The concentration of her purpose in her voice made itself
felt where Frank Parke kept his acuter perceptions, and
put them at her service.

"I remember perfectly," he said.

"_Je m'en felicite_. It is more than I expected. Well,
circumstances have made it so that I must either write
or scrub. Scrubbing spoils one's hands, and besides, it
isn't sufficiently remunerative. So I have come to ask
you whether you seriously thought so, or whether it was
only politeness--_blague_--or what? I know it is horrible
of me to insist like, this, but you see I must." Her big
dark eyed looked at him without a shadow of appeal, rather
as if he were destiny and she were unafraid.

"Oh, I meant it," he returned ponderingly. "You can often
tell by the way people talk that they would write well.
But there are many things to be considered, you know."

"Oh, I know--whether one has any real right to write,
anything to say that makes it worth while. I'm afraid
I can't find that I have. But there must be scullery-maid's
work in literature--in journalism, isn't there? I could
do that, I thought. After all, it's only one's own art
that one need keep sacred." She added the last sentence
a little defiantly.

Bat the correspondent of the _Daily Dial_ was not thinking