e 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.

"I'm going