"Most thrilling!" And Morgana gave a little yawn. "Is that breakfast? Yes? Stay with me while I have it! Are you the head chambermaid at the Plaza?"

Manella shrugged her shoulders.

"I do not know what I am! I do everything I am asked to do as well as I can."

"Obliging creature! And are you well paid?"

"As much as I want"--Manella answered, indifferently. "But there is no pleasure in the work."

"Is there pleasure in ANY work?"

"If one works for a person one loves,--surely yes!" the girl murmured as if she were speaking to herself, "The days would be too short for all the work to be done!"

Morgana glanced at her, and the flash of her eyes had the grey-blue of lightning. Then she poured out the coffee and tasted it.

"Not bad!" she commented--"Did you make it?"

Manella nodded, and went on talking at random.

"I daresay it's not as good as it ought to be"--she said--"If you had brought your own maid I should have asked HER to make it. Women of your class like their food served differently to us poor folk, and I don't know their ways."

Morgana laughed.

"You quaint, handsome thing! What do you know about it? What, in your opinion, IS my class?"