Happily, she had the sitting-room (shared with her art-studying friend) to herself this morning.
'Bring him up here,' she said to the boy hurriedly, 'and ask him to wait a minute for me.' And she escaped to make a rapid change of dress.

For Alma was not like Sibyl Carnaby in perpetual regard for personal finish; she dressed carelessly, save when the occasion demanded pains; she liked the ease of gowns and slippers, of loose hair and free throat; and this taste had grown upon her during the past months.

But she did not keep Mr.
Dymes waiting very long, and on her entrance he gazed at her with very frank admiration.

Frank, too, was his greeting--that of a very old and intimate friend, rather than of a drawing-room acquaintance.

He came straight from England, he said; a spring holiday, warranted by the success of his song 'Margot', which the tenor, Topham, had sung at St James's Hall.