第72章

"Tomorrow night, at Bethlehem--a bum little town for us.We'll stay there a couple of days.I want you to get used to appearing." He nodded at her encouragingly."You've got stuff in you, real stuff.Don't you doubt it.Get self-confidence--conceit, if you please.Nobody arrives anywhere without it.You want to feel that you can do what you want to do.A fool's conceit is that he's it already.A sensible man's conceit is that he can be it, if he'll only work hard and in the right way.See?""I--I think I do," said the girl."I'm not sure."Burlingham smoked his cigar in silence.When he spoke, it was with eyes carefully averted."There's another subject the spirit moves me to talk to you about.That's the one Miss Connemora opened up with you yesterday." As Susan moved uneasily, "Now, don't get scared.I'm not letting the woman business bother me much nowadays.All I think of is how to get on my feet again.Iwant to have a theater on Broadway before the old black-flagger overtakes my craft and makes me walk the plank and jump out into the Big Guess.So you needn't think I'm going to worry you.I'm not.""Oh, I didn't think----"

"You ought to have, though," interrupted he."A man like me is a rare exception.I'm a rare exception to my ordinary self, to be quite honest.It'll be best for you always to assume that every man you run across is looking for just one thing.You know what?"Susan, the flush gone from her cheeks, nodded.

"I suppose Connemora has put you wise.But there are some things even she don't know about that subject.Now, I want you to listen to your grandfather.Remember what he says.And think it over until you understand it.""I will," said Susan.

"In the life you've come out of, virtue in a woman's everything.

She's got to be virtuous, or at least to have the reputation of it--or she's nothing.You understand that?""Yes," said Susan."I understand that--now.""Very well.Now in the life you're going into, virtue in a woman is nothing--no more than it is in a man anywhere.The woman who makes a career becomes like the man who makes a career.How is it with a man? Some are virtuous, others are not.But no man lets virtue bother him and nobody bothers about his virtue.

That's the way it is with a woman who cuts loose from the conventional life of society and home and all that.She is virtuous or not, as she happens to incline.Her real interest in herself, her real value, lies in another direction.If it doesn't, if she continues to be agitated about her virtue as if it were all there is to her--then the sooner she hikes back to respectability, to the conventional routine, why the better for her.She'll never make a career, any more than she could drive an automobile through a crowded street and at the same time keep a big picture hat on straight.Do you follow me?""I'm not sure," said the girl."I'll have to think about it.""That's right.Don't misunderstand.I'm not talking for or against virtue.I'm simply talking practical life, and all Imean is that you won't get on there by your virtue, and you won't get on by your lack of virtue.Now for my advice."Susan's look of unconscious admiration and attention was the subtlest flattery.Its frank, ingenuous showing of her implicit trust in him so impressed him with his responsibility that he hesitated before he said:

"Never forget this, and don't stop thinking about it until you understand it: Make men _as_ men incidental in your life, precisely as men who amount to anything make women _as_ women incidental."Her first sensation was obviously disappointing.She had expected something far more impressive.Said she:

"I don't care anything about men."

"Be sensible! How are you to know now what you care about and what you don't?" was Burlingham's laughing rebuke."And in the line you've taken--the stage--with your emotions always being stirred up, with your thoughts always hovering round the relations of men and women--for that's the only subject of plays and music, and with opportunity thrusting at you as it never thrusts at conventional people you'll probably soon find you care a great deal about men.But don't ever let your emotions hinder or hurt or destroy you.Use them to help you.I guess I'm shooting pretty far over that young head of yours, ain't I?""Not so very far," said the girl."Anyhow, I'll remember.""If you live big enough and long enough, you'll go through three stages.The first is the one you're in now.They've always taught you without realizing it, and so you think that only the strong can afford to do right.You think doing right makes the ordinary person, like yourself, easy prey for those who do wrong.You think that good people--if they're really good--have to wait until they get to Heaven before they get a chance.""Isn't that so?"

"No.But you'll not realize it until you pass into the second stage.There, you'll think you see that only the strong can afford to do wrong.You'll think that everyone, except the strong, gets it in the neck if he or she does anything out of the way.You'll think you're being punished for your sins, and that, if you had behaved yourself, you'd have got on much better.That's the stage that's coming; and what you go through with there--how you come out of the fight--will decide your fate--show whether or not you've got the real stuff in you.Do you understand?"Susan shook her head.