youth is going, going. And my youth is all I
have."

She looked at Arlee with eyes where her terror was visible, and all
the lines of her pretty, common little face were changed and
sharpened, and her babyish lips dragged down strangely at the
corners.

A surge of pity went through Arlee Beecher. "Oh, you will escape,"
she heard herself saying eagerly. "And I will escape--or--or----"

"Or?"

"Or I will kill myself," she whispered quiveringly.

The little Viennese stared hard at her, and a sudden crinkle of
amusement darted across the bright shallows of her eyes. "Come,
love is not so bad," she said, "and Hamdi can be charming." Then as
she saw a shudder run through the young girl before her, "Oh, if you
do not fancy him!" she cried airily, yet with a keen look.

But Arlee's two hands sought and covered up the scarlet shame in her
face. She did not cry; she felt that every tear in her was dried in
that bitter flame. Her whole body seemed on fire, burning with fury
and revulsion and that awful sense of humiliation.

The other stirred restively, "Come, do not cry--I hate people to
cry. It makes everything so worse. And do not talk of killing. It is
not so easy anyway, that killing. Do I not think I will die and end
all when my rage is hot--but how? How? I cannot beat my head out
against the wall like a Russian. I cannot stick a penknife in my
throat or eat glass. To do that one must be a monster of courage.
And I have no poison to eat, no gas to turn on.... Then the mood
goes and the day is bright and I look in the glass and say, 'Die?
Die for you? Kill all this beautiful young thing that has such joy
to dance and sing? Never! Some day I will be out of this and laugh
at the memory of such blackness.' And so I practice my voice and my
steps--and I wait my chance. When you came, yesterday, first I was
furious to be pushed out, then I think it is the chance, maybe. I
think you would be glad to help me to get out and not to stay to
make you jealous. But if you are also in the trap----" Her voice
fell dispiritedly. She d