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 call up the friend and ask her and prove you're right?"

Sue looked surprised and contemptuous all at once. "There ain't no friend in Brooklyn," she said. "I was with Pat. His sister's away and he's alone in the apartment."

"Sue!" Dot was startled. "You don't mean that you slept in the same place alone with Pat!"

"Why not?"

"But didn't anything happen? Didn't he try to go pretty far with you?"

"Well, you damn little fool," said Sue. "Where have you been? Of course he tried to go pretty far with me and succeeded. He's succeeded every time he's tried since a year ago last March."

The room whirled before Dot's dizzy gaze. So Sue had let Pat go the limit, and no one had known it. Pat hadn't told any one. Maybe Eddie wouldn't have, either. Sue wasn't considered a bad girl. She hadn't a frightened, persecuted expression.

"Didn't you give in to Eddie before you married him?" asked Sue.

"Yes," said Dot, hesitantly. She had almost forgotten that she had. Two weeks of marriage does make one feel so settled and solvent.

"Well, what are you so shocked for?"

"I ain't shocked, only I didn't think you would."

"That's no compliment," said Sue, gravely. "A girl is a damn fool who holds back."

"Why do you think that?"

"Gee, Dot, you know yourself how you get loving. There's damn little a fellow don't know about you before you say yes. You'll let him get so far that it ain't decent anyhow, and then you stop him. And what for? So that you can tell your girl friends how scared you was on your wedding night."