A dangerous light grew in Lise’s eyes.

“He’s as good as any other man, he’s as good as Ditmar,” she said.  “They’re all the same, to girls like us.”

Janet’s heart caught, it seemed to stop beating.  Was this a hazard on Lise’s part, or did she speak from knowledge?  And yet what did it matter whether Lise knew or only suspected, if her words were true, if men were all alike?  Had she been a dupe as well as Lise? and was the only difference between them now the fact that Lise was able, without illusion, to see things as they were, to accept the consequences, while she, Janet, had beheld visions and dreamed dreams? was there any real choice between the luxurious hotel to which Ditmar had taken her and this detestable house?  Suddenly, seemingly by chance, her eyes fell on the box of drug-store candy from which the cheap red ribbon had been torn, and by some odd association of ideas it suggested and epitomized Lise’s Sunday excursion with a mama hideous travesty on the journey of wonders she herself had taken.  Had that been heaven, and this of Lise’s, hell?...  And was.  Lise’s ambition to be supported in idleness and luxury to be condemned because she had believed her own to be higher?  Did not both lead to destruction?  The weight that had lain on her breast since the siren had awakened her that morning and she had reached out and touched the chilled, empty sheets now grew almost unsupportable.

“It’s true,” said Janet, “all men are the same.”

Lise was staring at her.

“My God!” she exclaimed.  “You?”

“Yes-me,” cried Janet.—­“And what are you going to do about it?  Stay here with him in this filthy place until he gets tired of you and throws you out on the street?  Before I’d let any man do that to me I’d kill him.”

Lise began to whimper, and suddenly buried her face in the pillow.  But a new emotion had begun to take possession of Janet—­an emotion so strong as to give her an unlookedfor sense of detachment.  And the words Lise had spoken between her sobs at first conveyed no meaning.

“I’m going to have a baby....”

Lise was going to have a child!  Why hadn’t she guessed it?  A child!  Perhaps she, Janet, would have a child!  This enlightenment as to Lise’s condition and the possibility it suggested in regard to herself brought with it an overwhelming sympathy which at first she fiercely resented then yielded to.  The bond between them, instead of snapping, had inexplicably strengthened.  And Lise, despite her degradation, was more than ever her sister!  Forgetting her repugnance to the bed, Janet sat down beside Lise and put an arm around her.

“He said he’d marry me, he swore he was rich—­and he was a spender all right.  And then some guy came up to me one night at Gruber’s and told me he was married already.”

“What?” Janet exclaimed.