So, on the following afternoon, Olga sat alone, in readiness for her visitor.  She had paid a little more attention than usual to her appearance, but was perfectly self-possessed; a meeting with Piers Otway had never yet quickened her pulse, and would not do so to-day.  If anything, she suffered a little from low spirits, conscious of having played a rather disingenuous part before Kite, and not exactly knowing to what purpose she had done so.  It still rained; it had been gloomy for several days.  Looking at the heavy sky above the gloomy street, Olga had a sense of wasted life.  She asked herself whether it would not have been better, on the decline of her love-fever, to go back into the so-called respectable world, share her mother’s prosperity, make the most of her personal attractions, and marry as other girls did—­if anyone invited her.  She was doing no good; all the experience to be had in a life of mild Bohemianism was already tasted, and found rather insipid.  An artist she would never become; probably she would never even support herself.  To imagine herself really dependent on her own efforts, was to sink into misery and fear.  The time had come for a new step, a new beginning, yet all possibilities looked so vague.

A knock at the door.  She opened, and saw Piers Otway.

If they had been longing to meet, instead of scarcely ever giving a thought to each other, they could not have clasped hands with more warmth.  They gazed eagerly into each other’s eyes, and seemed too much overcome for ordinary words of greeting.  Then Olga saw that Otway looked nothing like so well as when on his visit to England some couple of years ago.  He, in turn, was surprised at the change in Olga’s features; the bloom of girlhood had vanished; she was handsome, striking, but might almost have passed for a married woman of thirty.

“A queer place, isn’t it?” she said, laughing, as Piers cast a glance round the room.

“Is this your work?” he asked, pointing to the posters.

“No, no!  Mine isn’t for exhibition.  It hides itself—­with the modesty of supreme excellence!”

Again they looked at each other; Olga pointed to a chair, herself became seated, and explained the conditions of her life here.  Bending forward, his hands folded between his knees, Otway listened with a face on which trouble began to reassert itself after the emotion of their meeting.

“So you have really begun business at last?” said Olga.

“Yes.  Rather hopefully, too.”

“You don’t look hopeful, somehow.”

“Oh, that’s nothing.  Moncharmont has scraped together a fair capital, and as for me, well, a friend has come to my help, I mustn’t say who it is.  Yes, things look promising enough, for a start.  Already I’ve seen an office in the City, which I think I shall take.  I shall decide to-morrow, and then—­avos!”

“What does that mean?”

“A common word in Russian.  It means ‘Fire away.’”