Sammy’s world was tottering, and looking upon its astonishing ruins he could only gasp blankly:
“What t’ hell!”
Never before in his long career and wide acquaintanceship with human nature had it behaved in so fantastic and unpredictable a manner. Never had it acted with such incalculable and utter disregard of all rules and wise saws. That a man should cheat, lie, steal, and seduce women, was to Sammy’s mind almost normal; that he should tell the truth, give away his money, and stick by his wife was also at times probable. These things happened. He’d seen them done. But that a man with everything should choose nothing: that a man with high office in his grasp, money ready to pour into his pocket, a home like this, and both a wife and a sweetheart, should toss them all away and walk out into the rain without his hat, just for an extra excursion with a skirt—
“What t’ hell!” gasped Sammy, groping back into the empty house. Then suddenly he heard the voice of Sara.
He found her standing stark alone, a pitiful, tragic figure amid the empty glitter of her triumph, with her flesh-colored chiffon and her jewels, her smooth stockings and silver slippers. She had stripped the beads from her throat, and they were dripping through her clenched fingers. She had half torn the lace from her breast, and she stood there flushed, trembling, furious with anger, and almost screaming to ears that did not hear and to guests already gone.
“Haven’t I been decent? Haven’t I fought off you beasts and made me a living and a home with my own hands? Wasn’t I married like a respectable woman, and didn’t I drag this fool out of jail and make him a man? And what do I get? What do I get? Here I am, disgraced and ruined, mocked and robbed, a laughingstock to all Chicago. What did he want? What did the jackass want, my God? A cabaret instead of a home? A whore instead of a wife? Wasn’t I true to him? Did I ever let a man touch me? I made money—sure, I made money. I had to make money. He couldn’t. I made money out of politics. What in hell is politics for, if it isn’t for somebody to make money? Must we hand all the graft over to the holy white folks? And now he disgraces me! Just when I win, he throws me over for a common bawd from the streets, and a mess of dirty white laborers; a common slut stealing decent women’s husbands. Oh—”
Sammy touched her hesitatingly on the shoulder and pleaded:
“Don’t crack, kid. Stand the gaff. I’ll see you through.”
But she shrank away from him and screamed:
“Get out, don’t touch me. Oh, damn him, damn him! I wish I could horsewhip them; I wish I could kill them both.”
And suddenly Sara crumpled to the floor, crushing and tearing her silks and scattering her jewels, drawing her knees up tight and gripping them with twitching hands, burying her hair, her head and streaming eyes, in the crimson carpet, and rolling and shaking and struggling with strangling sobs.
While without gray mists lay thin upon a pale and purple city. Through them, like cold, wet tears dripped the slow brown rain. The muffled roar of moving millions thundered low upon the wind, and the blue wind sighed and sank into the black night; and through the chill dripping of the waters, hatless and coatless, moved two shapes, hand in hand, with uplifted heads, singing to the storm.