ough doors and up stairs behind a
person called Kuhraeuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be
their private objections to each other, they had one point already on
which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of
Fraeulein Kuhraeuber.

CHAPTER XV

As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she
proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been
told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so
laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her
little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be,
she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking
each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high
above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath,
untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress
to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special
attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as
dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her
best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of
cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have
helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least
two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll
in money. And the wall-paper--how unpractical! It is so light that every
mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month."

She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of
Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her.

Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash
prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been
permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had
led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then
probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel
as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and
stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed
rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the
daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in
the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of
inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked
herself who this Miss Estcourt c