"I detest having it in that great barrack of a dining-room downstairs.

The bread-and-butter is always so thick--like doorsteps!--and the cake is very emphatically of the 'plain, home-made' variety." Olga nodded.
"You look very comfortable here," she replied.

"If you saw my tiny bandbox of a room on the fourth floor you'd realise what a sybarite you are." Diana wondered a little why Olga Lermontof should need to economise by having such a small room and one so high up.

She was invariably well-dressed--Diana had frequently caught glimpses of silken petticoats and expensive shoes--and she had not in the least the air of a woman who is accustomed to small means.
Almost as though she had uttered her thought aloud, Miss Lermontof replied to it, smiling rather satirically.
"You're thinking I don't look the part?
It's true I haven't always been so poor as I am now.

But a lot of my money is invested in Ru--abroad, and owing to--to various things"-- she stammered a little--"I can't get hold of it just at present, so I'm dependent on what I make.