wed an elaborate forbearance.

"Rather a poor-spirited attitude, don't you think?"

"Wait and see!" said the English mistress.

She rose and threw herself in a chair by the window, and Claire left the
despised coffee and followed her example. Through the half-opened panes
she looked out on a row of brick houses depressingly dingy, depressingly
alike. About every second house showed a small black card on which the
word "Apartments" was printed in gilt letters. Down the middle of the
street came a fruiterer's cart, piled high with wicker baskets. The cry
of "Bananas, cheap bananas," floated raucously on the air. Claire
swiftly averted her eyes and turned back to her companion.

"It is very good of you to let me share your _appartement_. Miss
Farnborough said she had arranged it with you, but it must be horrid
taking in a stranger. I will try not to be too great a bore!"

But Miss Rhodes refused to be thanked.

"I'm bound to have somebody," said she ungraciously. "Couldn't afford
them alone. You know the terms? Thirty-five shillings a week for the
three rooms. That's cheap in this neighbourhood. We only get them at
that price because we are out all day, and need so little catering."
She looked round the room with her tired, mocking smile. "Hope you
admire the scheme of decoration! I've been in dozens of lodgings, but I
don't think I've ever struck an uglier room; but the people are clean
and honest, and one has to put that before beauty, in our
circumstances."

"There's a great _deal_ of pattern about. It hasn't what one could call
a restful effect!" said Claire, looking across at an ochre wall
bespattered with golden scrawls, a red satin mantel-border painted with
lustre roses, a suite of furniture covered in green stamped plush, a
collection of inartistic pictures, and unornamental ornaments. Even her
spirit quailed before the hopelessness of beautifying a room in which
all the essentials were so hopelessly wrong. She gave it up in despair,
and returned to the question of finance.

"Then my share will be seventeen and six! That seems very cheap. I am
to begin at a hundred and ten pounds. How much extra must I allow for
food?"

"That depends upon your requirements. We have dinner at school; quite a
good meal for ninepence, including a penny for coffee afterwards."

"The same sort of coffee we have had this morning?"

"Practically. A trifle better perhaps. Not much."

"Hurrah!" cried Cl