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"He don't own me," said Lise. Mr. Tiernan threw back his head, and laughed. "Well, if you're there to-night, tangoin' with him and I come up and says, 'Miss Bumpus, the pleasure is mine, I'm wondering what would happen." "I'm not going to Slattery's to-night," she declared having that instant arrived at this conclusion. "And where then? I'll come along, if there's a chance for me."
She was amused, too, by the thought that Lise's envy would be modified by the prospect of a heightened social status; since Lise, it will be remembered, had her Providence likewise. Hannah's god was not a Providence, but one deeply skilled in persecution, in ingenious methods of torture; one who would not hesitate to dangle baubles before the eyes of his children only to snatch them away again.
Both investments had been made, needless to say, on the strength of Janet's increased salary; and Lise, when Janet had surprised her before the bureau rapturously surveying the combination, justified herself with a defiant apology. "I just had to have something what with winter coming on," she declared, seizing the hand mirror in order to view the back.
"You want me to go 'round lookin' like a floorwasher." "I'd rather look like a floorwasher than than another kind of woman," Janet declared. "Well, you've got your wish, sweetheart," said Lise. "You needn't be scared anybody will pick you up." "I'm not," said Janet.... This quarrel had taken place a week or so before Janet's purchase of the stove.
Had not the saleslady been obdurate, Lise would have had it on credit; but she did succeed, by an initial payment the ensuing Saturday, in having it withdrawn from public gaze.
She remained gazing at Lise, who paid no attention to her entrance, but stood with her back turned before an old-fashioned bureau with a marble top and raised sides. She was dressed, and engaged in adjusting her hat. It was not until Janet pronounced her name that she turned swiftly. "You!" she exclaimed. "What the what brought you here?" "Oh, Lise!" Janet repeated. "How did you get here?"
"Quit your kidding," Lise reproved him. Mr. Tiernan suddenly looked very solemn: "Kidding, is it? Me kiddin' you? Give me a chance, that's all I'm asking. Where will you be, now?" "Is Frear wanted?" she demanded. Mr. Tiernan's expression changed. His nose seemed to become more pointed, his eyes to twinkle more merrily than ever. He didn't take the trouble, now, to conceal his admiration.
Hannah wrung out the mop viciously and hung it over the sink. "I used to hope some respectable man would come along, but I've quit hopin'. I don't know as any respectable man would want Lise, or that I could honestly wish him to have her." "Mother!" protested Janet. Sometimes, in those conversations, she was somewhat paradoxically impelled to defend her sister.
Afterwards, when she became a saleslady in the Bagatelle, that flamboyant department store in Faber Street, she earned four dollars and a half a week. Two of these were supposed to go into the common fund, but there were clothes to buy; Lise loved finery, and Hannah had not every week the heart to insist.
"Miss Lise?" "I thought you might know what man she's been going with lately," said Janet. Mr. Tiernan had often wondered how much Janet knew about her sister. In spite of a momentary embarrassment most unusual in him, the courage of her question made a strong appeal, and his quick sympathies suspected the tragedy behind her apparent calmness. He met her magnificently.
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