And then practical memory administered a prosaic jog to her aspiring spirit. Lydia Dawlish was coming to dine with her in the common dining-room or restaurant downstairs. Shivering with cold, she shut the window, turned on the light and sat by the fire, and ordered tea in the most matter-of-fact way in the world. Lydia Dawlish appeared a couple of hours afterwards—fair, plump, and prosperous, attired in one of her own dashing creations of hats set at a rakish angle on her blond hair, and a vast coat of dark fur. Olivia, in her simple black semi-evening frock run up by an agitated Medlow dressmaker, felt a poor little dot of a thing before this regal personage. And when the guest threw off the coat, the flowered silk lining of which was a dazing joy to starved feminine eyes, and revealed the slate-blue dinner gown from which creamy neck and shapely arms emerged insolent, Olivia could do nothing but stare open-mouthed, until power came to gasp her wonder and admiration. “It’s only an old thing,” said Lydia. “I had to put on a compromise between downstairs and Percy’s.” “Percy’s?” “Yes—don’t you know? The night club. I’m going on afterwards.” Olivia’s face fell. “I thought you were going to spend the evening with me.” “Of course I am, silly child. Night clubs don’t begin till eleven. A man, Sydney Rooke, is calling for me. Well. How are you? And what are your plans now you’ve got here?” She radiated health and vigour. Also proclaimed sex defiant, vaguely disquieting to the country bred girl. Olivia felt suddenly shy. “It will take me a few days to turn round.” “Also to find clothes to turn round in,” said Lydia, with a good-humoured yet comprehensive glance at the funny little black frock. “I hope you haven’t been laying in a stock of things like that.” Olivia smiled. This was but a makeshift. She had been saving up for London. Perhaps Lydia would advise her. She had heard of a good place—what did they call it?—an enormous shop in Oxford Street. Lydia threw up her white arms. “My dear child, you’re not going to be a fashionable beauty at subscription dances and whist-drives at Upper Tooting! You’re going to live in London. Good God! You can’t get clothes in Oxford Street.” “Where shall I get them, then?” asked Olivia. From the illustrated papers she had become aware of the existence of Pacotille and Luquin and other mongers of celestial fripperies; but she had also heard of the Stock Exchange and the Court of St. James’s and the Stepney Board of Guardians; and they all seemed equally remote from her sphere of being. “I’ll take you about with me to-morrow,” Lydia declared grandly, “and put you in the way of things. I dare say I can find you a hat or two chez Lydia—that’s me—at cost price.” She laughed and put a patronizing arm around Olivia’s shoulders. “We’ll make a woman of you yet.”