"Nothing. Max drops in regularly; he used to be sweet on me." Lilas completed her make-up, then fidgeted nervously. "Gee!" she presently exclaimed, "I'm tired of this business. We're fools to stay in it. Think of Atlantic City on a night like this, or the mountains. This heat has completely unstrung me." She rummaged through the confusion on her table, then inquired of the dresser, "Croft, where are my white gloves?" "They haven't come back from the cleaner's," Mrs. Croft answered. "Not back? Then you didn't send them when I told you. You're getting altogether too shiftless, Croft. When I tell you to do a thing I want it done." "I sent all six pairs--" "You did nothing of the sort." "Oh, Miss Lynn; I hope I drop dead if--" "Don't talk back to me. You always have an excuse, haven't you?" Lilas's voice was strident; her face was dark with sudden anger. "I've a notion to box your ears--" Lorelei broke in reprovingly. "Lilas! Croft is old enough to be your mother." "Yes, and she's old enough to have some sense, but she hasn't got it." "I hope I drop dead if--" "I hope you do," snapped the indignant girl. "I told you to attend to them; now I've nothing but soiled ones." The dresser began to weep silently. She was a small, timid old woman, upon whose manifest need of employment Lorelei had taken pity some time before. Her forgetfulness had long been a trial to both her employers. "That's right; turn on the flood-gates," mocked Lilas, "You stop that sniveling or I'll give you something to cry for. I'm nervous enough to-night without having you in hysterics. Remember, if it ever happens again you'll go--and you'll take something with you to think about." Seizing the cleanest pair of gloves at hand, she flung out of the room in a fine fury. "You won't let her--fire me? I need work, I do," quavered Mrs. Croft. "Now, now. Don't mind her temper. But you really ought to see to her gloves when--" "I hope I drop dead this minute if I didn't send 'em out the very day she told me." "Croft, you're fibbing. You know Lilas is excitable." "Excitable?" Croft wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron. "Is that what you call it? How ever you can bear her I don't see, and you a nice girl. She won't do you no good, Miss Knight." "Oh, pshaw! She was nervous." "I should think she would be. I'll be glad if her millionaire takes her out of the business, like she thinks he will. Poor man! He's laying up trouble for himself, that he is. She'll land him in the divorce court--with her flesh-light photographs." Lorelei swung around from her mirror. "What do you mean?" "Oh, I heard her and that Jew--I beg pardon, Miss Knight. You ain't a Jew, are you?" "What about the flash-lights?" "There's so many Hebrew girls in the profession--Not that I don't like 'em, you understand--" "Go on." "Well, I heard enough to know that she's up to some deviltry--her and that Maxey Melcher. They've got a photographer and witnesses. Your brother is one of 'em."