“But you don’t like work?” she asked, determined to get to the root of the matter. “You—you look, rather, as if you were both a student and fond of a good time like other girls. Once I thought I should have to go to work, and, frankly, I hated the bare idea.” Mrs. Brewster smiled. “If you have to do a thing it is better to like it than hate it, don’t you think? But you are rather shrewd, you know. As a matter of fact I am fond of reading and study, and my job leaves me a good many hours of leisure. I also love good times, of course, but when you have a certain object in life——” Her voice faltered and she blushed and glanced hesitatingly at this odd visitor who looked like a boy with an eager girl’s face, and whom she had thought at first she should find detestable. But Miss Carteret was not in the least like other masculine women she had met, and when she forgot to be hard and crisp her voice had deep warm notes that were as attractive an anomaly as those long black eyelashes under that awful sailor hat. “Yes?” asked Gita, who was now neither the polite Miss Carteret nor the aggressive lad but merely one girl interested in another. “Do tell me what is the object.” Elsie Brewster smiled as warmly in response and succumbed to the revulsion of feeling. “You see—I lead a double life.” “What!” Gita’s eyes sparkled. There was no mystery whatever about Polly and her group. “What on earth do you mean? You’re not secretly married again——Oh! No! That would be too commonplace.” “I should think so. No—but this is quite a secret—my ambition is to be a writer—a novelist, if possible. I’ve had a few things accepted by the magazines: two or three by the best, others just anywhere my agent could place them. Of course it will be a long time before I can make a real income out of writing and give up my job—my mother’s income hardly covers the rent of this house and her subscriptions to charities, and club dues—what I make supports us very comfortably. Reputation—the kind that is remunerative, at least—takes time; but I know I shall succeed in the end!” “You look as if you would.” Gita glowed with enthusiasm. “I’m frightfully interested. I do wish I had a gift. But I should think that after a hard day’s work you’d be too tired to write.” “Sometimes I am, but as a rule I manage to put in three or four hours at night.” “I think you are wonderful! Where do you write your stories?” She glanced around the stiff inhospitable room, furnished in the reps of the seventies. “In your bedroom?” “Oh, no, I have a real study. Should you like to see it?” “Shouldn’t I! Lead me to it.” She followed Mrs. Brewster down the long hall and into a small room fitted up with a large flat desk to which a typewriter was firmly attached, a swivel chair, revolving bookcases, stands for dictionary and atlas, and a filing cabinet.