“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 Claire gaily. “That’s a penny to the good! Eightpence for me—a clear saving of fivepence a week!”
Miss Rhodes resolutely refused to smile. She had the air of thinking it ribald to be cheerful on the serious question of pounds, shillings and pence.