to have a baby...."

Lise was going to have a child! Why hadn't she guessed it? A child!
Perhaps she, Janet, would have a child! This enlightenment as to Lise's
condition and the possibility it suggested in regard to herself brought
with it an overwhelming sympathy which at first she fiercely resented
then yielded to. The bond between them, instead of snapping, had
inexplicably strengthened. And Lise, despite her degradation, was more
than ever her sister! Forgetting her repugnance to the bed, Janet sat
down beside Lise and put an arm around her.

"He said he'd marry me, he swore he was rich--and he was a spender all
right. And then some guy came up to me one night at Gruber's and told me
he was married already."

"What?" Janet exclaimed.

"Sure! He's got a wife and two kids here in Boston. That was a
twenty-one round knockout! Maybe I didn't have something to tell him
when he blew into Hampton last Friday! But he said he couldn't help
it--he loved me." Lise sat up, seemingly finding relief in the relation
of her wrongs, dabbing her eyes with a cheap lace handkerchief. "Well,
while he'd been away--this thing came. I didn't know what was the matter
at first, and when I found out I was scared to death, I was ready to
kill myself. When I told him he was scared too, and then he said
he'd fix it. Say, I was a goat to think he'd marry me!" Lise laughed
hysterically.

"And then--" Janet spoke with difficulty, "and then you came down here?"

"I told him he'd have to see me through, I'd start something if he
didn't. Say, he almost got down on his knees, right there in Gruber's!
But he came back inside of ten seconds--he's a jollier, for sure, he was
right there with the goods, it was because he loved me, he couldn't help
himself, I was his cutie, and all that kind of baby talk."

Lise's objective manner of speaking about her seducer amazed Janet.

"Do you love him?" she asked.

"Say, what is love?" Lise demanded. "Do you ever run into it outside of
the movies? Do I love him? Well, he's a good looker and a fancy dresser,
he ain't a tight wad, and he can start a laugh every minute. If he
hadn't put it over on me I wouldn't have been so sore. I don't know he
ain't so bad. He's weak, that's the trouble with him."

This was the climax! Lise's mental processes, her tendency to pass
from wild despair to impersonal comment, her inability, her courtesan's
temperament that prevented her from realizing tragedy for more than
a m