imitive
desire to run after the girl, to spring upon and strangle her and compel
her to speak what was in her mind and then retract it; and the motor
impulse, inhibited, caused a sensation of sickness, of unhappiness and
degradation as she turned her steps slowly homeward. Was it a
misinterpretation, after all--what Lottie Myers had implied and feared to
say?...

In Fillmore Street supper was over, and Lise, her face contorted, her
body strained, was standing in front of the bureau "doing" her hair, her
glance now seeking the mirror, now falling again to consult a model in
one of those periodicals of froth and fashion that cause such numberless
heart burnings in every quarter of our democracy, and which are filled
with photographs of "prominent" persons at race meetings, horse shows,
and resorts, and with actresses, dancers,--and mannequins. Janet's eyes
fell on the open page to perceive that the coiffure her sister so
painfully imitated was worn by a young woman with an insolent, vapid face
and hard eyes, whose knees were crossed, revealing considerably more than
an ankle. The picture was labelled, "A dance at Palm Beach--A flashlight
of Mrs. 'Trudy' Gascoigne-Schell,"--one of those mysterious, hybrid names
which, in connection with the thoughts of New York and the visible rakish
image of the lady herself, cause involuntary shudders down the spine of
the reflecting American provincial. Some such responsive quiver, akin to
disgust, Janet herself experienced.

"It's the very last scream," Lise was saying. "And say, if I owned a ball
dress like that I'd be somebody's Lulu all right! Can I have the pleasure
of the next maxixe, Miss Bumpus?" With deft and rapid fingers she lead
parted her hair far on the right side and pulled it down over the left
eyebrow, twisted it over her ear and tightly around her head, inserting
here and there a hairpin, seizing the hand mirror with the cracked back,
and holding it up behind her. Finally, when the operation was finished to
her satisfaction she exclaimed, evidently to the paragon in the picture,
"I get you!" Whereupon, from the wardrobe, she produced a hat. "You sure
had my number when you guessed the feathers on that other would get
draggled," she observed in high good humour, generously ignoring their
former unpleasantness on the subject. When she had pinned it on she bent
mockingly over her sister, who sat on the bed. "How d'you like my new
toque? Peekaboo! That's the way the guys