“My dear, of course not!” Up went the violet eyes in horror at the bare suggestion.  “You scandalize me.  An innocent child like you!  Not to be thought of for a moment!  Rather than that, I would have come and shared the burden with you myself!”

“That’s exactly what I have come to ask you to do,” said Olga eagerly.  “Do say you can!  You can’t think how welcome you will be!”

“My dear, you’re so impetuous!” Violet was just a year her junior, but this fact was never recognized.  “Pray give me time to deliberate.  You forget that I also have a family to consider.  What will Bruce say if I desert him at a moment’s notice?”

“I’m sure Bruce won’t mind.  Can’t we go and ask him?”

“Presently, my child.  He is not at home just at present.  Neither is Mrs. Bruce.”  The daintiest grimace in the world testified to the opinion entertained by the speaker for the latter.  “Moreover, Bruce and I had a difference of opinion this morning and are not upon speaking terms.  So unfortunate that he is so difficile.  By the way, he is hand and glove with the new assistant.  Were you aware of that?”

“I knew that he came to tea here yesterday,” said Olga.

“Oh!  And how did you find that out?”

“He told me.”

“You mean you asked him!”

“Indeed, I didn’t!” Olga refuted the charge with indignation.  “I don’t take the smallest interest in his doings.”

“Not really?” Her friend looked at her with a comprehending smile.  “Don’t you like the young man?” she enquired.

“I detest him!” Olga declared with vehemence.

Again the slender little finger flicked the ash from the cigarette.  “But what a mistake, dear!” murmured the owner thereof.  “Young men don’t grow on every gooseberry bush.  Besides, one can never tell!  The object of one’s detestation might turn out to be the one and only, and it’s so humiliating to have to change one’s mind.”

“I shall never change mine with regard to Dr. Wyndham,” Olga said with great determination.  “I should hate him quite as badly even if he were the only man in the world.”

But at that the cigarette was suddenly whisked from the soft lips and pointed full at her.  “Allegro,”—­it was Violet Campion’s special name for her, and she uttered it weightily,—­“mark my words and ponder them well!  You have met your fate!”

“Violet!  How dare you say such a thing?” Olga turned crimson with indignant protest.  “I haven’t!  I wouldn’t!  It’s horrid of you to talk like that!”

“Quite indecent, dear, I admit.  But have you never noticed how indecent the truth can be?  What a pity to waste such a lovely blush on me!  I presume he hasn’t begun to make love to you yet?”

“Of course he hasn’t!  No man would be such a fool with you within reach!” thrust back Olga, goaded to self-defence.

“But I am not within reach,” said Violet, with a twirl of the cigarette.