Out of the Air

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

Perhaps Susannah could not voice, even to Glorious Lutie, the thoughts that flooded her mind when she conjured up the image of Byan. For in her heart Susannah knew that Byan admired her overmuch, that he would have liked to flirt with her, that he had started— But Warner had called him off. The enigmatic phrase, which had come to her from Warner’s office and in Warner’s voice, recurred. “Keep off clients and office employ—” Susannah knew the end of it now—“employees” of course. Warner’s rule for his fellow crooks was that they must not flirt with clients or the office force. Again and again in her fitful wakefulness she saw Byan standing before her; slim, blade-like; his smartly cut suit adhering, as though pasted there, to the lithe lines of his active body. And then suddenly that revolver which came from—where? Byan was of course the most attractive of them all. That floating, pathetic smile revealed such white teeth! That deep look came from eyes so long-lashed! Warner with his pseudo-clergyman, pseudo-actor oratory, deep-voiced and vibrant, was the most obvious. O’Hearn, his lids perpetually down, except when they lifted swiftly to let his glance lick up detail, was the most mysterious. But Byan was the most attractive—

“Yes, Glorious Lutie, I was always receiving letters which started that little hammer of intuition knocking. I was always overhearing bits of conversation which started it; although often I could not understand a word. I was always trying to piece things together—wondering— Well, the next time I’ll know better. I’ve learned my lesson. But oh—think, think, think what I’ve helped to do. They robbed widows and orphans and all kinds of helpless people. Of course I didn’t know I was doing it. But that’s going to haunt me for a long, long time. I wish there were some way I could make up. I’ve come out of it safe. But they—oh, I mustn’t think of this. I mustn’t. I can’t stand it if I do. Oh, Glorious Lutie, believe me, my guardian angel was certainly on that job. Otherwise I don’t know what would have become of me. Are you my guardian angel, I wonder?”

When Susannah finally arose for good, she discovered, naturally enough, that she was hungry. She went out immediately and, in the nearest Child’s restaurant, ordered a dinner which she afterward described to Glorious Lutie as “magnanimously, munificently, magnificently masculine.” It consisted mainly of sirloin steak and boiled potatoes, “and I certainly ate my fill of them both.” Then she took a little aimless, circumscribed walk; returned to her room. She unpacked her tightly stratified suitcase; hung her clothes in her little closet; ranged her small articles in the bureau drawer. As though she were going to start clean in her new career, she bathed and washed her hair in the public bathroom on the second floor. Coming back into her room, she sat for a long time before the window while her dripping locks dried. She sat there through the dusk.

“After all, Glorious Lutie,” she reflected contentedly, “why do I ever live in anything bigger than a hall bedroom? All a girl needs is a bed, a bureau, one chair and a closet, and that is exactly what I’ve got. And for full measure they have thrown in all those ducky little backyards and a tree. I don’t expect you to believe it, but I tell you true. A tree in Manhattan. How do you suppose it got by the censor! And just now, if you please, a tiny new moon all tangled up in its branches. It’s trying its best to get out, but it can’t make it. I never saw a new moon struggle so hard. Honest, I can hear it pant for breath. It looks like a silver fish that tried to leap out of this window and got caught in a green net. I suppose your Glorious Susie must be thinking of annexing a job sometime, Glorious Lutie. Or else we’ll cease to eat. But for a few days I won’t, if you don’t mind; I’m fed up on jobs. And I’ve lost my taste for offices. No, I think I’ll take those few days off and do a rubberneck trip around Manhattan. I feel like looking on innocent objects that can’t speak or think. And for a time I don’t want to go any place where I’d be likely to see my friends of the Carbonado Mining Company. After a while the thought of them won’t bother me so. Probably by this time they have hired some other poor girl. Perhaps she won’t mind Mr. Cowler though. Anyway, I’m free of them.”

