Lise’s objective manner of speaking about her seducer amazed Janet.

“Do you love him?” she asked.

“Say, what is love?” Lise demanded.  “Do you ever run into it outside of the movies?  Do I love him?  Well, he’s a good looker and a fancy dresser, he ain’t a tight wad, and he can start a laugh every minute.  If he hadn’t put it over on me I wouldn’t have been so sore.  I don’t know he ain’t so bad.  He’s weak, that’s the trouble with him.”

This was the climax!  Lise’s mental processes, her tendency to pass from wild despair to impersonal comment, her inability, her courtesan’s temperament that prevented her from realizing tragedy for more than a moment at a time—­even though the tragedy were her own—­were incomprehensible to Janet.

“Get on to this,” Lise adjured her.  “When I first was acquainted with him he handed me a fairy tale that he was taking five thousand a year from Humphrey and Gillmount, he was going into the firm.  He had me razzle-dazzled.  He’s some hypnotizes as a salesman, too, they say.  Nothing was too good for me; I saw myself with a house on the avenue shopping in a limousine.  Well, he blew up, but I can’t help liking him.”

“Liking him!” cried Janet passionately.  “I’d kill him that’s what I’d do.”

Lise regarded her with unwilling admiration.

“That’s where you and me is different,” she declared.  “I wish I was like that, but I ain’t.  And where would I come in?  Now you’re wise why I can’t go back to Hampton.  Even if I was stuck on the burg and cryin’ my eyes out for the Bagatelle I couldn’t go back.”

“What are you going to do?” Janet demanded.

“Well,” said Lise, “he’s come across—­I’ll say that for him.  Maybe it’s because he’s scared, but he’s stuck on me, too.  When you dropped in I was just going down town to get a pair of patent leathers, these are all wore out,” she explained, twisting her foot, “they ain’t fit for Boston.  And I thought of lookin’ at blouses—­there’s a sale on I was reading about in the paper.  Say, it’s great to be on easy street, to be able to stay in bed until you’re good and ready to get up and go shopping, to gaze at the girls behind the counter and ask the price of things.  I’m going to Walling’s and give the salesladies the ha-ha—­that’s what I’m going to do.”

“But—?” Janet found words inadequate.

Lise understood her.

“Oh, I’m due at the doctor’s this afternoon.”

“Where?”

“The doctor’s.  Don’t you get me?—­it’s a private hospital.”  Lise gave a slight shudder at the word, but instantly recovered her sang-froid.  “Howard fixed it up yesterday—­and they say it ain’t very bad if you take it early.”

For a space Janet was too profoundly shocked to reply.

“Lise!  That’s a crime!” she cried.

“Crime, nothing!” retorted Lise, and immediately became indignant.  “Say, I sometimes wonder how you could have lived all these years without catching on to a few things!  What do you take me for!  What’d I do with a baby?”