in him,
and how, when at length she unwillingly became convinces of his perfidy,
she had been "prostrated," unable to support her old mother. She had
not, naturally, yet decided how she would invest her fortune; as for
going on the stage, that had been suggested, but she had made no
plans. "Scores of women sympathizers" had escorted her to a waiting
automobile....

Janet, impelled by the fascination akin to disgust, read thus far, and
flinging the newspaper on the floor, began to tidy herself for supper.
But presently, when she heard Lise sigh, she could contain herself no
longer.

"I don't see how you can read such stuff as that," she exclaimed.
"It's--it's horrible."

"Horrible?" Lise repeated.

Janet swung round from the washbasin, her hands dripping.

"Instead of getting seventy five thousand dollars she ought to be tarred
and feathered. She's nothing but a blackmailer."

Lise, aroused from her visions, demanded vehemently "Ain't he a
millionaire?"

"What difference does that make?" Janet retorted. "And you can't tell me
she didn't know what she was up to all along--with that face."

"I'd have sued him, all right," declared Lise, defiantly.

"Then you'd be a blackmailer, too. I'd sooner scrub floors, I'd sooner
starve than do such a thing--take money for my affections. In the first
place, I'd have more pride, and in the second place, if I really loved a
man, seventy five thousand or seventy five million dollars wouldn't help
me any. Where do you get such ideas? Decent people don't have them."

Janet turned to the basin again and began rubbing her face
vigorously--ceasing for an instance to make sure of the identity of
a sound reaching her ears despite the splashing of water. Lise was
sobbing. Janet dried her face and hands, arranged her hair, and sat down
on the windowsill; the scorn and anger, which had been so intense as
completely to possess her, melting into a pity and contempt not
unmixed with bewilderment. Ordinarily Lise was hard, impervious to such
reproaches, holding her own in the passionate quarrels that occasionally
took place between them yet there were times, such as this, when her
resistance broke down unexpectedly, and she lost all self control. She
rocked to and fro in the chair, her shoulders bowed, her face hidden in
her hands. Janet reached out and touched her.

"Don't be silly," she began, rather sharply, "just because I said it was
a disgrace to have such ideas. Well, it is."