run after the girl, to spring upon and strangle her
and compel her to speak what was in her mind and then retract it;
and the motor impulse, inhibited, caused a sensation of sickness, of
unhappiness and degradation as she turned her steps slowly homeward.
Was it a misinterpretation, after all--what Lottie Myers had implied and
feared to say?...

In Fillmore Street supper was over, and Lise, her face contorted, her
body strained, was standing in front of the bureau "doing" her hair, her
glance now seeking the mirror, now falling again to consult a model in
one of those periodicals of froth and fashion that cause such numberless
heart burnings in every quarter of our democracy, and which are filled
with photographs of "prominent" persons at race meetings, horse shows,
and resorts, and with actresses, dancers,--and mannequins. Janet's
eyes fell on the open page to perceive that the coiffure her sister so
painfully imitated was worn by a young woman with an insolent, vapid
face and hard eyes, whose knees were crossed, revealing considerably
more than an ankle. The picture was labelled, "A dance at Palm Beach--A
flashlight of Mrs. 'Trudy' Gascoigne-Schell,"--one of those mysterious,
hybrid names which, in connection with the thoughts of New York and the
visible rakish image of the lady herself, cause involuntary shudders
down the spine of the reflecting American provincial. Some such
responsive quiver, akin to disgust, Janet herself experienced.

"It's the very last scream," Lise was saying. "And say, if I owned a
ball dress like that I'd be somebody's Lulu all right! Can I have the
pleasure of the next maxixe, Miss Bumpus?" With deft and rapid fingers
she lead parted her hair far on the right side and pulled it down over
the left eyebrow, twisted it over her ear and tightly around her head,
inserting here and there a hairpin, seizing the hand mirror with the
cracked back, and holding it up behind her. Finally, when the operation
was finished to her satisfaction she exclaimed, evidently to the paragon
in the picture, "I get you!" Whereupon, from the wardrobe, she produced
a hat. "You sure had my number when you guessed the feathers on that
other would get draggled," she observed in high good humour, generously
ignoring their former unpleasantness on the subject. When she had pinned
it on she bent mockingly over her sister, who sat on the bed. "How d'you
like my new toque? Peekaboo! That's the way the guys rubberneck to see