was a coward, so was she a petty liar by instinct. Her
first impulse when in an uncomfortable position was to extricate herself
by any plausible lie that occurred to her. But Kate's voice and manner
were too compelling, her eyes too penetrating, to admit of falsifying or
even evading further. Then, too, she had a wild panicky feeling that she
might as well tell the truth and have it over--though it was the last
thing in the world she had contemplated doing.

"It is--rather."

"Why?" Her voice sounded guttural.

Like a hypnotic subject Mrs. Toomey heard herself whimpering:

"People will talk about it--Mrs. Pantin has warned me--and I'll--I'll
get left out of everything, and--and when Jap gets into something it
will hurt us in our business."

Kate got up from her knees; involuntarily Mrs. Toomey did likewise.

The girl did not speak but folded her arms and looked at her "friend."
Mrs. Toomey had the physical sensation of shrivelling: as though she
were standing naked before the withering heat of a blast furnace.

In the silence that seemed interminable, Kate's eyes moved from her head
to her shabby shoes and back again, slowly, as though she wished to
impress her appearance upon her memory, to the minutest detail.

As by divination, Mrs. Toomey saw herself as Kate saw her. Stripped of
the virtues in which the girl had clothed her, she stood forth a
scheming, inconsequential little coward in a weak ineffectual rack of a
body--not strong enough to be vicious, without the courage to be
dangerous. Thin-lipped, neutral-tinted, flat of chest and scrawny,
without a womanly charm save the fragility that incited pity; to Kate
who had idealized her she now seemed a stranger.

Kate completed her scrutiny, and searched her mind for the word which
best expressed the result of it. Her lip curled unconsciously when she
found it. She said with deliberate scathing emphasis:

"You--Judas Iscariot!"

Then she walked out, feeling that the very earth had given way beneath
her.

Nothing was definite, nothing tangible or certain; there was not anybody
or anything in the world, apparently, that one could count on. She had
a feeling of nausea along with a curious calm that was like the calm of
desperation. Yet her mind was alert, active, and she understood Mrs.
Toomey with an uncanny clearness. She believed her when she had said
that she liked her, just as she knew that she had lied when she had said
that she was glad to see her. Sh