imed Hannah, irrelevantly. "She's
been acting so queer lately, she's not been herself at all."

"Now there you go, borrowing trouble, mother," Edward exclaimed. He
could not take his eyes from Janet, but continued to regard her with
benevolence. "Lise'll get married some day. I don't suppose we can
expect another Mr. Ditmar...."

"Well," said Hannah, presently, "there's no use sitting up all night."
She rose and kissed Janet again. "I just can't believe it," she
declared, "but I guess it's so if you say it is."

"Of course it's so," said Edward.

"I so want you should be happy, Janet," said Hannah....

Was it so? Her mother and father, the dwarfed and ugly surroundings of
Fillmore Street made it seem incredible once more. And--what would they
say if they knew what had happened to her this day? When she had reached
her room, Janet began to wonder why she had told her parents. Had it not
been in order to relieve their anxiety--especially her mother's--on the
score of her recent absences from home? Yes, that was it, and because
the news would make them happy. And then the mere assertion to them that
she was to marry Ditmar helped to make it more real to herself. But,
now that reality was fading again, she was unable to bring it within
the scope of her imagination, her mind refused to hold one remembered
circumstance long enough to coordinate it with another: she realized
that she was tired--too tired to think any more. But despite her
exhaustion there remained within her, possessing her, as it were
overshadowing her, unrelated to future or past, the presence of the man
who had awakened her to an intensity of life hitherto unconceived. When
her head touched the pillow she fell asleep....

When the bells and the undulating scream of the siren awoke her, she
lay awhile groping in the darkness. Where was she? Who was she? The
discovery of the fact that the nail of the middle finger on her right
hand was broken, gave her a clew. She had broken that nail in reaching
out to save something--a vase of roses--that was it!--a vase of roses
on a table with a white cloth. Ditmar had tipped it over. The sudden
flaring up of this trivial incident served to re-establish her
identity, to light a fuse along which her mind began to run like fire,
illuminating redly all the events of the day before. It was sweet to lie
thus, to possess, as her very own, these precious, passionate memories
of life lived at last to fulness, to feel that s