engage
it, they become skeptical about feminine mentality; they would
as soon think of speculating on what profundities fill the
brain of the kitten playing with a ball as of seeking a
solution of the mystery behind a woman's fits of abstraction.
However, there was in Susan's face, especially in her eyes, an
expression so unusual, so arresting that Spenser,
self-centered and convinced of woman's intellectual deficiency
though he was, did sometimes inquire what she was thinking
about. He asked this question at breakfast the morning after
that second visit to Brent.

"Was I thinking?" she countered.

"You certainly were not listening. You haven't a notion what
I was talking about."

"About your play."

"Of course. You know I talk nothing else," laughed he. "I
must bore you horribly."

"No, indeed," protested she.

"No, I suppose not. You're not bored because you don't listen."

He was cheerful about it. He talked merely to arrange his
thoughts, not because he expected Susan to understand matters
far above one whom nature had fashioned and experience had
trained to minister satisfyingly to the physical and
sentimental needs of man. He assumed that she was as
worshipful before his intellect as in the old days. He would
have been even more amazed than enraged had he known that she
regarded his play as mediocre claptrap, false to life, fit
only for the unthinking, sloppily sentimental crowd that could
not see the truth about even their own lives, their own
thoughts and actions.

"There you go again!" cried he, a few minutes later. "What
_are_ you thinking about? I forgot to ask how you got on with
Brent. Poor chap--he's had several failures in the past year.
He must be horribly cut up. They say he's written out. What
does he think he's trying to get at with you?"

"Acting, as I told you," replied Susan. She felt ashamed for
him, making this pitiable exhibition of patronizing a great man.

"Sperry tells me he has had that twist in his brain for a long
time--that he has tried out a dozen girls or more--drops them
after a few weeks or months. He has a regular system about
it--runs away abroad, stops the pay after a month or so."

"Well, the forty a week's clear gain while it lasts," said
Susan. She tried to speak lightly. But she felt hurt and
uncomfortable. There had crept into her mind one of those
disagreeable ideas that skurry into some dusky corner to hide,
and reappear from time to time