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 looking; and who'd you think I was steering you up against? A bunch of dead ones?" And she put the rest of her pins in her mouth and tossed back her hair.

Marjorie's impulse was to bolt from the room; for the instant she had a home in Evanston to which she could fee; then she controlled herself. "You needn't swear at me," all she said.

"You needn't be so damned superior to my friends. Are you, anyway? Are you?" Clara demanded clearly, gathering the pins from her lips and depositing them on her bed. "You and I might just as well have a show-down right now, Marjorie whatever-your-real-name-is. What're you here for?"

"I've told you," Marjorie evaded.

"Sure you told me you wanted to room here; going to get a job, support yourself. Family's had reverses; all right. You say you like the looks of me; I liked the looks of you, and I do right now, Marjorie; never better. You pay your half the room for a week while you're not here; that's square; now you show up, hear I'm going to Sennen's. I say want to come along? You say, who with? I say, two men want to take me; I'll spare you one. I do it; he takes you into town and gives you a good time and you knock him and everybody else but one, who probably didn't have any pep in him. Now what'd Jake do or Sam Troufrie, or whoever they all were, when I wasn't looking?"

"Nothing different from when you were looking," Marjorie rejoined steadily.

"Oh!" said Clara, and braided her hair thoughtfully for a minute, gazing away.

Marjorie's mind took one of those recesses which one requires between tensest struggles. How beautiful Clara was, she observed; what wonderful smooth, dark