“She’ll get in Dutch if she doesn’t look out,” he thought as he went about his preparations for the night.... “A funny type.... Rather convincing.... Or a consummate actress.... But she’s most amusing anyway. Let’s see how she turns out.... She _looks_ hungry.... What a little fool!... Now, you couldn’t put this over on the stage or in a story.... Your public is too wise. They don’t grow that kind of girl these days.... That’s romantic stuff and it won’t go with the wise guy.... You can’t pull a character like this girl on any New York audience. And yet, there she is--in there, scrubbing herself, if I can judge by the sound of running water.... No, she doesn’t exist.... And yet, there she is!... Only I’m too clever to believe in her.... There is no fool like a smart one.... That is why the Great American Ass is the greatest ass on earth....” CHAPTER IX Mrs. Sniffen, who had looked after Annan for thirty years, found him bathed, shaved, and dressed, and busy writing when she brought him his breakfast tray. “The gentleman in the other room, Mr. Barry--when is he to ’ave ’is breakfast?” “It’s a lady, old dear.” Mrs. Sniffen’s pointed nose went up with a jerk. He had been counting on that. He liked to see Mrs. Sniffen’s nose jerk upward. “A pretty lady,” he added, “with bobbed hair. I met her accidentally about two o’clock this morning in Central Park.” When the effect upon Mrs. Sniffen had sufficiently diverted him, he told her very briefly the story of Eris. “I’m writing it now,” he added, grinning. “Sob-stuff, Xantippe. I’m going to make a little gem of it. It’ll be a heart-yanking tragedy--predestined woe from the beginning. That’s what they want to-day,--weeps. So I’m going to make ’em snivel.... Moral stuff, old dear. You’ll like it. Now, be nice to that girl in there when she wakes up----” He put his arm around Mrs. Sniffen’s starched and angular shoulders as she indignantly placed his tray on the desk before him. “Leave me be, Mr. Barry,” she said sharply. Some of the parties given by Annan had been attended by what Mrs. Sniffen considered “hussies.” Annan gave various sorts of parties. Some were approved by Mrs. Sniffen, some she disapproved. Her sentiments made a chilling difference in her demeanour, not in her efficiency. She was a trained servant first of all. She had been in Annan’s family for forty years. “Be kind to her,” repeated Annan, giving Mrs. Sniffen a pat and a hug. “She’s a good little girl.... Too good, perhaps, to survive long. She’s the sort of girl you read about in romance forty years ago. She’s a Drury Lane victim. They were all fools, you know. I couldn’t leave the suffering heroine of a Victorian novel out in the Park all night, could I, old dear?” “It’s your ’ouse, Mr. Barry,” said Mrs. Sniffen grimly. “Don’t be trying to get around me with your imperent, easy ways----”