Her face twitched with eagerness to be understood; she tried to put her arm around her mother; but Mrs. Payton turned a rigid cheek to her lips; and instantly Fred lapsed back into contempt of unreality. The fact was, the deed was done. Each had told the other the truth. Mother and daughter had both seen the flash of the blade of fact as it cut pretense between them. Never again would Mrs. Payton's vanity over duty done dare to raise its head in her daughter's presence: Freddy knew that, so far as her married life went, duty had been cowardly acquiescence. Never again would Frederica be able to fling at her mother her superior morality: Mrs. Payton knew she was cruel, knew she was "just like her father."... Like Andy Payton! She ground her teeth with disgust, but she could not deny it. She was so truthful that she saw the Truth; saw her father's intelligence in her own clear mind; his ability in hers; his meanness in her ruthless smartness in proving a point. She hated him for these things--but she hated herself more. Mrs. Payton told Arthur Weston of this revealing scene; but her confession confined itself to her remorse for having said she loved one child more than the other. "Of course I love them just _exactly_ the same, but Freddy was wicked to speak disrespectfully of her father." Then Frederica poured her contrition into his pitying ears. "I was a beast, but I was not a liar." "It isn't necessary to be a beast, to be truthful," he reminded her. "I made her cry," she said. "Father used to do that. Do--do you think I'm like him?" "Like your father? Good Lord, no!" he said, in horrified haste; then apologized. "I--I mean, Mr. Payton was a very able man, I had great respect for his brains; but he was--severe." "'Severe'? Well, I'm 'severe,' I suppose? No; the trouble with me is, I'm hideously truthful--_and I like to be_." CHAPTER V The ridiculous part of Fred's dash for freedom was that she actually picked up a client or two! Of course, her commissions did not quite pay for the advertising that brought the clients--"But what difference does that make?" she demanded. Arthur Weston, who had come up to the "office" on the tenth floor to check over a bill for her, said, "Oh, no difference, of course. You remind me of the old lady, Fred, who bought eggs for twenty-four cents a dozen and sold them for twenty-three cents. And when asked how she could afford to do that, said it was because she sold so many of them." "I don't care," she said, doggedly; "when you begin you've got to put up something. I'm putting up my time. If I come out even--" "You won't," he prophesied. "Your old dames are coming to-morrow," she said. She had fastened Zip to the umbrella-rack and was sitting on her office table, showing a candid and very pretty leg in a thin silk stocking; she looked at him with the unselfconscious gaze of a child.