wouldn't leave
me--you couldn't! You understand how men are--how they get
these fits of craziness about a pair of eyes or a figure or
some trick of voice or manner. But that doesn't affect the
man's heart. I love you, Susan. I adore you."

She did not let him see how sincerely he had touched her. Her
eyes were of their deepest violet, but he had never learned
that sign. She smiled mockingly; the fingers that caressed
his hair were trembling. "We've tided each other over, Rod.
The play's a success. You're all right again--and so am I.
Now's the time to part."

"Is it Brent, Susie?"

"I quit him last week."

"There's no one else. You're going because of Constance!"

She did not deny. "You're free and so am I," said she
practically. "I'm going. So--let's part sensibly. Don't
make a silly scene."

She knew how to deal with him--how to control him through his
vanity. He drew away from her, chilled and sullen. "If you
can live through it, I guess I can," said he. "You're making
a damn fool of yourself--leaving a man that's fond of you--and
leaving when he's successful."

"I always was a fool, you know," said she. She had decided
against explaining to him and so opening up endless and vain
argument. It was enough that she saw it was impossible to
build upon or with him, saw the necessity of trying
elsewhere--unless she would risk--no, invite--finding herself
after a few months, or years, back among the drift, back in
the underworld.

He gazed at her as she stood smiling gently at him--smiling to
help her hide the ache at her heart, the terror before the
vision of the old women of the tenement gutters, earning the
wages, not of sin, not of vice, not of stupidity, but of
indecision, of over-hopefulness--of weakness. Here was the
kind of smile that hurts worse than tears, that takes the
place of tears and sobs and moans. But he who had never
understood her did not understand her now. Her smile
infuriated his vanity. "You can _laugh!_" he sneered.
"Well--go to the filth where you belong! You were born for
it." And he flung out of the room, went noisily down the
stairs. She heard the front door's distant slam; it seemed to
drop her into a chair. She sat there all crouched together
until the clock on the mantel struck two. This roused her
hastily to gather into her trunk such of her belongings as she
had not already packed. She sent for a cab. The man of all
work carried down the trunk a