"The fiery lady?" He paused, meditating. "Why do her people let her?"
"She hasn't got any. Her people are all dead."
"How awful. And your small friend, Miss Gunning? Don't say she lives alone, too."
"She doesn't. She lives with her father. He's worse than a family——"
"Worse than a——?" He stared aghast.
"Worse than a family of seven children."
"And that's a misfortune, is it?" He frowned.
"Yes, when you have to keep it—on nothing but what you earn by writing, and when it leaves you neither time nor space to write in."
"I see. She oughtn't to have to do it."
"But she has, and it's killing her. She'd be better if she lived alone."