terday's paper.

"Why didn't you call for me last night?" Jenny demanded straight and
swift.

"Oh, well, it was too wet," grumbled Irene, covering as well as she
could her shame with nonchalance.

"Ireen, I think you're a rotter. I think you're real mean, and nothing
won't ever make me believe you didn't do it for the purpose. Too wet!"

Irene declined to admit herself in the wrong.

"Well, it was too wet. You could easy have come home in a taxi if you'd
wanted to."

Jenny stamped with rage.

"What I could have done hasn't got nothing to do with it all, and you
know it hasn't. You said you were coming for me and you didn't, and I
say you're a sneak. Because you and your massive sister behave anyhow,
you'd like to make everyone else as bad."

Irene, contending even with unclasped stays, made an effort at dignity.

"You can just shut up, Jenny Pearl, because you know very well my mother
wouldn't allow me to _do_ anything. You know that."

Jenny fumed with indignation.

"Your mother? Why, when she's got half a bottle of gin to cry with over
her darling Ireen or darling Winnie, she's _very_ glad to pawn what her
darlings get given to them."

"You've got very good," said Irene, bitterly sarcastic, "since this
night out."

"Which you meant for me to spend out from the moment you introduced me
to him."

"What do you take me for?" inquired Irene rashly.

"I take you for what you are--a rotter. God! and think what you will be
one day--I know--a dirty old woman in a basement with a red petticoat
and a halfpenny dip and a quartern of gin."

Irene's imagination was not extensive enough to cap this prophecy, so
she poked the fire instead of making the attempt.

"Nobody wants you to stay here," she muttered.

"Don't you worry yourself. I'm going upstairs to pack my things up now."

Jenny was not able to make a completely effective departure with cab at
the door and heaped-up baggage, because her taxi back from Victoria and
the payment of a week's board at Stacpole Terrace had exhausted her
ready money. However, she had the satisfaction of seeing her
portmanteau, her hatbox and a small bag stacked in tapering stories upon
the bedroom floor, there to await the offices of Carter Paterson.

Mrs. Dale emerged from the kitchen at the rumor of change and, as
morning did not evoke sentiment, indulged in a criticism of Jenny's
personal appearance.

"I don't like that hat of yours and never did," she announced. "I ca