rry and I will have got
together a scenario for the play and when Sperry reads it
to Fitzalan we'll get an advance of at least five hundred. So
you and I will take a nice room and bath uptown--as a
starter--and we'll be happy again--happier than before."

"No, I'm going to support myself," said Susan promptly.

"Trash!" cried Spenser, smiling tenderly at her. "Do you
suppose I'd allow you to mix up in stage life? You've
forgotten how jealous I am of you. You don't know what I've
suffered since I've been here sick, brooding over what you're
doing, to----"

She laid her fingers on his lips. "What's the use of fretting
about anything that has to be?" said she, smilingly. "I'm
going to support myself. You may as well make up your mind to it."

"Plenty of time to argue that out," said he, and his tone
forecast his verdict on the arguing. And he changed the
subject by saying, "I see you still cling to your fad of
looking fascinating about the feet. That was one of the
reasons I never could trust you. A girl with as charming
feet and ankles as you have, and so much pride in getting
them up well, simply cannot be trustworthy." He laughed.
"No, you were made to be taken care of, my dear."

She did not press the matter. She had taken her stand; that
was enough for the present. After an hour with him, she went
home to get herself something to eat on her gas stove.
Spenser's confidence in the future did not move her even to
the extent of laying out half a dollar on a restaurant dinner.
Women have the habit of believing in the optimistic
outpourings of egotistical men, and often hasten men along the
road to ruin by proclaiming this belief and acting upon it.
But not intelligent women of experience; that sort of woman,
by checking optimistic husbands, fathers, sons, lovers, has
even put off ruin--sometimes until death has had the chance to
save the optimist from the inevitable consequence of his
folly. When she finished her chop and vegetable, instead of
lighting a cigarette and lingering over a cup of black coffee
she quickly straightened up and began upon the play Brent had
given her. She had read it several times the night before,
and again and again during the day. But not until now did she
feel sufficiently calmed down from her agitations of thought
and emotion to attack the play understandingly.

Thanks to defective education the most enlightened of us go
through life much like a dim-sighted man who h