rying to live it. Don't you?"

"Yes, but I'm old enough to be sorry for us, and you are not."

"I'm rather old," she said; then, as he laughed, she joined him. She was
nearer happy than she had ever been. She was having a real conversation
with a man she liked.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"In a queer sort of place, a tenement house down on----You ought to know
who I am. I don't belong here at all," she added.

"So much the better."

"I came at the last minute, as Mrs. Brendon said, because Mr. Paxton
couldn't get any one else. I'm just a sort of general housekeeper in the
studios around the Square. I take care of artists."

"Studio mother," he smiled. "What else do you do?"

"I read a great deal, and I write."

"Now we come to the gist of the matter. What do you write?"

"I don't know what made me say that. I never told that secret to any one
before."

"Thank you. But writing isn't a crime. If it is, half of New York is in
the criminal class."

"Please don't tell any one I said such a silly thing. What I do is just
nothing."

"It's a secret. I promise. Where do you publish?"

"I don't publish."

"No? You're an author after my own heart. I'm a critic, you see."

"Yes, I know."

"Do you? You read me?"

"Yes, always."

"When may I come and see you?"

"You may not come, please. I--I must go now."

"I have frightened you away."

"No, I only stayed on your account."

"Let me take you home?"

"No, thanks. Good-night."

He took her hand.

"I warn you that I shall find you, Miss Jane Judd. I never lose people
who interest me."

She pressed his hand, smiled, and left him. A few minutes later, as he
was making his way to the door, previous to his own escape, Jerry came
to him.

"Mr. Christiansen, I'm Jerry Paxton. Mrs. Brendon said that you had Miss
Judd with you. I'm looking for her."

"She escaped. I tried hard enough to keep her, but she went home."

"Went home?"

"So she said. Who is she?"

"Why, she's a girl who does things around the studios, I don't know her
very well. She was good, wasn't she?"

"She was the only thing in the show; a most beautiful creature."

"Funny thing, we've never thought she had any looks."

"It isn't the obvious kind of thing that is fashionable now. Odd,
haunting sort of face."

"One thing is obvious. Cinderella did not like the ball," said Jerry.

"Maybe it was the Prince she didn't like. Modern princes are so
disappointing," grinned the big