"I suppose," went on the unlucky questioner, "that you will soon be joining her?"
"Do you?" asked Brigit.
"Do I what?"
"Suppose so?" And Miss M'Caw was alone, staring after the tall figure in the plain white frock, that for all its plainness looked so out of place in Cromwell Mansions.
Unlocking her door, Brigit went into her sitting-room and lit a cigarette. She had taken the flat from a friend who had been sent abroad by her doctor, and the whole place was absurdly unsuited to its present owner.
Maidie Conyers was blonde and small, so the room was pale blue and "cosy." There were embroidered pillows on the buttony Chesterfield, lace shades to the electric lights, and be-rosebudded liberty silk curtains.
Brigit hated the house, but it was cheap, and she had little money.
With a grunt of furious distaste she sat down in a satin chair, and leaning back began to smoke. The tables in the room were very bare, for the chief ornaments had been photographs—in very elaborate frames—of Maidie Conyers' friends, and Brigit, finding that she loathed Maidie Conyers' friends, had banished them one and all.
"Loathsome room," the girl said aloud, lighting a fresh cigarette, "disgusting curtains."
What she in reality felt mostly, though she did not know it, was the lack of room in the flat. Used all her life to the large rooms of Kingsmead, she felt, now that the unusual heat had come, cramped and restless.