the stage unless you've got some
sort of pull?"

"This is my first effort," he explained.

"Well, it's none of my business," she said gloomily. "All I want is the
typing of it, only you should see some of the truck I've had! I've hated
to send in the bill. Waste of good time and paper! I don't suppose yours
is like that, but there ain't much written that's any good, anyway."

"You're a hopeful young person, aren't you?" he remarked, taking a
cigarette from the mantelpiece and lighting it. "Have one?"

"No, thank _you_!" she replied, rising briskly to her feet. "I'm not that
sort that sits about and smokes cigarettes with strange young men. If
you'll let me know when that work's going to be ready, I'll send the
janitor up for it."

He smiled deprecatingly.

"You're not afraid of me, by any chance, are you?" he asked.

Her eyes glowed with contempt as she looked him up and down.

"Afraid of you, sir!" she repeated. "I should say not! I've met all sorts
of men and I know something about them."

"Then sit down again, please," he begged.

She hesitated for a moment, then subsided once more unwillingly into the
chair.

"Don't know as I want to stay up here gossiping," she remarked. "You'd
much better be getting on with your work. Give me one of those
cigarettes, anyway," she added abruptly.

"Do you live in the building?" he enquired, as he obeyed her behest.

"Two flats below with pop," she replied. "He's a bad actor, very seldom
in work, and he drinks. There are just the two of us. Now you know as
much as is good for you. You're English, ain't you?"

"I am," Philip admitted.

"Just out, too, by the way you talk."

"I have been living in Jamaica," he told her, "for many years--clerk in
an office there."

"Better have stayed where you were, I should think, if you've come here
hoping to make a living by that sort of stuff."

"Perhaps you're right," he agreed, "but you see I am here--been here a
week or two, in fact."

"Done much visiting around?" she enquired.

"I've scarcely been out," he confessed. "You see, I don't know the city
except from my windows. It's wonderful from here after twilight."

"Think so," she replied dully. "It's a hard, hammering, brazen sort of
place when you're living in it from hand to mouth. Not but what we don't
get along all right," she added, a little defiantly. "I'm not grumbling."

"I am sure you're not," he assented soothingly. "Tell me--to-night I am a
little tired