erest.
Cotteret-les-Bains, my dear madam--in his case I can confidently
recommend it. Lady Hermione talks of taking the cure at Cotteret this
spring. But about that we shall see--we shall see. The question demands
consideration. As you know, Lady Hermione is charmingly outspoken,
emphatic; but I should be false to my professional honour, were I to
allow her wishes to colour my judgment.--Meanwhile I have reason to know
that other agreeable people are going to Cotteret shortly. Not the rank
and file. For such the place does not pretend to cater. There the
lucrative stock-broker, or lucrative Jew, is still a _rara avis_. Long
may he continue to be so, and Cotteret continue to pride itself on its
exclusiveness!--In that particular it will admirably suit you, Mrs.
Frayling."

To a compliment so nicely turned Henrietta could not remain insensible.
Before the destined train bore Dr. Stewart-Walker back to his more
legitimate zone of practise, she saw herself committed to an early
striking of camp, with this obscure, if select, _ville d'eaux_ as her
destination.

In some respects the prospect did not smile on her. Yet as, next day,
emancipated at length from monotonies of the sick-chamber, she drove
behind the free-moving little chestnut horses through the streets of the
town--sleepy in the hot afternoon quiet--and along the white glaring
esplanade, Henrietta admitted the existence of compensations. In the
brilliant setting of some world-famous German spa, though she--as she
believed--would have been perfectly at her ease, what about her
companions? For in such scenes of high fashion, her own good clothes are
not sufficient lifebelt to keep a pretty woman quite complacently afloat.
Your male associates must render you support, be capable of looking the
part and playing up generally, if your enjoyment is to be complete. And
for all _that_ Marshall Wace, frankly, couldn't be depended on. Not only
was he too unmistakably English and of the middle-class; but the clerical
profession, although he had so unfortunately failed it, or it so unkindly
rejected him, still seemed to soak through, somehow, when you saw him in
public. A whiff of the vestry queerly clung to his coats and his
trousers, thus meanly giving away his relinquished ambitions; unless, and
that was worse still, essaying to be extra smart, a taint of the
footlights declared itself in the over florid curl of a hat-brim or
sample of "neck-wear." To head a domestic proce