saw
one before off the stage."

"Don't be silly," he remonstrated. "He has four other flats to look after
besides mine. It's the way one lives, nowadays, cheaper than ordinary
hotels or rooms. Take off your coat."

She obeyed him, depositing it carefully in a safe place. Then she
strolled around the room, finding pictures little to her taste, and
finally threw herself into an easy-chair.

"Are we going to work before we eat?" she asked.

"No, afterwards," he told her. "Have a cigarette?"

She held it between her fingers but declined a match.

"I'll wait for the cocktails," she decided. "Now listen here, Mr. Ware,
there's a word or two I'd like to say to you."

"Go ahead," he invited listlessly.

"You men," she continued, looking him squarely in the face, "think a lot
too much of yourselves. You think so much of yourselves that as often as
not you've no time to think of other folk. A month or so ago who were
you? You were hiding in a cheap tenement house, scared out of your wits,
dressed pretty near as shabbily as I was, with a detective on your track,
and with no idea of what you were going to do for a living. And now look
at you. Who's done it all?"

"Of course, my play being successful," he began--

She broke in at once.

"You and your play! Who took your play? Who produced it at the New York
Theatre and acted in it so that people couldn't listen without a sob in
their throats and a tingling all over? Yours isn't the only play in the
world! I bet Miss Dalstan has a box full of them. She probably chose
yours because she knew that you were feeling pretty miserable, because
she'd got sorry for you coming over on the steamer, because she has a
great big heart, and is always trying to do something for others. She's
made a man of you. Oh! I know a bit about plays. I know that with the
royalties you're drawing you can well afford rooms like these and
anything else you want. But that isn't all she's done. She's introduced
you to her friends, she's taken more notice of you than any man around.
She takes you out automobile driving, she lets you spend all your spare
time in her rooms. She don't mind what people say. You dine with her and
take her home after the play. You have more of her than any other person
alive. Say, what I want to ask is--do you think you're properly
grateful?"

"I couldn't ever repay Miss Dalstan," he acknowledged, a little sadly,
"but--"

"Look here, no 'buts'!" she interrupted. "You thi