第187章

THEY went through to Broadway and there stood waiting for a car, each under her own umbrella."Holy Gee!" cried Susan's new acquaintance."Ain't this rain a soaker?"It was coming in sheets, bent and torn and driven horizontally by the wind.The umbrella, sheltering the head somewhat, gave a wholly false impression of protection.Both girls were soon sopping wet.But they were more than cheerful about it; the whiskey made them indifferent to external ills as they warmed themselves by its bright fire.At that time a famous and much envied, admired and respected "captain of industry," having looted the street-car systems, was preparing to loot them over again by the familiar trickery of the receivership and the reorganization.The masses of the people were too ignorant to know what was going on; the classes were too busy, each man of each of them, about his own personal schemes for graft of one kind and another.Thus, the street-car service was a joke and a disgrace.However, after four or five minutes a north-bound car appeared.

"But it won't stop," cried Susan."It's jammed.""That's why it will stop," replied her new acquaintance."You don't suppose a New York conductor'd miss a chance to put his passengers more on the bum than ever?"She was right, at least as to the main point; and the conductor with much free handling of their waists and shoulders added them to the dripping, straining press of passengers, enduring the discomforts the captain of industry put upon them with more patience than cattle would have exhibited in like circumstances.All the way up Broadway the new acquaintance enlivened herself and Susan and the men they were squeezed in among by her loud gay sallies which her young prettiness made seem witty.And certainly she did have an amazing and amusing acquaintance with the slang at the moment current.The worn look had vanished, her rounded girlhood freshness had returned.

As for Susan, you would hardly have recognized her as the same person who had issued from the house in Twenty-ninth Street less than an hour before.Indeed, it was not the same person.

Drink nervifies every character; here it transformed, suppressing the characteristics that seemed, perhaps were, essential in her normal state, and causing to bloom in sudden audacity of color and form the passions and gayeties at other times subdued by her intelligence and her sensitiveness.Her brilliant glance moved about the car full as boldly as her companion's.But there was this difference: Her companion gazed straight into the eyes of the men; Susan's glance shot past above or just below their eyes.

As they left the car at Forty-second Street the other girl gave her short skirt a dexterous upward flirt that exhibited her legs almost to the hips.Susan saw that they were well shaped legs, surprisingly plump from the calves upward, considering the slightness of her figure above the waist.

"I always do that when I leave a car," said the girl.

"Sometimes it starts something on the trail.You forgot your package--back in the saloon!""Then I didn't forget much," laughed Susan.It appealed to her, the idea of entering the new life empty-handed.

The hotel was one that must have been of the first class in its day--not a distant day, for the expansion of New York in craving for showy luxury has been as sudden as the miraculous upward thrust of a steel skyscraper.It had now sunk to relying upon the trade of those who came in off Broadway for a few minutes.It was dingy and dirty; the walls and plastering were peeling; the servants were slovenly and fresh.The girl nodded to the evil-looking man behind the desk, who said:

"Hello, Miss Maud.Just in time.The boys were sending out for some others.""They've got a nerve!" laughed Maud.And she led Susan down a rather long corridor to a door with the letter B upon it.Maud explained: "This is the swellest suite in the house parlor, bedroom, bath." She flung open the door, disclosing a sitting-room in disorder with two young men partly dressed, seated at a small table on which were bottles, siphons, matches, remains of sandwiches, boxes of cigarettes--a chaotic jumble of implements to dissipation giving forth a powerful, stale odor.Maud burst into a stream of picturesque profanity which set the two men to laughing.Susan had paused on the threshold.The shock of this scene had for the moment arrested the triumphant march of the alcohol through blood and nerve and brain.

"Oh, bite it off!" cried the darker of the two men to Maud, "and have a drink.Ain't you ashamed to speak so free before your innocent young lady friend?" He grinned at Susan."What Sunday school do you hail from?" inquired he.

The other young man was also looking at Susan; and it was an arresting and somewhat compelling gaze.She saw that he was tall and well set up.As he was dressed only in trousers and a pale blue silk undershirt, the strength of his shoulders, back and arms was in full evidence.His figure was like that of the wonderful young prize-fighters she had admired at moving picture shows to which Drumley had taken her.He had a singularly handsome face, blond yet remotely suggesting Italian.He smiled at Susan and she thought she had never seen teeth more beautiful--pearl-white, regular, even.His eyes were large and sensuous; smiling though they were, Susan was ill at ease--for in them there shone the same untamed, uncontrolled ferocity that one sees in the eyes of a wild beast.His youth, his good looks, his charm made the sinister savagery hinted in the smile the more disconcerting.He poured whiskey from a bottle into each of the two tall glasses, filled them up with seltzer, extended one toward Susan.

"Shut the door, Queenie," he said to her in a pleasant tone that subtly mingled mockery and admiration."And let's drink to love.""Didn't I do well for you, Freddie?" cried Maud.

"She's my long-sought affinity," declared Freddie with the same attractive mingling of jest and flattery.