nd invaded by the restless pleasure-seekers who are forever hounding
nature to her deepest lairs.

Thus in the depopulated caravansary the little band of connoisseurs
jealously hide themselves during the heated season, enjoying to the
uttermost the delights of mountain and seashore that art and skill
have gathered and served to them.

In this July came to the hotel one whose card that she sent to
the clerk for her name to be registered read "Mme. Heloise D'Arcy
Beaumont."

Madame Beaumont was a guest such as the Hotel Lotus loved. She
possessed the fine air of the elite, tempered and sweetened by a
cordial graciousness that made the hotel employees her slaves.
Bell-boys fought for the honor of answering her ring; the clerks, but
for the question of ownership, would have deeded to her the hotel
and its contents; the other guests regarded her as the final touch
of feminine exclusiveness and beauty that rendered the entourage
perfect.

This super-excellent guest rarely left the hotel. Her habits were
consonant with the customs of the discriminating patrons of the Hotel
Lotus. To enjoy that delectable hostelry one must forego the city as
though it were leagues away. By night a brief excursion to the nearby
roofs is in order; but during the torrid day one remains in the
umbrageous fastnesses of the Lotus as a trout hangs poised in the
pellucid sanctuaries of his favorite pool.

Though alone in the Hotel Lotus, Madame Beaumont preserved the state
of a queen whose loneliness was of position only. She breakfasted at
ten, a cool, sweet, leisurely, delicate being who glowed softly in
the dimness like a jasmine flower in the dusk.

But at dinner was Madame's glory at its height. She wore a gown as
beautiful and immaterial as the mist from an unseen cataract in a
mountain gorge. The nomenclature of this gown is beyond the guess of
the scribe. Always pale-red roses reposed against its lace-garnished
front. It was a gown that the head-waiter viewed with respect and
met at the door. You thought of Paris when you saw it, and maybe of
mysterious countesses, and certainly of Versailles and rapiers and
Mrs. Fiske and rouge-et-noir. There was an untraceable rumor in the
Hotel Lotus that Madame was a cosmopolite, and that she was pulling
with her slender white hands certain strings between the nations in
the favor of Russia. Being a citizeness of the world's smoothest
roads it was small wonder that she was quick to recognize in the