"For example?" she repeated, lightly. "Oh, I wasn't contemplating an example. Not that I couldn't give one if I chose." She stopped. Then, stirred by the skeptical look in the Author's eyes, her face took on a sudden look of decision. "And I might," she added, quietly, "if urged."
The Best Seller leaned across the table and laid a small coin on her plate. "I'll urge you," he said. "I'll take a story. We want the thing in fiction form."
The Playwright smiled at him. "Very well," she said, indifferently; "call it what you please—an instance, a story."
"And mind," interrupted the Best Seller, "it's something that didn't happen on this earth."
The Playwright sat silent an instant, intent and thoughtful, as if mentally marshaling her characters before her. "Part of it happened on this earth," she said. "It began two years ago, when a friend of mine, a woman editor, received a letter from a stranger, who was also a woman. The stranger asked for a personal interview. She wished, she said, for the editor's advice. The need had suddenly come to her to make her living. She had had no special training; would the editor talk to her and give her any suggestions she could? The editor consented, naming a day and an hour for the interview, and at the time appointed the stranger called at the other's office.
"She proved to be a beautiful woman, a little over forty, dressed quietly but exquisitely in black, and with the walk and manner of an empress. The editor was immensely impressed by her, but she soon discovered that the stranger was wrapped in mystery. She could learn nothing about her past, her friends, or herself. She was merely a human package dropped from space and labeled 'Miss Driscoll'—the name engraved on her card. Who 'Miss Driscoll' was, where she had come from, what she had done, remained as much of a problem after half an hour of conversation as at the moment she had entered the editor's room. She wanted work; how could she get it? That was her question, but she had no answers for any questions asked by the editor. When they were put to her she hedged and fenced with exquisite skill. She had a charming air of intimacy, of confidence in the editor's judgment, yet nothing came from her that threw any light on her experience or her qualifications.
"All the time they talked the editor studied her. Then suddenly, without warning, she leaned forward and shot out the question that had been slowly forming in her mind.
"'When did you leave your Order?' she asked.
"The stranger stiffened like one who had received an electric shock. The next moment she sagged forward in her chair as if something in her had given way. 'How did you know?' she breathed, at last.
"The editor shook her head. 'I did not know,' she admitted. 'I merely suspected. You have one or two habits which suggest a nun, especially the trick of crossing your hands as if you expected to slip them into flowing sleeves. They look like a nun's hands, too; and your complexion has the convent pallor. Now tell me all you can. I cannot help you until I know more about you.'"