fire.

Edith had been spring, palpitant with gladness.

Lethway, looking with tired eyes from the wings, knew that he had
made a commercial success. But back of his sordid methods there was
something of the soul of an artist. And this rebelled.

But he made a note to try flame-coloured chiffon for Mabel. Edith
was to have danced in the pale greens of a water nymph.

On the night of her triumph Mabel returned late to Edith's room,
where she was still quartered. She was moving the next day to a
small apartment. With the generosity of her class she had urged
Edith to join her, and Edith had perforce consented.

"How did it go?" Edith asked from the bed.

"Pretty well," said Mabel. "Nothing unusual."

She turned up the light, and from her radiant reflection in the
mirror Edith got the truth. She lay back with a dull, sickening
weight round her heart. Not that Mabel had won, but that she herself
had failed.

"You're awfully late."

"I went to supper. Wish you'd been along, dearie. Terribly swell
club of some sort." Then her good resolution forgotten: "I made them
sit up and take notice, all right. Two invitations for supper
to-morrow night and more on the way. And when I saw I'd got the
house going to-night, and remembered what I was being paid for it,
it made me sick."

"It's better than nothing."

"Why don't you ask Lethway to take you on in the chorus? It would do
until you get something else."

"I have asked him. He won't do it."

Mabel was still standing in front of the mirror. She threw her head
forward so her short hair covered her face, and watched the effect
carefully. Then she came over and sat on the bed.

"He's a dirty dog," she said.

The two girls looked at each other. They knew every move in the game
of life, and Lethway's methods were familiar ones.

"What are you going to do about it?" Mabel demanded at last.
"Believe me, old dear, he's got a bad eye. Now listen here," she
said with impulsive generosity. "I've got a scheme. I'll draw enough
ahead to send you back. I'll do it to-morrow, while the drawing's
good."

"And queer yourself at the start?" said Edith scornfully. "Talk
sense, Mabel, I'm up against it, but don't you worry. I'll get
something."

But she did not get anything. She was reduced in the next week to
entire dependence on the other girl. And, even with such miracles of
management as they had both learned, it was increasingly difficult
to get along.

There was a new