The other inhabitants of 6, Montague Square, she saw very rarely. Occasionally she would encounter Miss Drummond, the downstairs tenant, paying off her taxi at the door--a tall, handsome girl, rather overblown in her beauty, who invariably stared at Joan with haughty defiance and stalked into her own room, calling loudly for Mrs. Carew. Once Joan had stumbled over the retired military gentleman from the second floor, sound asleep, in a very undignified position, half way up her own little stairs. The incident had brought with it a shudder of fear, and from that day onwards Joan was always careful to lock her door at night. Miss Fanny Bellairs, the erring damsel on the second floor back, kept such strange hours that she was never visible; but Mrs. Carew had a large stock of not very savoury anecdotes about her which she would recount to Joan during the process of laying supper. As not even an earthquake would have stopped Mrs. Carew's desire to impart information, Joan gave up the attempt to silence her. Indeed, she sometimes listened with a certain amount of curiosity, and Fanny Bellairs assumed a marvellous personality and appearance in her mind's eye. That the original did not in the least come up to her expectations was something of a surprise. About three months after her first arrival at Montague Square Joan reached home rather late one evening to find her room already occupied. A girl sat, her feet tucked underneath her, on the principal chair under the lamplight; she had been crying, for a tight, damp ball of a handkerchief lay on the floor, and at the sound of Joan's entry she turned a tear-stained face to greet her. "I thought you were never coming"--the voice held a plaintive sob in it--"and I am that down-hearted and miserable." Joan put down her things hastily and came across. "I am so sorry," she said, groping through her mind to discover who her visitor might be; "did Mrs. Carew tell you I was in?--how stupid of her." The girl in the chair gulped back her tears and laughed. "No, she didn't," she contradicted; "she told me that you wouldn't want to see me if you were in; that the likes of you did not know the likes of me, and that I was not to come up. But I came"--she held out impulsive hands. "I guess you aren't angry," she said; "when I get the silly hump, which isn't often, I go mad if I have to stay by myself. I'll be as good as"--she glanced round the room--"as good as you," she finished, "if you will let me stay." "Why, of course," said Joan. "I don't know what Mrs. Carew can have been talking about. I don't know you, so I can't see how she can have thought I would not want to see you."