Janet turned to the basin again and began rubbing her face vigorously—­ceasing for an instance to make sure of the identity of a sound reaching her ears despite the splashing of water.  Lise was sobbing.  Janet dried her face and hands, arranged her hair, and sat down on the windowsill; the scorn and anger, which had been so intense as completely to possess her, melting into a pity and contempt not unmixed with bewilderment.  Ordinarily Lise was hard, impervious to such reproaches, holding her own in the passionate quarrels that occasionally took place between them yet there were times, such as this, when her resistance broke down unexpectedly, and she lost all self control.  She rocked to and fro in the chair, her shoulders bowed, her face hidden in her hands.  Janet reached out and touched her.

“Don’t be silly,” she began, rather sharply, “just because I said it was a disgrace to have such ideas.  Well, it is.”

“I’m not silly,” said Lise.  “I’m sick of that job at the Bagatelle” —­sob—­“there’s nothing in it—­I’m going to quit—­I wish to God I was dead!  Standing on your feet all day till you’re wore out for six dollars a week—­what’s there in it?”—­sob—­“With that guy Walters who walks the floor never lettin’ up on you.  He come up to me yesterday and says, `I didn’t know you was near sighted, Miss Bumpus’ just because there was a customer Annie Hatch was too lazy to wait on”—­sob—­“That’s his line of dope—­thinks he’s sarcastic—­and he’s sweet on Annie.  Tomorrow I’m going to tell him to go to hell.  I’m through I’m sick of it, I tell you”—­sob—­“I’d rather be dead than slave like that for six dollars.”

“Where are you going?” asked Janet.

“I don’t know—­I don’t care.  What’s the difference? any place’d be better than this.”  For awhile she continued to cry on a ridiculously high, though subdued, whining note, her breath catching at intervals.  A feeling of helplessness, of utter desolation crept over Janet; powerless to comfort herself, how could she comfort her sister?  She glanced around the familiar, sordid room, at the magazine pages against the faded wall-paper, at the littered bureau and the littered bed, over which Lise’s clothes were flung.  It was hot and close even now, in summer it would be stifling.  Suddenly a flash of sympathy revealed to her a glimpse of the truth that Lise, too, after her own nature, sought beauty and freedom!  Never did she come as near comprehending Lise as in such moments as this, and when, on dark winter mornings, her sister clung to her, terrified by the siren.  Lise was a child, and the thought that she, Janet, was powerless to change her was a part of the tragic tenderness.  What would become of Lise?  And what would become of her, Janet?...  So she clung, desperately, to her sister’s hand until at last Lise roused herself, her hair awry, her face puckered and wet with tears and perspiration.

“I can’t stand it any more—­I’ve just got to go away anywhere,” she said, and the cry found an echo in Janet’s heart....