"But, Sonia, don't you see that we can't go on this way?" Olga pleaded. "Don't you feel that you ought to pay half our expenses if you stay with me?" "No, I don't. Why should I pay half?" Sonia demanded. "Your rent is no higher because I am here." "No, but I have to sleep on the floor, and it is not very restful as you would find if you tried it once." "Well, why don't you buy a cot then? You could get one for two dollars." "I need the two dollars for other things," Olga answered wearily. "Do you mean, Sonia, that you are not going to look for a place anywhere else?" "O, I'll look--but I won't be hurried about it," Sonia declared moodily. "Well," Olga spoke with deliberation, "if that is your attitude, there is but one thing for me to do, and that is to go away from here." "Olga! You couldn't be that _mean_!" Sonia sat up straight and stared with startled eyes at the grave face opposite her. "Think, Sonia," said Olga in a low voice, though her heart was beating furiously, "how it would seem to you if I should refuse to work and expect you to support me." "That's different," Sonia muttered sullenly. "How is it different?" "Because you've got your work--I haven't any." "But you might have if you would." "Much you know about it! Did you ever try to find a place in a store?" "When I was thirteen and you left mother and me"--Olga's voice was very low now, but it thrilled with bitter memories--"I walked the streets for three long days hunting for work, and I found it at last in a laundry where I stood from seven in the morning till six at night, with only fifteen minutes at noon. And I stayed there while mother lived, going back to her to care for her through those long dreadful nights of misery. That is what I know about hard work, Sonia!" It was Sonia's turn now to be silent. There was something in Olga's white face and blazing eyes that stilled even her flippant tongue. For a moment her thoughts drifted back, and perhaps for the first time she fully realised what her going then had meant to the little sister upon whose shoulders she had left the heavy burden. But she banished these unpleasant memories with a shrug. "O well, all that's past and gone--no use in raking it up again," she declared. "No, no use," Olga admitted. "But, Sonia, I want you to realise that I mean just what I say. You have come here of your own accord. If you stay you must share our expenses. If you will not, I surely shall go away, and leave you to pay all yourself." Seeing that her sister was determined, Sonia suddenly melted into weak tears. "You are so hard, Olga!" she sobbed. "I don't believe you have any heart at all." "Maybe not," was the grim response. "I've thought sometimes it was broken--or frozen--five years ago." "You keep harking back to that!" Sonia moaned. "I'm not the first girl that has gone away with the man she loved. You have no sympathy--you make no allowances. And I didn't realise how sick mother was. If I had----"