Susan Lenox; Her Fall and Rise

Excerpt: ...string him along quiet and ladylike and elegant, as if there wasn't any such things as cloaks or dresses in the world. He'll understand all right. . . . If you land the order, my dear, I'll see that you get a nice present. A nice dress-the one we're going to lend you-if he gives us a slice. The dress and twenty-five in cash, if he gives us all. How's that? Thank you, said Susan. I'll do my best. You'll land it. You'll land it. I feel as if we had it with his O. K. on it. Susan shivered. Don't-don't count on me too much, she said hesitatingly. I'm not in very good spirits, I'm sorry to say. A little pressed for money? Jeffries hesitated, made an effort, blurted out what was for him, the business man, a giddy generosity. On your way out, stop at the cashier's. He'll give you this week's pay in advance. Jeffries hesitated, decided against dangerous liberality. Not ten, you understand, but say six. You see, you won't have been with us a full week. And he hurried away, frightened by his prodigality, by these hysterical impulses that were rushing him far from the course of sound business sense. As Jones says, I'm a generous old fool, he muttered. My soft heart'll ruin me yet. Jeffries sent Mary Hinkle home with Susan to carry the dress and hat, to help her make a toilet and to start her off right. In the hour before they left the store there was offered a typical illustration of why and how business is able to suspend the normal moral sense and to substitute for it a highly ingenious counterfeit of supreme moral obligation to it. The hysterical Jeffries had infected the entire personnel with his excitement, with the sense that a great battle was impending and that the cause of the house, which was the cause of everyone who drew pay from it, had been intrusted to the young recruit with the fascinating figure and the sweet, sad face. And Susan's sensitive nature was soon vibrating in response to this feeling. It terrified her...