washstand with a little bowl and a less pitcher, a soap dish and a mug.

to see all-all that was there, all that the things t

cker. "But usually rooms like

last. But Susan knew she was indeed in luck. "It's clean and nice here," said she to Mrs. Tucker, "and I'm much obliged to you for being so rea

e hard on each other-though, Lord knows, if we was, I reckon we'd not be quite so poor. It's them that has the streak of hard in 'em

" said Susan, indicati

stant how hard-pressed she must be. It was the kind of look that comes into th

," Susan hastened to s

ore, when I can't pay

on't seem to see which way to turn." Then she brightened. "It'll all

ill," said Sus

to get on was to work and to practice the Golden Rule. Everyone who was prosperous attributed his prosperity to the steadfast following of that way; as for those who were not prospe

es and prices. She had studied quality in food and in clothing, and thus she had discovered what enormous sums are wasted through ignorance-wasted by poor even more lavishly than by rich or well-to-do, because the shops where the poor dealt had absolutely no check on their rapacity through the occasional canny customer. She had learned the fundamental truth of the material art of living; only when a good thing ha

l her mind with the present and with the future. She must not glance back. She must ignore her wounds-their aches, their clamorous throbs. She took off her clothes, as soon as Mrs. Tucker left her alone, brushed them and hung them up, put on th

penses since there was no money to meet them. She could not afford to provide for carfare on stormy days; a rain coat, overshoes and umbrella, more expensive at the outset, were incomparably cheaper in the long run. He

had thought she could never feel anything but love for the sun of her City of the

e could s

the remaining three weeks of June, in July, August and September-in one hundred and ten days. She must save about fifteen cents a day. And out of that she must buy soap and tooth powder, outer and under clothes, perhaps a hat and a pair of shoes. Thus she could spend for food not more than eighty cents a day, as much less as was

uld cook a chop or something of that kind on the gas stove she would buy. Some days she would be able to save twenty or even twenty-five cents toward clothing and the like. Whatever else happened, she was resolved never again to sink to dirt and rags. Never again!-never! She had p

ess"-a city where of all the millions, but a few thousands were moving toward or keeping in the sunlight of civilization. The rest, the swarms of the cheap boarding houses, cheap lodging houses, tenements-these myriads were squirming in darkness and squalor, ignorant and never to be less ignorant, ill fed and never to be better fed, clothed in pitiful absur

was exposed naked and bound! Would not anyone be justified