romaldi in the hall of the
Hotel de Paris."

At first he was half shyly diverted by the gay pageant around him, the
coming and going of perfectly dressed men and women of many nations, who
drank tea and ate little cakes, while the band played the sort of music
which can have no mission save as an incentive to conversation.

But time went on, and Vanno did not come. The cure tired of the people,
most of whom he felt inclined to pity, as no real joy shone out of their
eyes, even when they laughed. He thought the pretty, smiling young women
were like attractive advertisements for tooth-pastes, and face-powders,
and furs, and hats. They did not look to him like real people, living
real, everyday lives; and Miss Grant, though perhaps she led just such
an existence, seemed to belong to a different order of being.

At last Lady Dauntrey, in her smart purple dress, came in with a tall,
haggard man who had the eyes of a chained and starving dog. They joined
a conspicuous party whose principal members were a fat woman massaged to
the teeth, a dark girl who had evidently a sharp eye to the main chance
as well as to the picturesque, and a hook-nosed, appallingly pompous man
who would strut on the edge of the grave.

"Those are the Holbeins," said a woman, who at that moment came with
another to a seat near the cure's inconspicuous corner. "They represent
the ideal vulgarity. Rich beyond the dreams of reasonable avarice! When
the mother and father die, the girl's last tribute to their memory will
be to order them bijou tombstones. And _they_ are the sort of people
those wretched Dauntreys are driven to know!"

The cure, catching a name made familiar to him earlier in the day,
turned his head to glance at his neighbours, who were seating themselves
at a small round table. At the same time one of the two women, the one
who had not spoken, looked at him. Instant recognition flashed in the
eyes of both. The lady bowed with distant politeness, and he returned
the courtesy. She it was who had come to him at Roquebrune, one day
weeks ago, asking for news of Prince Della Robbia, of whose acquaintance
with him she was evidently informed.

She was dressed more elaborately this afternoon. The cure had described
her to Vanno as wearing a gray travelling dress. To-day she was in
black, with a large velvet hat which set off her pale face, her pale
eyes and hair, making her look striking and almost handsome; younger,
too, than the cure had t