e sat down there in the lobby, and later in her
own room, to think out what she'd say to Dolly when they next met. She
hadn't been able to think of anything to say. She could think of nothing
now. So, in silence, she began putting her smaller belongings into her
half unpacked suit-case and laying the clothes that hung in the closet
across a chair.

"So you're going to walk out on me are you?" said Dolly. Rose was aware
that she'd been watching these proceedings.

"I'm going to have a room by myself for to-night," said Rose.

Dolly amazed her by flying into a sudden rage.

"Oh, you!" she said. "You make me sick. You're a hypocrite, that's what
you are. Pretending to be so haughty and innocent, and then come spying
back here, on purpose, and acting so shocked! You don't think I'm fit to
live with, do you. Just because I've got a friend. You thought you was
fit to live with me, all right, when you had two of them and wasn't
straight with either."

Rose straightened up and looked at her. "What do you mean?" she
demanded.

"That's right, go on with the bluff," said Dolly furiously. "But you
can't bluff me. Larson put me wise to you that day in Dubuque, when that
big guy--'Rodney'--came up to see you. He was one of them, and the
fellow who put on the show in Chicago--what's his name?--Galbraith, was
the other. You tried to play them both and got left."

"That's what Olga Larson told you?" asked Rose.

"You bet it's what she told me," said Dolly. "It's about half what she
told me. And now you try to pull your high-and-mighty airs on me, just
because Charlie and I are in love and ain't married yet. We're going to
be. We're going into vaudeville as soon as this tour ends. He says the
managers don't object to vaudeville teams being married. But we've got
to wait till then, because theatrical managers won't have it. And yet
you're walking out on me because you're too superior...."

"I don't feel superior," said Rose. "I'm sorry, that's all."

"Yes, you hypocrite!" said Dolly. "Go on and walk out on me. I'm glad of
it."

Rose picked up her suit-case and the heap of clothes and left the room
without another word.

She tried to be more astonished and indignant over Olga Larson's part in
this affair than she really felt. It seemed so horribly cynical not to
be surprised. But it was not cynicism; just an unconscious understanding
of the fundamental processes of Olga's mind.

There was no malice in the story she had told