How much does Ditmar give you, sweetheart?"

Janet, infuriated, flew at her sister. Lise struggled to escape.

"Leave me go" she whimpered in genuine alarm, and when at length she was
released she went to the mirror and began straightening her hat, which
had flopped to one side of her head. "I didn't mean nothin', I was only
kiddie' you--what's the use of gettin' nutty over a jest?"

"I'm not like-you," said Janet.

"I was only kiddin', I tell you," insisted Lise, with a hat pin in her
mouth. "Forget it."

When Lise had gone out Janet sat down in the rocking-chair and began to
rock agitatedly. What had really made her angry, she began to perceive,
was the realization of a certain amount of truth in her sister's
intimation concerning Ditmar. Why should she have, in Lise, continually
before her eyes a degraded caricature of her own aspirations and ideals?
or was Lise a mirror--somewhat tarnished, indeed--in which she read the
truth about herself? For some time Janet had more than suspected that her
sister possessed a new lover--a lover whom she refrained from discussing;
an ominous sign, since it had been her habit to dangle her conquests
before Janet's eyes, to discuss their merits and demerits with an
engaging though cynical freedom. Although the existence of this gentleman
was based on evidence purely circumstantial, Janet was inclined to
believe him of a type wholly different from his predecessors; and the
fact that his attentions were curiously intermittent and irregular
inclined her to the theory that he was not a resident of Hampton. What
was he like? It revolted her to reflect that he might in some ways