ll means looking ugly." She caught Gerty's wrists, and drew her
close to the window. "After all, I'd rather know the truth. Look me
straight in the face, Gerty, and tell me: am I perfectly frightful?"

"You're perfectly beautiful now, Lily: your eyes are shining, and your
cheeks have grown so pink all of a sudden----"

"Ah, they WERE pale, then--ghastly pale, when I came in? Why don't you
tell me frankly that I'm a wreck? My eyes are bright now because I'm so
nervous--but in the mornings they look like lead. And I can see the lines
coming in my face--the lines of worry and disappointment and failure!
Every sleepless night leaves a new one--and how can I sleep, when I have
such dreadful things to think about?"

"Dreadful things--what things?" asked Gerty, gently detaching her wrists
from her friend's feverish fingers.

"What things? Well, poverty, for one--and I don't know any that's more
dreadful." Lily turned away and sank with sudden weariness into the
easy-chair near the tea-table. "You asked me just now if I could
understand why Ned Silverton spent so much money. Of course I
understand--he spends it on living with the rich. You think we live ON
the rich, rather than with them: and so we do, in a sense--but it's a
privilege we have to pay for! We eat their dinners, and drink their wine,
and smoke their cigarettes, and use their carriages and their opera-boxes
and their private cars--yes, but there's a tax to pay on every one of
those luxuries. The man pays it by big tips to the servants, by playing
cards beyond his means, by flowers and presents--and--and--lots of other
things that cost; the girl pays it by tips and cards too--oh, yes, I've
had to take up bridge again--and by going to the best dress-makers, and
having just the right dress for every occasion, and always keeping
herself fresh and exquisite and amusing!"

She leaned back for a moment, closing her eyes, and as she sat there, her
pale lips slightly parted, and the lids dropped above her fagged
brilliant gaze, Gerty had a startled perception of the change in her
face--of the way in which an ashen daylight seemed suddenly to extinguish
its artificial brightness. She looked up, and the vision vanished.

"It doesn't sound very amusing, does it? And it isn't--I'm sick to death
of it! And yet the thought of giving it all up nearly kills me--it's what
keeps me awake at night, and makes me so crazy for your strong tea. For I
can't go on in this way much lon