“I’m beginning to doubt that,” Lorelei said, slowly.  “I think you all look upon me as a piece of property to do with as you please.  Perhaps I’m disloyal and ungrateful, but—­I can’t help it.  And I can’t forgive you yet.  When I can I’ll come home again, but it’s impossible for me to live here now, feeling as I do.  I want to love you—­so I’m—­going to run away.”

Tragically, through her tears, Mrs. Knight inquired:  “What will become of us?  We can’t live—­Jim never does anything for us.”  In Peter’s watery stare was abject fright.  “Lorelei wouldn’t let us suffer,” he ventured, tremulously.  “I’m sick.  I may die any time, so the doctor says.”  He was indeed a changed man; that easy good humor that had been his most likable trait had been lost in habitual peevishness.

“I’ll keep the house running as before,” his daughter assured them, “and I’ll manage to get along on what’s left.  But you mustn’t be quite so extravagant, that’s all.  I sha’n’t be—­and you wouldn’t force me to do anything I’d regret, I’m sure.”  She choked down her pity at the sight of the invalid’s pasty face and flabby form, then turned to the window.  Her emotion prevented her from observing the relief that greeted her words.

The moment was painful; Lorelei’s eyes were dim, and she hardly saw the dreary prospect of fire-escapes, of whitewashed brick, of bare, gaping back yards overhung with clothes-lines, like nerves exposed in the process of dissection.

“Yes, things will go on just the same,” she repeated, then clenched her hands and burst forth miserably, “Oh, I know how badly you need money!  I know what the doctor says, and—­I’ll get it somehow.  It seems to me I’d pay any price just to see dad walking around again and to know that you were both provided for.  Money, money!  You both worship it, and—­I’m getting so I can’t think of anything else.  Nothing else seems worth while.”

Two hours later a dray called for her trunks and took them across town.

The Elegancia Apartments looked down on her with chill disapproval as she entered; the elevator-man stared at her with black, hostile eyes until she had made herself known; and even the superintendent—­in a less pretentious structure than the Elegancia, he would have been the janitor—­now that “Number Six” was rented, did not extend even a perfunctory welcome as he delivered the keys.  On the contrary, he made known the exclusive character of the house in such a pointed manner as to offend her.

Lilas was out, she learned, which probably meant that she was still asleep.  Lorelei ascended to her new home in low spirits.  Now that she saw the place in strong daylight, she was vaguely disappointed.  On the evening previous, the superintendent had lighted it brilliantly, but now it was gloomy, and there was dust and disorder everywhere.  The previous occupant had undoubtedly been a temperamental housekeeper; the tragic awakening of love’s young dream showed