"You're busy," Sylvia suggested.
"No, no. Come in. One of my friends is an English girl."
"But I wanted to talk to you alone. I wanted to explain that I couldn't refuse to sing again at the Trianon; I've been worrying about you all this time."
"Oh, that's all right," Lottie said, cheerfully. "I never expected anything else."
"But the other girls—"
"Oh, the other girls," she repeated, with a contemptuous laugh. "Don't worry about the other girls. People can always afford to be generous in this world if it doesn't hurt themselves and does hurt somebody else. One or two of them came here to condole with me, and I'm sure they got more pleasure out of seeing my wretched lodging than I got out of their sympathy. Come in and forget all about them."
Sylvia squeezed her pudgy hand gratefully; it was a relief to find that the object of so much commiseration had grasped the shallowness of it.
"Who are your friends?" she whispered.
"The man's a juggler who wants an engagement at the Trianon. He's a Swiss called Krebs. The girl's an English dancer and singer called Maud. You'll see them both up there to-night for certain. You may as well come in. What a dreary day, isn't it?"
Sylvia agreed and was aware of ascribing to the weather the faint malaise that she experienced on following Lottie into her room, which smelled of stale wall-paper and musty wood, and which, on account of the overhanging tree and the dirty French windows, was dark and miserable enough.