came she found that she did not want it.
She felt tired and sleepy and wished to get her wet stockings
off and to dry her skirt which, for all her careful holding up,
had not escaped the fate of whatever was exposed to that
abominable night. "I'm going along with you," said the young
man as she rose. "Here's to our better acquaintance."

"Thanks, but I want to be alone," replied she affably. And,
not to seem unappreciative of his courtesy, she took a small
drink from her glass. It tasted very queer. She glanced
suspiciously at the young man. Her legs grew suddenly and
strangely heavy. Her heart began to beat violently, and a
black fog seemed to be closing in upon her eyes. Through it
she saw the youth grinning sardonically. And instantly she
knew. "What a fool I am!" she thought.

She had been trapped by another form of the slave system. This
man was a recruiting sergeant for houses of prostitution--was
one of the "cadets." They search the tenement districts for
good-looking girls and young women. They hang about the street
corners, flirting. They attend the balls where go the young
people of the lower middle class and upper lower class. They
learn to make love seductively; they understand how to tempt a
girl's longing for finery, for an easier life, her dream of a
husband above her class in looks and in earning power. And for
each recruit "broken in" and hardened to the point of
willingness to go into a sporting house, they get from the
proprietor ten to twenty-five dollars according to her youth
and beauty. Susan knew all about the system, had heard stories
of it from the lips of girls who had been embarked through
it--embarked a little sooner than they would have embarked
under the lash of want, or of that other and almost equally
compelling brute, desire for the comforts and luxuries that
mean decent living. Susan knew; yet here she was, because of
an unguarded moment, and because of a sense of security through
experience--here she was, succumbing to knockout drops as easily
as the most innocent child lured away from its mother's door to
get a saucer of ice cream! She tried to rise, to scream,
though she knew any such effort was futile.

With a gasp and a sigh her head fell forward and she was unconscious.

She awakened in a small, rather dingy room. She was lying on
her back with only stockings on. Beyond the foot of the bed
was a little bureau at which a man, back full to her, stood