r you'd come home with me."

"I guess I know what it means as well as you do," said Lise, sullenly.
"We've all got to croak sometime, and I'd rather croak this way than be
smothered up in Hampton. I'll get a run for my money, anyway."

"No, you don't know what it means," Janet repeated, "or you wouldn't talk
like that. Do you think this man will support you, stick to you? He
won't, he'll desert you, and you'll have to go on the streets."

A dangerous light grew in Lise's eyes.

"He's as good as any other man, he's as good as Ditmar," she said.
"They're all the same, to girls like us."

Janet's heart caught, it seemed to stop beating. Was this a hazard on
Lise's part, or did she speak from knowledge? And yet what did it matter
whether Lise knew or only suspected, if her words were true, if men were
all alike? Had she been a dupe as well as Lise? and was the only
difference between them now the fact that Lise was able, without
illusion, to see things as they were, to accept the consequences, while
she, Janet, had beheld visions and dreamed dreams? was there any real
choice between the luxurious hotel to which Ditmar had taken her and this
detestable house? Suddenly, seemingly by chance, her eyes fell on the box
of drug-store candy from which the cheap red ribbon had been torn, and by
some odd association of ideas it suggested and epitomized Lise's Sunday
excursion with a mama hideous travesty on the journey of wonders she
herself had taken. Had that been heaven, and this of Lise's, hell?... And
was. Lise's ambition to be supported in idleness and luxury to be
condemned because she had believed her own to be higher? Did not both
lead to destruction? The weight that had lain on her breast since the
siren had awakened her that morning and she had reached out and touched
the chilled, empty sheets now grew almost unsupportable.

"It's true," said Janet, "all men are the same."

Lise was staring at her.

"My God!" she exclaimed. "You?"

"Yes-me," cried Janet.--"And what are you going to do about it? Stay here
with him in this filthy place until he gets tired of you and throws you
out on the street? Before I'd let any man do that to me I'd kill him."

Lise began to whimper, and suddenly buried her face in the pillow. But a
new emotion had begun to take possession of Janet--an emotion so strong
as to give her an unlookedfor sense of detachment. And the words Lise had
spoken between her sobs at first conveyed no meaning.