"I guess so. What else is there? . . . I've got a steady. We'll get married as soon as he has a raise to twelve per. But I'll not be any better off. My beau's too stupid ever to make much. If you see me ten years from now I'll probably be a fat, sloppy old thing, warming a window sill or slouching about in dirty rags."
"Isn't there any way to—to escape?"
"It does look as though there ought to be—doesn't it? But I've thought and thought, and I can't see it—and I'm pretty near straight Jew. They say things are better than they used to be, and I guess they are. But not enough better to help me any. Perhaps my children—if I'm fool enough to have any—perhaps they'll get a chance. . . . But I wouldn't gamble on it."
Susan was still looking at her rags—at her pale lips—was avoiding meeting her own eyes. "Why not try the streets?"
"Nothing in it," said Rosa, practically. "I did try it for a while and quit. Lots of the girls do, and only the fools stay at it. Once in a while there's a girl who's lucky and gets a lover that's kind to her or a husband that can make good. But that's luck. For one that wins out, a thousand lose."
"Luck?" said Susan.
Rosa laughed. "You're right. It's something else besides luck. The trouble is a girl loses her head—falls in love—supports a man—takes to drink—don't look out for her health—wastes her money. Still—where's the girl with head enough to get on where there's so many temptations?"
"But there's no chance at all, keeping straight, you say."
"The other thing's worse. The street girls—of our class, I mean—don't average as much as we do. And it's an awful business in winter. And they spend so much time in station houses and over on the Island. And, gosh! how the men do treat them! You haven't any idea. You wouldn't believe the horrible things the girls have to do to earn their money—a quarter or half a dollar—and maybe the men don't pay them even that. A girl tries to get her money in advance, but often she doesn't. And as they have to dress better than we do, and live where they can clean up a little, they 'most starve. Oh, that life's hell."
Susan had turned away from her image, was looking at Rosa.