rubberneck to see if you're good
lookin'."

Lise was exalted, feverish, apparently possessed by some high secret; her
eyes shone, and when she crossed the room she whistled bars of ragtime
and executed mincing steps of the maxixe. Fumbling in the upper drawer
for a pair of white gloves (also new), she knocked off the corner of the
bureau her velvet bag; it opened as it struck the floor, and out of it
rolled a lilac vanity case and a yellow coin. Casting a suspicious,
lightning glance at Janet, she snatched up the vanity case and covered
the coin with her foot.

"Lock the doors!" she cried, with an hysteric giggle. Then removing her
foot she picked up the coin surreptitiously. To her amazement her sister
made no comment, did not seem to have taken in the significance of the
episode. Lise had expected a tempest of indignant, searching questions, a
"third degree," as she would have put it. She snapped the bag together,
drew on her gloves, and, when she was ready to leave, with characteristic
audacity crossed the room, taking her sister's face between her hands and
kissing her.

"Tell me your troubles, sweetheart!" she said--and did not wait to hear
them.

Janet was incapable of speech--nor could she have brought herself to ask
Lise whether or not the money had been earned at the Bagatelle, and
remained miraculously unspent. It was possible, but highly incredible.
And then, the vanity case and the new hat were to be accounted for! The
sight of the gold piece, indeed, had suddenly revived in Janet the queer
feeling of faintness, almost of nausea she had experienced after parting
with Lottie Myers. And by some untoward association she was reminded of a
conversation she had had with Ditmar on the Saturday afternoon following
their first Sunday excursion, when, on opening her pay envelope, she had
found twenty dollars.

"Are you sure I'm worth it?" she had demanded--and he had been quite
sure. He had added that she was worth more, much more, but that he could
not give her as yet, without the risk of comment, a sum commensurate with
the value of her services.... But now she asked herself again, was she
worth it? or was it merely--part of her price? Going to the wardrobe and
opening a drawer at the bottom she searched among her clothes until she
discovered the piece of tissue paper in which she had wrapped the rose
rescued from the cluster he had given her. The petals were dry, yet they
gave forth, still, a faint, reminisce