He said this smilingly; but she could not bear jokes on that one subject.
"What do you mean, Rod?"
"Now, don't look so funereal, Susie. I simply meant that I hate to think of your going on the stage—or at anything else. I want you to help me. Selfish, isn't it? But, dear heart, if I could feel that the plays were ours, that we were both concentrated on the one career—darling. To love each other, to work together—not separately but together—don't you understand?"
Her expression showed that she understood, but was not at all in sympathy. "I've got to earn my living, Rod," she objected. "I shan't care anything about what I'll be doing. I'll do it simply to keep from being a burden to you——"
"A burden, Susie! You! Why, you're my wings that enable me to fly. It's selfish, but I want all of you. Don't you think, dear, that if it were possible, it would be better for you to make us a home and hold the fort while I go out to give battle to managers—and bind up my wounds when I come back—and send me out the next day well again? Don't you think we ought to concentrate?"
The picture appealed to her. All she wanted in life now was his success. "But," she objected, "it's useless to talk of that until we get on our feet—perfectly useless."
"It's true," he admitted with a sigh.
"And until we do, we must be economical."
"What a persistent lady it is," laughed he. "I wish I were like that."
In the evening's gathering dusk the train steamed into Jersey City; and Spenser and Susan Lenox, with the adventurer's mingling hope and dread, confidence and doubt, courage and fear, followed the crowd down the long platform under the vast train shed, went through the huge thronged waiting-room and aboard the giant ferryboat which filled both with astonishment because of its size and luxuriousness.