If a sudden reverse of fortune need not make us cynical, there is perhaps no other experience which brings us face to face so quickly and so closely with the realities of life.
The Lorimers, indeed, had no great cause for complaint; and perhaps, in condemning the Timons of this world, forgot that, as interesting young women, embarked moreover on an interesting enterprise, they were not themselves in a position to gauge the full depths of mundane perfidy.
Of course, after a time, they dropped off from the old set, from the people with whom their intercourse had been a mere matter of social commerce; but, as Phyllis justly observed, when you have no time to pay calls, no clothes to your back, no money for cabs, and very little for omnibuses, you can hardly expect your career to be an unbroken course of festivities.
On the other hand, many of their friends drew closer to them in the hour of need, and a great many good-natured acquaintances amused themselves by patronising the studio in Upper Baker Street, and recommending other people to go and do likewise.
Certainly these latter exacted a good deal for their money; were restive when posed, expected the utmost excellence of work and punctuality of delivery, and, like most of the Lorimers' customers, seemed to think the sex of the photographers a ground for greater cheapness in the photographs.
One evening, towards the middle of October, the girls had assembled for the evening meal—it could not, strictly speaking, be called dinner—in the little sitting-room above the shop.
They were all tired, for the moment discouraged, and had much ado to maintain that cheerfulness which they held it a point of honour never to abandon.
"How the evenings do draw in!" observed Fan, who sat near the window, engaged in fancy-work.
Fanny's housekeeping, by the way, had been tried, and found wanting; and the poor lady had, with great delicacy, been relegated to the vague duty of creating an atmosphere of home for her more strong-minded sisters. Fortunately, she believed in the necessity of a thoroughly womanly presence among them, womanliness being apparently represented to her mind by any number of riband bows on the curtains, antimacassars on the chairs, and strips of embroidered plush on every available article of furniture; and accepted the situation without misgiving.