"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."