"And it isn't," she added hastily, "it isn't, you know, because we're not used to men. There isn't one of us--from the time we were sixteen years old--who hasn't been quite accustomed to entertain anywhere from three to a dozen men every evening of her life. But we can't entertain them the way 'Little Sister' does." A hot, red wave of mortification flooded her face. "We tried it once," she confessed, "and it didn't work. Just before the last winter party seven of us girls got together and deliberately made up our minds to beat 'Little Sister' at her own game. Wasn't it disgusting of us to start out actually and deliberately with the intention of being just a little wee bit free and easy with men?" "How did it work?" persisted Sagner, half agrin. The color flushed redder and redder into Madge Hubert's cheeks. "I went to the party with the new psychology substitute," she continued bravely, "and as I stepped into the carriage I called him 'Fred'--and he looked as though he thought I was demented. But fifteen minutes afterward I heard 'Little Sister' call him 'Psyche'--and he laughed." She began to laugh herself. "But how did the party come out?" probed Sagner, going deeper and deeper. The girl sobered instantly. "There were seven of us," she said, "and we all were to meet at the house of one of the girls at twelve o'clock and compare experiences. Three of us came home at ten o'clock--crying. And four of us didn't turn up till half-past one--laughing. But the ones who came home crying were the only ones who really had any fun out of it. The game was altogether too easy--that was the trouble with it. But the four who came home laughing had been bored to death with their _un_-successes." "Which lot were you in?" cried Sagner. She shook her head. "I won't tell you," she whispered. With almost startling pluck she jumped up suddenly and switched the electric light full blast into her tense young face and across her resolute shoulders. "Look at me!" she cried. "Look at me! As long as men are men--what have I that can possibly, possibly compete with a girl like 'Little Sister'? Can I climb up into a man's face every time I want to speak to him? Can I pat a man's shoulder every time he passes me in a room? Can I hold out my quivering white hand and act perfectly helpless in a man's presence every time that I want to step into a carriage, or out of a chair? Can I cry and grieve and mope into a man's arms at a dance just because I happen to cut my finger on the sharp edge of my dance-order? Bah! If a new man came to town and made not one single man-friend but called all of us girls by our first names the second time he saw us, and rolled his eyes at us, and fluttered his hands, you people would call him the biggest fool in Christendom--but you flock by the dozens and the hundreds and the millions every evening to see 'Little Sister.' And great, grown-up, middle-aged boys like _you_, Bertus Sagner, flock _twice_ in the same evening!"