"I want to sleep," said Susan.
"All right, my dear." She saw and snatched the five-dollar bill from the pillow. "It'll go toward paying your board and for the parlor dress. God, but you was drunk when they brought you up from the bar!"
"When was that?" asked Susan.
"About midnight. It's nearly four now. We've shut the house for the night. You're in a first-rate house, my dear, and if you behave yourself, you'll make money—a lot more than you ever could at a dive like Zeist's. If you don't behave well, we'll teach you how. This building belongs to one of the big men in politics, and he looks after my interests—and he ought to, considering the rent I pay—five hundred a month—for the three upper floors. The bar's let separate. Would you like a nice drink?"
"No," said Susan. Trapped! Hopelessly trapped! And she would never escape until, diseased, her looks gone, ruined in body and soul, she was cast out into the hospital and the gutter.
"As I was saying," ventured the madam, "you might as well settle down quietly."
"I'm very well satisfied," said Susan. "I suppose you'll give me a square deal on what I make." She laughed quietly as if secretly amused at something. "In fact, I know you will," she added in a tone of amused confidence.
"As soon as you've paid up your twenty-five a week for room and board and the fifty for the parlor dress——"
Susan interrupted her with a laugh. "Oh, come off," said she.
"I'll not stand for that. I'll go back to Jim Finnegan."
The old woman's eyes pounced for her face instantly. "Do you know Finnegan?"