Now she labored with the more difficult scales, grown weary of them as she thought of the September day, her parasol daintily plucking at the bricks, her assurance and expectancy, and then the strange, brief, but not curt refusal, “No’m, you couldn’t.” A smile she could not understand, some evil in it, had dented the brown girl’s face, had dented her brown cheeks and slightly lifted her lips. Her words had been slowly spoken and her gaze had fixed itself upon the parasol for an instant while the decision was being made, but had traveled then over the blue silk crêpe dress to Theodosia’s face. She remembered the evil of the smile and the slowly spoken refusal, and how they had lain over her evening, had weighted her day as with a rebuff and had brought a distress to her members that had mounted to a deep fatigue. “My sisters,” she said, rubbing the rosin over the hair threads of the bow. A distinct fear stood in her breast for the moment. She opened the window wide. She thought minutely of Americy and Lethy—or Lethe. She wondered which of the names she should think when she thought of the brown girl, and she guessed the origin of the name. “Call it Aphrodite, Aurora, Lethe, call it Lethe, Lethy,” she heard a voice say. Now she thought intently of the two dark women and tried to picture them. They were older than herself. Americy had strange marks like freckles on her face, splotches of deeper brown. There had been some story of her which she could not now distinctly remember. It had something to do with her having been in the jail for stealing or for drunkenness. She found that her penetrating memory yielded her more of Lethe than of Americy, for she could recall Lethe’s face more sharply. Her picture of Lethe’s face was more clear than the detailed story of Americy although she now remembered that it was for drunken brawling that Americy had been incarcerated. The incident belonged a year or two back in time. Americy had been making loud obscene talk on the street, in a brawl with some man, and she had been taken to the lockup. There was something more of it, she remembered, cocaine or whisky. She had pled guilty and had somehow raised the money for the fine when she was tried in the court two days later. “All right, then, my sisters,” she said. A great weariness assailed her and she was aware of fear. There was more to comprehend and the exercises grew irksome, difficult.