are people going to cut me?"

"Your FRIENDS, Lily--how can you think it?"

"Who are one's friends at such a time? Who, but you, you poor trustful
darling? And heaven knows what YOU suspect me of!" She kissed Gerty with
a whimsical murmur. "You'd never let it make any difference--but then
you're fond of criminals, Gerty! How about the irreclaimable ones,
though? For I'm absolutely impenitent, you know."

She drew herself up to the full height of her slender majesty, towering
like some dark angel of defiance above the troubled Gerty, who could only
falter out: "Lily, Lily--how can you laugh about such things?"

"So as not to weep, perhaps. But no--I'm not of the tearful order. I
discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has
helped me through several painful episodes." She took a restless turn
about the room, and then, reseating herself, lifted the bright mockery of
her eyes to Gerty's anxious countenance.

"I shouldn't have minded, you know, if I'd got the money--" and at Miss
Farish's protesting "Oh!" she repeated calmly: "Not a straw, my dear;
for, in the first place, they wouldn't have quite dared to ignore me; and
if they had, it wouldn't have mattered, because I should have been
independent of them. But now--!" The irony faded from her eyes, and she
bent a clouded face upon her friend.

"How can you talk so, Lily? Of course the money ought to have been yours,
but after all that makes no difference. The important thing----" Gerty
paused, and then continued firmly: "The important thing is that you
should clear yourself--should tell your friends the whole truth."

"The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is truth? Where a woman is
concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a
great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she
has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms
with her."

Miss Farish still fixed her with an anxious gaze. "But what IS your
story, Lily? I don't believe any one knows it yet."

"My story?--I don't believe I know it myself. You see I never thought of
preparing a version in advance as Bertha did--and if I had, I don't think
I should take the trouble to use it now."

But Gerty continued with her quiet reasonableness: "I don't want a
version prepared in advance--but I want you to tell me exactly what
happened from the beginning."

"From the beginning?" Miss Bart gently mimicked her. "