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, perhaps at that moment America's most popular actress. Her eyes seemed to dwell upon the little strands of fair hair that escaped from beneath her smart but simple hat, to take in the slightly deprecating lift of the eyebrows, the very attractive, half appealing smile, the smart grey tailor-made gown with the bunch of violets in her waistband. Elizabeth was as quietly dressed as it was possible for her to be, but her appearance nevertheless brought a note of some other world into the shabby little apartment.
"It's the only thing I ask of life," Martha said, "the only thing I get. I want to be left alone, and I will be left alone. If there is any more work, I will do it. If there isn't, I can find some somewhere else. But visitors I don't want and won't have."
Elizabeth was adorably patient. She surreptitiously drew towards her a cane chair, a doubtful-looking article of furniture upon which she seated herself slowly and with great care.
"Well," she continued, with unabated pleasantness, "that is reasonable as far as it goes, only we didn't quite understand, and it is such a climb up here, isn't it? I came to talk about some work, but I must get my breath first."