"But it is beautiful—beautiful beyond belief. And I have always heard that New York was ugly."
"It is beautiful—and ugly—both beyond belief!" replied Susan.
"No wonder you love it!"
"Yes—I love it. I have loved it from the first moment I saw it. I've never stopped loving it—not even——" She did not finish her sentence but gazed dreamily at the city appearing and disappearing in its veils of thin, luminous mist. Her thoughts traveled again the journey of her life in New York. When she spoke again, it was to say:
"Yes—when I first saw it—that spring evening—I called it my City of the Stars, then, for I didn't know that it belonged to the sun— Yes, that spring evening I was happier than I ever had been—or ever shall be again."
"But you will be happy again dear," said Clélie, tenderly pressing her arm.
A faint sad smile—sad but still a smile—made Susan's beautiful face lovely. "Yes, I shall be happy—not in those ways—but happy, for I shall be busy. . . . No, I don't take the tragic view of life—not at all. And as I've known misery, I don't try to hold to it."
"Leave that," said Clélie, "to those who have known only the comfortable make-believe miseries that rustle in crêpe and shed tears—whenever there's anyone by to see."
"Like the beggars who begin to whine and exhibit their aggravated sores as soon as a possible giver comes into view," said Susan. "I've learned to accept what comes, and to try to make the best of it, whatever it is. . . . I say I've learned. But have I? Does one ever change? I guess I was born that sort of philosopher."
She recalled how she put the Warhams out of her life as soon as she discovered what they really meant to her and she to them—how she had put Jeb Ferguson out of her life—how she had conquered the grief and desolation of the loss of Burlingham—how she had survived Etta's going away without her—the inner meaning of her episodes with Rod—with Freddie Palmer——