the end we have to submit. She
calls us her guests, but in reality we are her prisoners. We simply
can't get away. There's that old gentleman at the end of the
table--Bullding his name is. He will tell you confidentially that he
simply hates the place. Yet he's been here for six years, and he's as
much a fixture as that sham mahogany sideboard. Everyone will grumble
to you confidentially--Miss Ellicot, she's our swagger young lady, you
know--up there, next to Miss White, she will tell you that it is so
out of the world here, so far away from everyone one knows. Old
Kesterton, choleric-looking individual nearly opposite, will curse the
cooking till he's black in the face, but he never misses a dinner.
The Semitic looking young man opposite, who seems to have been
committing you to memory piecemeal, will tell you that he was never so
bored in all his life as he has been here. Yet he stays. They all
stay!"

"And you yourself?"

Brendon laughed.

"Oh, we are also under the spell," he declared, "but I think that we
are here mainly because it is cheap. It is really cheap, you know. To
appreciate it you should try rooms."

"Is this a fair sample of the dinner?" Anna asked, who had the healthy
appetite of a strong young woman.

"It is, if anything, a little above the average," Brendon admitted.

Anna said nothing. The young man opposite was straining his ears to
listen to their conversation. Mrs. White caught her eye, and smiled
benignly down the table.

"I hope that Mr. Courtlaw is looking after you, Miss Pellissier," she
said.

"Admirably, thank you," Anna answered.

The young lady with frizzled hair, whom Brendon had pointed out to her
as Miss Ellicot, leaned forward from her hostess's side. She had very
frizzy hair indeed, very black eyebrows, a profusion of metallic
adornments about her neck and waist, and an engaging smile.

"We are so interested to hear, Miss Pellissier," she said, "that you
have been living in Paris. We shall expect you to tell us all what to
wear."

Anna smiled very faintly, and shook her head.

"I have come from a very unfashionable quarter," she said, "and I do
not think that I have been inside a milliner's shop for a year.
Besides, it is all reversed now, you know. Paris copies London."

Brendon leaned over confidentially.

"You are in luck, Miss Pellissier," he declared. "Your success here is
absolutely meteoric. Miss Ellicot has spoken to you, the great Mr.
Bullding is going to