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"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."
"I suppose you'll be going to Tim Slattery's place tonight," he went on. "It's the coolest spot this side of the Atlantic Ocean." There was, apparently, nothing cryptic in this remark, yet it is worth noting that Lise instantly became suspicious. "Why would I be going out there?" she inquired innocently, darting at him a dark, coquettish glance. Mr.
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.
"Didn't I tell you I was sick of him? But he sure was some spender," she added, as though in justice bound to give him his due. Janet was shocked by the ruthlessness of it, for Lise appeared relieved, almost gay. She handed Janet a box containing five peppermint creams all that remained of Mr. Wiley's last gift.
And yet what did it matter whether Lise knew or only suspected, if her words were true, if men were all alike?
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.
The beliefs of other days, when she had donned her best dress and gone to church on Sundays, had simply lapsed and left habits. No new beliefs had taken their place.... Even after Janet and Lise had gone to work the household never seemed to gain that margin of safety for which Hannah yearned.
The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. "Did he believe? Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms of eternal peace and blessedness?" she thought.
Lise, her waist removed, was seated in a rocking chair at the window overlooking the littered yards and the backs of the tenements on Rutger Street. And Lise, despite the heaviness of the air, was dreaming.
Between the two, and dotted with flyspecks, hung an insurance calendar on which was a huge head of a lady, florid, fluffy-haired, flirtatious. Lise thought her beautiful. The room was ugly.
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