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It had not wholly lost its note of terror, but the note had somehow become exhilarating, an invitation to adventure and to life; and Lise's sarcastic comments as to the probable reasons why she did not put on the new suit had host their power of exasperation. Janet compromised, wearing a blouse of china silk hitherto reserved for "best."
Hannah, too, was outraged by Lise's costume, and had also been moved to protest; futile protest. Its only effect on Lise was to convince her of the existence of a prearranged plan of persecution, to make her more secretive and sullen than ever before.
She glanced around the familiar, sordid room, at the magazine pages against the faded wall-paper, at the littered bureau and the littered bed, over which Lise's clothes were flung. It was hot and close even now, in summer it would be stifling. Suddenly a flash of sympathy revealed to her a glimpse of the truth that Lise, too, after her own nature, sought beauty and freedom!
A terror seized her such as she had never known before, an almost overwhelming impulse to turn and regain the air and sunlight of the day. In the dark hallway of the second story the woman knocked at the door of a front room. "She's in there, unless she's gone out." And indeed a voice was heard petulantly demanding what was wanted Lise's voice!
At each lock we had news of the Swan; every one had seen the beautiful barge and they spoke of the kind English lady and the little boy lying on a sofa under the veranda. We drew nearer to Lise's home, two more days, then one, then only a few hours. We came in sight of the house. We were not walking now, we were running. Capi, who seemed to know where we were going, started ahead at a gallop.
At any rate, the sight of these young gods of leisure, the contemplation of the stolid butler and plush footmen in the background never failed to make Lise's heart beat faster.
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.
But above all, she was cowed by the sudden change in Janet herself, by the attitude of steely determination eloquent of an animus persons of Lise's type are incapable of feeling, and which to them is therefore incomprehensible. "Nothing's going to happen to me," she whined. "The place is all right he'd be scared to send me there if it wasn't. It costs something, too.
The frame always contained the current object of Lise's affections, though the exhibits as Janet said were subject to change without notice.
There's her picture." To Janet, especially in the mood of reaction in which she found herself that evening, Lise's intense excitement, passionate partisanship and approval of Miss Nealy were incomprehensible, repellent.
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