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.”

She was drinking her tea appreciatively, and a little colour had crept into her cheeks, although the shadows still lay heavily beneath her light-green eyes.  They were of a curious translucent green, the more noticeable against the contrasting darkness of her hair and brows; they reminded one of the colour of Chinese jade.

“I’ve just been to tea with Miss de Gervais,” volunteered Diana, after a pause.

A swift look of surprise crossed Olga Lermontof’s face.

“I didn’t know you had met her,” she said slowly.

“Yes, we met at Signor Baroni’s the other day.  She came in during my lesson.  I believe I told you she had taken a house at Crailing, so that at home we are neighbours, you see.”

“Miss Lermontof consumed a biscuit in silence.  Then she said abruptly:—­

“Miss Quentin, I know you don’t like me, but—­well, I have an odd sort of wish to do you a good turn.  You had better have nothing to do with Adrienne de Gervais.”