with the superintendents, he was self-absorbed, and she found herself inconsistently resenting the absence of those expressions of endearment—­the glances and stolen caresses—­for indulgence in which she had hitherto rebuked him:  and though pride came to her rescue, fuel was added to her feeling by the fact that he did not seem to notice her coolness.  Since he failed to appear after lunch, she knew he must be investigating the suspicions Orcutt had voiced; but at six o’clock, when he had not returned, she closed up her desk and left the office.  An odour of cheap perfume pervading the corridor made her aware of the presence of Miss Lottie Myers.

“Oh, it’s you!” said that young woman, looking up from the landing of the stairs.  “I might have known it you never make a get-away until after six, do you?”

“Oh, sometimes,” said Janet.

“I stayed as a special favour to-night,” Miss Myers declared.  “But I’m not so stuck on my job that I can’t tear myself away from it.”

“I don’t suppose you are,” said Janet.

For a moment Miss Myers looked as if she was about to be still more impudent, but her eye met Janet’s, and wavered.  They crossed the bridge in silence.  “Well, ta-ta,” she said.  “If you like it, it’s up to you.  Five o’clock for mine,”—­and walked away, up the canal, swinging her hips defiantly.  And Janet, gazing after her, grew hot with indignation and apprehension.  Her relations with Ditmar were suspected, after all, made the subject of the kind of comment indulged in, sotto voce, by Lottie Myers and her friends at the luncheon hour.  She felt a mad, primitive desire to run after the girl, to spring upon and strangle her and compel her to speak what was in her mind and then retract it; and the motor impulse, inhibited, caused a sensation of sickness, of unhappiness and degradation as she turned her steps slowly homeward.  Was it a misinterpretation, after all—­what Lottie Myers had implied and feared to say?...

In Fillmore Street supper was over, and Lise, her face contorted, her body strained, was standing in front of the bureau “doing” her hair, her glance now seeking the mirror, now falling again to consult a model in one of those periodicals of froth and fashion that cause such numberless heart burnings in every quarter of our democracy, and which are filled with photographs of “prominent” persons at race meetings, horse shows, and resorts, and with actresses, dancers,—­and mannequins.  Janet’s eyes fell on the open page to perceive that the coiffure her sister so painfully imitated was worn by a young woman with an insolent, vapid face and hard eyes, whose knees were crossed, revealing considerably more than an ankle.  The picture was labelled, “A dance at Palm Beach—­A flashlight of Mrs.  ‘Trudy’ Gascoigne-Schell,”—­one of those mysterious, hybrid names which, in connection with the thoughts of New York and the visible rakish image of the lady herself, cause involuntary shudders down the spine of the reflecting American provincial.  Some such responsive quiver, akin to disgust, Janet herself experienced.