As she pondered the situation anger at the treachery of her confederates grew and caused her to forget her own intended treachery to them.  Even while she was defying the officer she had begun to reconcile herself to the idea of flight, and now she set about her preparations.

Four hours!  Well, they had given her time enough.  Much could be done in four hours.  Eight o’clock would see her well out from under the shadow of the law.  The Law!  Lilas sneered as she reflected that the law invariably shielded the rich and prosperous while it oppressed the poor and the needy.

Of late her periods of independence from cocaine were becoming shorter and of less frequent occurrence, and before she had proceeded far with her packing she found herself badly in need of stimulation.  Her resistance was running low, it seemed.  That splendid recklessness which had sustained her when she flung her demand at Bob was entirely gone now; she was oddly nervous and unstrung, so she turned to the white powders.

Their effect was prompt and pleasant, as always; they enabled her to lay vigorous hold once more upon her scattered faculties.  As she flung her belongings into her trunk her first black regrets and disappointments began to lighten, and she found herself looking at the matter more philosophically.  After all, things were never quite hopeless; she had played for big stakes and lost—­ through no fault of her own, but through the treachery of others.  Well, this was not her first defeat, and certainly it would not be her last opportunity.  She would pretend to yield; she would go away and wait.  Yes, that was best.  She could always return, and so long as her money lasted, so long as those blessed powders were available, she was assured of bodily and mental comfort at least.  Meanwhile no one could rob her of her secret, and sometime, somehow it could be coined into money.  Bob Wharton, John Merkle, the Hammon women, through their influence with the police, might exile her from New York, might hound her from place to place, but so long as she retained that secret they were all more or less in her power and could not deny her at least a comfortable living.  She even smiled contemptuously as she looked back upon the way she had fooled Bob Wharton and the concern he had shown for Lorelei.

Then of a sudden Lilas awoke to the fact that she disliked—­hated —­Bob’s wife.  It seemed as if she had always hated her.  Perhaps it was because of Lorelei’s beauty or her superior ways, or—­yes, because of her clean soul that nothing had been able to smirch.  Character—­what was it but hypocrisy, or a luxury upon which some people prided themselves?  From Lorelei, Lilas’s thoughts wandered naturally to Jim, thence to his companions, and finally to Max Melcher.  One and all, those men, at the first hint of danger to themselves, had thrown her over and sought protection.  That was man-like.  It pleased her at this moment to call down punishments upon them and to imagine the forms those punishments would take if she possessed the power to inflict them.  She owed those fellows something, and in particular she owed Max a grudge, for the whole scheme had been his.