“One afternoon last September, at Nadie Palicsky’s—­there is no chance that you will remember, but I assure you it is so—­you told me that I might, if I tried—­write, monsieur.”

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 of that aspect of the matter.  “It’s not a thing you can jump into,” he said shortly.  “Have you written anything, anywhere, for the press before?”

“Only one or two things that have appeared in the local paper at home.  They were more or less admired by the people there, so far as that goes.”

“Were you paid for them?”

Elfrida shook her head.  “I’ve often heard the editor say he paid for nothing but his telegrams,” she said.

“There it is, you see.”

“I want to write for Raffini’s Chronicle,” Elfrida said quickly.  “You know the editor of Raffini, of course, Mr. Parke.  You know everybody.  Will you do me the very great favor to tell him that I will report society functions for him at one half the price he is accustomed to pay for such writing, and do it more entertainingly?”

Frank Parke smiled.  “You are courageous indeed, Hiss Elfrida.  That is done by a woman who is invited, every where in her proper person, and knows ‘tout Paris’ like her alphabet I believe she holds stock in Raffini; anyway, they would double her pay rather than lose her.  You would have more chance of ousting their leader-writer.”

“I should be sorry to oust anybody,” Elfrida returned with dignity.

“How do you propose to help it, if you go in for doing better or cheaper what somebody else has been doing before?”

Miss Bell thought for a minute, and demonstrated her irresponsibility with a little shrug.  “Then I’m very sorry,” she said.  “But, monsieur, you haven’t told me what to do.”