When Susannah awoke the next morning, which was the third of her occupancy of the little room, some of her normal vitality had flowed back, her spirits began to mount. She sang—she even whistled—as she bathed and dressed; and she indulged in no more than the usual number of exasperated exclamations over the uncoilableness of her freshly shampooed, sparkling hair. “Why do we launder our tresses, I ask you, Glorious Lutie?” she questioned once. “And oh, why didn’t I have regular gold hair like yours instead of this garnet mane? I look like—I look like—Azinnia! But oh, I ought never to complain when I reflect that I’ve escaped the curse of white eyelashes.”

A consideration first of the shimmery day outside, and next of the clothes hanging in her closet, deflected her attention from this grievance. She chose from her closet a salmon-colored linen gown, slightly faded to a delicate golden rose. It was a long, slim dress and it made as much as possible of every inch of Susannah’s long slimness. Moreover, it was notably successful in bringing out the blue of her brilliant eyes, the red of her brilliant hair, the contrasting white of her smooth warm skin. That face now so shone and smelled of soap that, the instant she caught sight of it in the glass, she pulled open the top drawer of her bureau and powdered it frantically.

“I always shine, Glorious Lutie, as though I had washed with brass polish. I don’t remember that you ever glistened. But I do remember that you always smelled as sweet as—roses, or new-mown hay, or heliotrope. I wonder what powder you did use? And it was a very foxy move on your part, to have yourself painted in just that soft swirl of blue tulle. You look as though you were rising from a cloud. I wonder what your dresses were like? I seem to remember pale blues and pinks; very delicate yellows and the most silvery grays. It seems to me that tulle and tarlatan and maline were your dope. Do you think, Glorious Lutie, when I reach your age, I shall be as good-looking as you?”

Glorious Lutie, with that reticence which distinguishes the inhabitants of portraits, made no answer. But an observer might have said that the young face, staring alternately at the mirror and at the miniature, would some day mature to a face very like the one which stared back at it from the gold frame. Both were blonde. But where Glorious Lutie’s eyes were a misty brown-lashed azure, Glorious Susie’s were a spirited dark-lashed turquoise. Glorious Lutie’s hair was like a golden crown, beautifully carved and burnished. Glorious Susie’s turbulent mane was red, and it made a rumpled, coppery bunch in her neck. However, family resemblances peered from every angle of the two faces, although differences of temperament made sharp contrast of their expressions. Glorious Lutie was all soft, dreamy tenderness; Susannah, all spirit, active charm, resolution.

Susannah spent three days—almost carefree—of of what she described to the miniature as “touristing.” She had very little time to converse with Glorious Lutie; for the little room saw her only at morning and night. But she gave her confidante a detailed account of the day’s adventures. “It was the Bronx Zoo this morning, Glorious Lutie,” she would say. “Have you ever noticed how satisfactory little beasties are? They don’t lay traps for you and try to put you in a tortured position that you can’t wriggle out of?” Though her question was humorous in spirit, Susannah’s eyes grew black, as with a sudden terror. “No, we lay traps for them. I guess I’ve never before even tried to guess what it means to be trapped?” Or, “It was the Art Museum this afternoon, Glorious Lutie. I’ve looked at everything from a pretty nearly life-size replica of the Parthenon to a needle used by a little Egyptian girl ten million years ago. I’m so full of information and dope and facts that, if an autopsy were to be held over me at this moment, it would be found that my brain had turned into an Encyclopædia Britannica. In fact, I will modestly admit that I know everything.” Or, “It was the Aquarium this morning, Glorious Lutie. Why didn’t you tell me that fish were interesting? I’ve always hated a fish. They won’t roll over or jump through for you and practically none of them bark or sing—or anything. I have always thought of them only as something you eat unwillingly on Fridays. But some of them are really beautiful; and interesting. I stayed there three hours; and I suppose if it hadn’t been for the horrid stenchy smell I’d be there yet.”

But in spite of these vivacious, wordless monologues, her spirits were a long time rising to their normal height. The frightened look had not completely left her eyes; and often on her long, lonely walks, she would stop short suddenly, trembling like a spirited horse, as though some inner consideration harassed her. Then she would take up her walk at a frantic pace. Ultimately, however, she succeeded in leaving those terrifying considerations behind. And inevitably in the end, the resilience of youth conquered. The day came when Susannah leaped out of bed as lightly as though it were her first morning in New York.