"How frightfully tired you look!" she exclaimed, pausing on the staircase as the two made their way up together. "I am, rather," returned Miss Lermontof indifferently. "I've been playing accompaniments all afternoon, and I've had no tea." Diana hesitated an instant, then she said impulsively--"Oh, do come into my room and let me make you a cup." Olga Lermontof regarded her with a faint surprise. "Thanks," she said in her abrupt way. "I will." A cheerful little fire was burning in the grate, and the room presented a very comfortable and home-like appearance, for Diana had added a couple of easy-chairs and several Liberty cushions to its somewhat sparse furniture. A heavy curtain, hung in front of the door to exclude draughts, gave an additional cosy touch, and fresh flowers adorned both chimney-piece and table. Olga Lermontof let her long, lithe figure down into one of the easy-chairs with a sigh of satisfaction, while Diana set the kettle on the fire to boil, and produced from the depths of a cupboard a canister of tea and a tin of attractive-looking biscuits. "I often make my own tea up here," she observed. "I detest having it in that great barrack of a dining-room downstairs. The bread-and-butter is always so thick--like doorsteps!--and the cake is very emphatically of the 'plain, home-made' variety." Olga nodded. "You look very comfortable here," she replied. "If you saw my tiny bandbox of a room on the fourth floor you'd realise what a sybarite you are." Diana wondered a little why Olga Lermontof should need to economise by having such a small room and one so high up. She was invariably well-dressed--Diana had frequently caught glimpses of silken petticoats and expensive shoes--and she had not in the least the air of a woman who is accustomed to small means. Almost as though she had uttered her thought aloud, Miss Lermontof replied to it, smiling rather satirically. "You're thinking I don't look the part? It's true I haven't always been so poor as I am now. But a lot of my money is invested in Ru--abroad, and owing to--to various things"--she stammered a little--"I can't get hold of it just at present, so I'm dependent on what I make. And an accompanist doesn't earn a fortune, you know. But I can't quite forego pretty clothes--I wasn't brought up that way. So I economise over my room." Diana was rather touched by the little confidence; somehow she didn't fancy the other had found it very easy to make, and she liked her all the better for it. "No," she agreed, as she poured out two steaming cups of tea. "I suppose accompanying doesn't pay as well as some other things--the stage, for example. I should think Adrienne de Gervais makes plenty of money." "She has private means, I believe," returned Miss Lermontof. "But, of course, she gets an enormous salary."