"Mdlle. Stephanie appears to be giving an afternoon dance," said Lucy. "I will go and see if anything is the matter," remarked Gertrude, rising. As a matter of fact she snatched eagerly at this opportunity for separating herself from this group of idle chatterers. She was tired, dispirited, beset with a hundred anxieties; weighed down by a cruel sense of responsibility. How was it all to end? she asked herself, as, oblivious of Mdlle. Stephanie's performance, she lingered on the little dusky landing. That first wave of business, born of the good-natured impulse of their friends and acquaintance, had spent itself, and matters were looking very serious indeed for the firm of G. and L. Lorimer. "We couldn't go on taking Fred's guineas for ever," she thought, a strange laugh rising in her throat. "Perhaps, though, it was wrong of me to refuse to be interviewed by _The Waterloo Place Gazette_. But we are photographers, not mountebanks!" she added, in self-justification. In a few minutes she had succeeded in suppressing all outward marks of her troubles, and had rejoined the people in the sitting-room. "Mrs. Maryon says there is nothing the matter," she cried, with her delightful smile, "and that there is no accounting for these foreigners." Laughter greeted her words, then Conny, rising and shaking out her splendid skirts, declared that it was time to go. "Aren't you ever coming to see us?" she said, giving Gertrude a great hug. "Mama is positively offended, and as for papa--disconsolate is not the word." "You must make them understand how really difficult it is for any of us to come," answered Gertrude, who had a natural dislike to entering on explanations in which such sordid matters as shabby clothes and the comparative dearness of railway tickets would have had to figure largely. "But we are coming one day, of course." "I'll tell you what it is," cried Fred, as they emerged into the street, and stood looking round for a hansom; "Gertrude may be the cleverest, and Phyllis the prettiest, but Lucy is far and away the nicest of the Lorimer girls." "Gerty is worth ten of her, _I_ think," answered Conny, crossly. She was absorbed in furtive contemplation of a light that glimmered in a window above the auctioneer's shop opposite. As the girls were sitting at supper, later on, they were startled by the renewal of those sounds below which had disturbed them in the afternoon. They waited a few minutes, attentive; but this time, instead of dying away, the noise rapidly gathered volume, and in addition to the scuffling, their ears were assailed by the sound of shrill cries, and what appeared to be a perfect volley of objurgations. Evidently a contest was going on in which other weapons than vocal or verbal ones were employed, for the floor and windows of the little sitting-room shook and rattled in a most alarming manner. Suddenly, to the general horror, Fanny burst into tears.