"Oh, the other girls," she repeated, with a contemptuous laugh. "Don't worry about the other girls. People can always afford to be generous in this world if it doesn't hurt themselves and does hurt somebody else. One or two of them came here to condole with me, and I'm sure they got more pleasure out of seeing my wretched lodging than I got out of their sympathy. Come in and forget all about them." Sylvia squeezed her pudgy hand gratefully; it was a relief to find that the object of so much commiseration had grasped the shallowness of it. "Who are your friends?" she whispered. "The man's a juggler who wants an engagement at the Trianon. He's a Swiss called Krebs. The girl's an English dancer and singer called Maud. You'll see them both up there to-night for certain. You may as well come in. What a dreary day, isn't it?" Sylvia agreed and was aware of ascribing to the weather the faint malaise that she experienced on following Lottie into her room, which smelled of stale wall-paper and musty wood, and which, on account of the overhanging tree and the dirty French windows, was dark and miserable enough. "Excuse me getting up to shake hands," said Krebs, in excellent English. "But this furniture is too luxurious." He was lying back, smoking a cigarette in an armchair all the legs of which were missing and the rest of it covered with exudations of flocculence that resembled dingy cauliflowers. Sylvia saw that he was a large man with a large undefined face of dark complexion. He offered a huge hand, brutal and clumsy in appearance, an inappropriate hand for a juggler, she thought, vaguely. His companion, crudely colored and shapeless as a quilt, sprawled on another chair. Everything about this woman was defiant; her harsh accent, the feathers in her hat, her loose mouth, her magenta cheeks, her white boa, and her white boots affronted the world like an angry housemaid. "This is a fine hole, this Rumania," she shrilled. "Gawd! I went to the English consul at Galantza, expecting to be treated with a little consideration, and the---- pushed me out of his office. Yes, we read a great deal about England nowadays, but I've been better treated by everybody than what I have by the English. Stuck-up la-di-da set of----, that's what they are, and anybody as likes can hear me say so." She raised her voice for the benefit of the listeners without that might be waiting anxiously upon her words. "Don't kick up such a row," Krebs commanded; but Maud paid no attention to him and went on.