e as a danger signal; and with
it another--the sophisticated expression of one who knows life and
ridicules the lack of such knowledge in others. Its implication was made
certain when the two girls were alone in their bedroom after supper.
Lise, feverishly occupied with her toilet, on her departure broke the
silence there by inquiring:--"Say, if I had your easy money, I might buy
a stove, too. How much does Ditmar give you, sweetheart?"

Janet, infuriated, flew at her sister. Lise struggled to escape.

"Leave me go" she whimpered in genuine alarm, and when at length she was
released she went to the mirror and began straightening her hat, which
had flopped to one side of her head. "I didn't mean nothin', I was only
kiddie' you--what's the use of gettin' nutty over a jest?"

"I'm not like-you," said Janet.

"I was only kiddin', I tell you," insisted Lise, with a hat pin in her
mouth. "Forget it."

When Lise had gone out Janet sat down in the rocking-chair and began to
rock agitatedly. What had really made her angry, she began to perceive,
was the realization of a certain amount of truth in her sister's
intimation concerning Ditmar. Why should she have, in Lise, continually
before her eyes a degraded caricature of her own aspirations and ideals?
or was Lise a mirror--somewhat tarnished, indeed--in which she read the
truth about herself? For some time Janet had more than suspected that
her sister possessed a new lover--a lover whom she refrained from
discussing; an ominous sign, since it had been her habit to dangle her
conquests before Janet's eyes, to discuss their merits and demerits
with an engaging though cynical freedom. Although the existence of
this gentleman was based on evidence purely circumstantial, Janet
was inclined to believe him of a type wholly different from his
predecessors; and the fact that his attentions were curiously
intermittent and irregular inclined her to the theory that he was not a
resident of Hampton. What was he like? It revolted her to reflect that
he might in some ways possibly resemble Ditmar. Thus he became the
object of a morbid speculation, especially at such times as this, when
Lise attired herself in her new winter finery and went forth to meet
him. Janet, also, had recently been self-convicted of sharing with Lise
the same questionable tendency toward self-adornment to please the eye
of man. The very next Saturday night after she had indulged in that mad
extravagance of the blue