Susan, pinning on her weather-stained hat, reflected. "Very well," she said finally. "There's nothing lower than this."
They said no more; they went out into the clear, cold winter night, out under the brilliant stars. Several handsome theater buses were passing on their way from the fashionable suburb to the theater. Etta looked at them, at the splendid horses, at the men in top hats and fur coats—clean looking, fine looking, amiable looking men—at the beautiful fur wraps of the delicate women—what complexions!—what lovely hair!—what jewels! Etta, her heart bursting, her throat choking, glanced at Susan to see whether she too was observing. But Susan's eyes were on the tenement they had just left.
"What are you looking at—so queer?" asked Etta.
"I was thinking that we'll not come back here."
Etta started. "Not come back home!"
Susan gave a strange short laugh. "Home!. . . No, we'll not come back home. There's no use doing things halfway. We've made the plunge. We'll go—the limit."
Etta shivered. She admired the courage, but it terrified her. "There's something—something—awful about you, Lorna," she said. "You've changed till you're like a different person from what you were when you came to the restaurant. Sometimes—that look in your eyes—well, it takes my breath away."
"It takes my breath away, too. Come on."
At the foot of the hill they took the shortest route for Vine
Street, the highway of the city's night life.
Though they were so young and walked briskly, their impoverished blood was not vigorous enough to produce a reaction against the sharp wind of the zero night which nosed through their few thin garments and bit into their bodies as if they were naked. They came to a vast department store. Each of its great show-windows, flooded with light, was a fascinating display of clothing for women upon wax models—costly jackets and cloaks of wonderful furs, white, brown, gray, rich and glossy black; underclothes fine and soft, with ribbons and flounces and laces; silk stockings and graceful shoes and slippers; dresses for street, for ball, for afternoon, dresses with form, with lines, dresses elegantly plain, dresses richly embroidered. Despite the cold the two girls lingered, going from window to window, their freezing faces pinched and purple, their eyes gazing hungrily.