"I think you and I might work together," said Ida. "You're thin and tallish. I'm short and fattish. We'd catch 'em coming and going."
"That sounds good," said Susan.
"You're new to—to the business?"
"In a way—yes."
"I thought so. We all soon get a kind of a professional look. You haven't got it. Still, so many dead respectable women imitate nowadays, and paint and use loud perfumes, that sporting women aren't nearly so noticeable. Seems to me the men's tastes even for what they want at home are getting louder and louder all the time. They hate anything that looks slow. And in our business it's harder and harder to please them—except the yaps from the little towns and the college boys. A woman has to be up to snuff if she gets on. If she looks what she is, men won't have her—nor if she is what she looks."
Susan had not lived where every form of viciousness is openly discussed and practiced, without having learned the things necessary to a full understanding of Ida's technical phrases and references. The liveliness that had come with the departure of the headache vanished. To change the subject she invited Ida to dine with her.
"What's the use of your spending money in a restaurant?" objected Ida. "You eat with me in my room. I always cook myself something when I ain't asked out by some one of my gentleman friends. I can cook you a chop and warm up a can of French peas and some dandy tea biscuits I bought yesterday."
Susan accepted the invitation, promising that when she was established she would reciprocate. As it was about six, they arranged to have the dinner at seven, Susan to dress in the meantime. The headache had now gone, even to that last heaviness which seems to be an ominous threat of a return. When she was alone, she threw off her clothes, filled the big bathtub with water as hot as she could stand it. Into this she gently lowered herself until she was able to relax and recline without discomfort. Then she stood up and with the soap and washrag gave herself the most thorough scrubbing of her life. Time after time she soaped and rubbed and scrubbed, and dipped herself in the hot water. When she felt that she had restored her body to some where near her ideal of cleanness, she let the water run out and refilled the tub with even hotter water. In this she lay luxuriously, reveling in the magnificent sensations of warmth and utter cleanliness. Her eyes closed; a delicious languor stole over her and through her, soothing every nerve. She slept.
She was awakened by Ida, who had entered after knocking and calling at the outer door in vain. Susan slowly opened her eyes, gazed at Ida with a soft dreamy smile. "You don't know what this means. It seems to me I was never quite so comfortable or so happy in my life."
"It's a shame to disturb you," said Ida. "But dinner's ready.
Don't stop to dress first. I'll bring you a kimono."