g the door
after her, and retired to her own apartment.

Edith Franks clasped both her hands to her head.

"Well, really," she thought, "why should I put myself out about an
ungrateful girl of that sort? But there, she is deeply interesting: one
of those strange vagaries of genius. She is a psychological study,
beyond doubt. I must see plenty of her. I have a great mind to take up
psychology as my special branch of the profession; it is so deeply, so
appallingly interesting. Poor girl, she has great genius! When that
story is published all the world will know. I never saw Tom so excited
about anything. He said: 'There is stuff in this.' He said it after he
had read a page; he said it again when he had gone half-way through the
manuscript; and he clapped his hands at the end and said: 'Bravo!' I
know what that means from Tom. He is the most critical of men. He
distrusts everything until it has proved itself good, and yet he
accepted the talent of that story without a demur."

Miss Franks hurriedly moved about the room, changed her dress, smoothed
her hair, washed her hands, looked at her little gun-metal watch, saw
that the quarter of an hour had expired, and tripped downstairs to the
dining-room.

"Will she be there, or will she not?" thought Edith Franks to herself.

She looked eagerly into the great room with its small tables covered
with white cloths. There were seats in the dining-room for one hundred
and fifty people.

Edith Franks, however, looked over to a certain corner, and there, at
one of the tables, quietly waiting for her, and also neatly dressed, sat
Florence Aylmer.

"That is right," said Miss Franks; "you are coming to your senses."

"Yes," answered Florence, "I am coming to my senses."

There was a bright flush on each of her cheeks, and her eyes were
brilliant: she looked almost handsome.

Edith gazed at her with admiration.

"So you are drinking in the delicious flattery: you are preparing for
the fame which awaits you," said the medical student.

"I want to say one thing, Miss Franks," remarked Florence, bending
forward.

"What is that?"

"When you came up this morning to my room I did not wish to give you the
manuscript; you took it from me almost by force. You promised further
that your brother's seeing it would mean nothing. You did not keep your
word. Your brother has seen it, and, from what you tell me, he approves
of it. From what you tell me further, he is going to show it in