"Perhaps they are," echoed Susan, "but I think not. I'm afraid it goes farther back, Ambo. It's left-over Birch Street; that's what it is. So much of me's that. All of me, I sometimes believe."
"Not quite. You'll never escape Hillhouse, either, Susan. You've had both."
"Yes, I've had both," she echoed again, almost on a sigh, pushing her untasted demi-tasse from her.
Suddenly her elbows were planted on the cloth before her, her face—shadowed and too finely drawn—dropped between her hands, her eyes sought and held mine. They dizzied me, her eyes. . . .
"Ambo," she said earnestly, "I suppose I'm a dreadful egotist, but more and more I'm feeling the real me isn't a true child of this world! I love this world—and I hate it. I don't know whether I love it most or hate it most. I bless it and damn it every day of my life—in the same breath often. But sometimes I feel I hate it most—hate it for its cold dullness of head and heart! Why can't we care more to make it worth living in, this beautiful, frightful world! What's the matter with us? Why are we what we are? Half angels—and half pigs or goats or saber-toothed tigers or snakes! Each and every one of us, by and large! And oh, how we do distrust our three-quarters angels—while they're living, anyway! Dreamers—mad visionaries—social rebels—outcasts! Crucify them, crucify them! Time enough to worship them—ages of to-be-wasted time enough—when they're dead!" She paused, still holding my eyes, and drawing in a slow breath, a breath that caught midway and was almost a sob; then her eyes left mine.
"There—that's over. Saying things like that doesn't help us a bit; it's—silly. . . . And half the idealists are mad, no doubt, and have plenty of pig and snake in them, too. I've simply coils and coils of unregenerate serpent in me—and worse. Oh, Ambo dear—but I've a dream in me beyond all that, and a great longing to help it come true! But it doesn't—it won't. I'm afraid it never will—here. Will it there, Ambo? Is there a there? . . . Have we got all of Sister that clean fire couldn't take, shut up in that tiny vase?"
"We can hope not, at least," I replied.
"Hope isn't enough," said Susan. "Why don't you say you know we haven't! I know we haven't. I do know it. It's the only thing I—know!"
A nervous waiter sidled up to us and softly slipped a small metal tray before me; it held my bill, carefully turned face downward.
"Anything more, sir?" he murmured.