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166 The words had scarcely left Martha's lips before she turned around, conscious of some other influence in the room. Philip stepped forward.

"Miss Grimes," he said, "I have brought Miss Dalstan in to see you. She wants—"

He paused. Something in the stony expression of the girl who had risen to her feet and stood now facing them, her ashen paleness unrelieved by any note of colour, her hands hanging in front of her patched and shabby frock, seemed to check the words upon his lips. Her voice was low but not soft. It seemed to create at once an atmosphere of anger and resentment.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

"I hope you don't mind—I am so anxious that you should do some work for me," Elizabeth explained. "When Mr. Ware first brought me in his play, I noticed how nicely it was typewritten. You must have been glad to find it turn out such a success."

"I take no interest in my work when once it is typed," Martha Grimes declared, "and I am very sorry but I do not like to receive visitors. I am very busy. Mr. Ware knows quite well that I like to be left alone."

Elizabeth smiled at her delightfully.

"But it isn't always good for us, is it," she reminded her, "to live exactly as we would like, or to have our own way in all things?"

There was a moment's rather queer silence. Martha Grimes seemed to be intent upon studying the appearance of her visitor, the very beautiful woman familiar to nearly every one in New York,