“I s’pose you’ll say I’m to blame.  Jo’s mother’s sick again.  She’s got to go to the hospital and have another operation.  You know what that means—­putting off the wedding again until God knows when!  I’m sick of it—­putting off and putting off!  I told him we might as well quit and be done with it.  We’ll never get married at this rate.  Soon’s Jo gets enough put by to start us on, something happens.  Last three times it’s been his ma.  Pretty soon I’ll be as old and wrinkled and homely as—­”

“As me!” put in Sadie calmly.  “Well, I don’t know’s that’s the worst thing that can happen to you.  I’m happy.  I had my plans, too, when I was a girl like you—­not that I was ever pretty; but I had my trials.  Funny how the thing that’s easy and the thing that’s right never seem to be the same!”

“Oh, I’m fond of Jo’s ma,” said Julia, a little shamefacedly.  “We get along all right.  She knows how it is, I guess; and feels—­well, in the way.  But when Jo told me, I was tired I guess.  We had words.  I told him there were plenty waiting for me if he was through.  I told him I could have gone out with a real swell only last Saturday if I’d wanted to.  What’s a girl got her looks for if not to have a good time?”

“Who’s this you were invited out by?” asked Sadie Corn.

“You must have noticed him,” said Julia, dimpling.  “He’s as handsome as an actor.  Name’s Venner.  He’s in two-twenty-three.”

There came the look of steel into Sadie Corn’s eyes.

“Look here, Julia!  You’ve been here long enough to know that you’re not to listen to the talk of the men guests round here.  Two-twenty-three isn’t your kind—­and you know it!  If I catch you talking to him again I’ll—­”

The telephone at her elbow sounded sharply.  She answered it absently, her eyes, with their expression of pain and remonstrance, still unshrinking before the onslaught of Julia’s glare.  Then her expression changed.  A look of consternation came into her face.

“Right away, madam!” she said, at the telephone.  “Right away!  You won’t have to wait another minute.”  She hung up the receiver and waved Julia away with a gesture.  “It’s Two-eighteen.  You promised to be there in fifteen minutes.  She’s been waiting and her voice sounds like a saw.  Better be careful how you handle her.”

Julia’s head, with its sleek, satiny coils of black hair that waved away so bewitchingly from the cream of her skin, came up with a jerk.

“I’m tired of being careful of other people’s feelings.  Let somebody be careful of mine for a change.”  She walked off down the hall, the little head still held high.  A half dozen paces and she turned.  “What was it you said you’d do to me if you caught me talking to him again?” she sneered.

A miserable twinge of pain shot through Sadie Corn’s eye, to be followed by a wave of nausea that swept over her.  They alone were responsible for her answer.