"I've an apartment at Sherry's now."
"Then—a week from today."
She put out her hand. He took it, and she marveled as she felt a tremor in that steady hand of his. But his voice was resolutely careless as he said, "So long. Don't forget how much I want or need you. And if you do forget that, think of the advantages—seeing the world with plenty of money—and all the rest of it. Where'll you get such another chance? You'll not be fool enough to refuse."
She smiled, said as she went, "You may remember I used to be something of a fool."
"But that was some time ago. You've learned a lot since then—surely."
"We'll see. I've become—I think—a good deal of a—of a New Yorker."
"That means frank about doing what the rest of the world does under a stack of lies. It's a lovely world, isn't it?"
"If I had made it," laughed Susan, "I'd not own up to the fact."
She laughed; but she was seeing the old women of the slums—was seeing them as one sees in the magic mirror the vision of one's future self. And on the way home she said to herself, "It was a good thing that I was arrested today. It reminded me. It warned me. But for it, I might have gone on to make a fool of myself." And she recalled how it had been one of Burlingham's favorite maxims that everything is for the best, for those who know how to use it.