“You see it isn’t really a studio,” she explained apologetically. “But it has got north light and the sloping room and that bit of skylight makes it quite satisfactory, and then, too, I face the Square and can always see the fountain and the Washington arch and the first green that comes on the trees in May, and I like it. And just because we’re celebrating I’ll put a charcoal fire in the grate and we’ll make tea in the samovar, but first we must take care of the flowers.” For a few minutes she seemed to have forgotten all her troubles. “I do wish I had a pretty vase. It’s almost criminal to put roses in this old jug. Don’t you think the samovar’s pretty? Nels did get me that. Wait a minute; I’ll show you his studio. It’s the next room to this and just like it. He never locks his door.” She stepped out, Ruth following, and pushed open the only half closed door of a room, the exact counterpart in size of her own, but rather more comfortable as to furnishings. “That’s her picture; she must have given it to him last week. I haven’t been in his studio for days and we used to have such corking times together—I worked here more often than in my own room and he always seemed to like having me—” Fearing a return of tears Ruth hastily retreated to Dorothy’s room. Besides she didn’t feel quite comfortable about entering a man’s room during his absence and examining his pictures. “Let’s not think about her; it’s just a phase and he’ll recover and come back to you,” she comforted. “You make the tea and I’ll spread this little table,” she continued, removing a pile of sketches to the floor. In a short space of time there was a real fire burning in the tiny grate, throwing a ruddy glow on the burnished brass of the samovar; in the small room the roses shed a heavy sweet perfume and the two girls chatted cosily over their tea cups. Dorothy smoked a cigarette. “Cigarettes are a party to me,” she exclaimed. “If I could afford to smoke I might not care for it at all, but I can’t, so when I want to be extravagant I smoke; it’s just a symbol.” Now that Dorothy seemed to have put her grief into the background Ruth was beginning to feel restless. On the following day the party was to leave for the Christmas party. They would arrive at their destination on the twenty-third of December and the imminence of the solution of all Ruth’s worries, for either good or evil, made her feel that she should be at the house as much as possible. Could she have done so she would have followed Gloria wherever she went. Most of all she wanted to find out where Professor Pendragon was stopping; and she ought to telephone Terry again to remind him not to forget the revolver. In her own mind she was not exactly sure what she would do with the gun when she got it. “I think I’ll have to run along,” she said. “Oh, and we were having such a good time. I was beginning to be quite cheered up. Wait a minute; that’s him.”