what is that?” said Miss Leyton, with a curled
lip again, for she was a daughter of Lord Walthamstowe, and thought
very little of any aristocracy, except that of her own country. As she spoke, however, the chair opposite was sharply pulled into
place, and a young lady seated herself on it, and looked boldly (though
not brazenly) up and down the tables, and at her neighbours on each
side of her. She was a remarkable-looking girl--more remarkable,
perhaps, than beautiful, for her beauty did not strike one at first
sight. Her figure was tall but slight and lissom. It looked almost
boneless as she swayed easily from side to side of her chair. Her skin
was colourless but clear. Her eyes were long-shaped, dark, and narrow,
with heavy lids and thick black lashes which lay upon her cheeks. Her
brows were arched and delicately pencilled, and her nose was straight
and small. Not so her mouth however, which was large, with lips of a
deep blood colour, displaying small white teeth. To crown all, her
head was covered with a mass of soft, dull, blue-black hair, which was
twisted in careless masses about the nape of her neck, and looked as if
it was unaccustomed to comb or hairpin. She was dressed very simply in
a white cambric frock, but there was not a woman present, who had not
discovered in five minutes, that the lace with which it was profusely
trimmed, was costly Valenciennes, and that it was clasped at her throat
with brilliants. The new-comer did not seem in the least abashed by
the numbers of eyes which were turned upon her, but bore the scrutiny
very calmly, smiling in a sort of furtive way at everybody, until the
_entrées_ were handed round, when she rivetted all her attention upon
the contents of her plate. Miss Leyton thought she had never seen any
young person devour her food with so much avidity and enjoyment. She
could not help watching her. The Baroness Gobelli, who was a very
coarse feeder, scattering her food over her plate and not infrequently
over the table cloth as well, was nothing compared to the young
stranger. It was not so much that she ate rapidly and with evident
appetite, but that she kept her eyes fixed upon her food, as if she
feared someone might deprive her of it. As soon as her plate was empty,
she called sharply to the waiter in French, and ordered him to get her
some more. “That’s right, my dear!” exclaimed the Baroness, nodding her huge head,
and smiling broadly at the new-comer; “make ’em bring you more! It’s an
excellent dish, that! I’ll ’ave some more myself!”

As Philippe deposited the last helping of the _entrée_ on the young
lady’s plate, the Baroness thrust hers beneath his nose. “’Ere!” she said, “bring three more ’elpings for the Baron and Bobby
and me!”

The man shook his head to intimate that the dish was finished, but the
Baroness was not to be put off with a flimsy excuse. She commenced to
make a row. Few meals passed without a squabble of some sort, between
the Hotel servants and this terrible woman. “Now we are in for it again!” murmured Miss Leyton into Mrs. Pullen’s
ear. The waiter brought a different _entrée_, but the Baroness insisted
upon having a second helping of _tête de veau aux champignons_. “_Il n’y a plus, Madame!_” asseverated Philippe, with a gesture of
deprecation. “What does ’e say?” demanded the Baroness, who was not good at French. “There is no more, mein tear!” replied her husband, with a strong
German accent. “Confound their impudence!” exclaimed his wife with a heated
countenance, “’ere, send Monsieur ’ere at once! I’ll soon see if we’re
not to ’ave enough to eat in ’is beastly Hotel!”

All the ladies who understood what she said, looked horrified at
such language, but that was of no consequence to Madame Gobelli, who
continued to call out at intervals for “Monsieur” until she found
the dinner was coming to an end without her, and thought it would be
more politic to attend to business and postpone her feud till a more
convenient occasion. The Baroness Gobelli was a mystery to most people
in the Hotel. She was an enormous woman of the elephant build, with a
large, flat face and clumsy hands and feet. Her skin was coarse, so
was her hair, so were her features. The only things which redeemed
an otherwise repulsive face, were a pair of good-humoured, though
cunning blue eyes and a set of firm, white teeth. Who the Baroness
had originally been, no one could quite make out. It was evident that
she must have sprung from some low origin from her lack of education
and breeding, yet she spoke familiarly of aristocratic names, even
of Royal ones, and appeared to be acquainted with their families and
homes. There was a floating rumour that she had been old Mr. Bates’s
cook before he married her, and when he left her a widow with an only
child and a considerable fortune, the little German Baron had thought
that her money was a fair equivalent for her personality. She was
exceedingly vulgar, and when roused, exceedingly vituperative, but
she possessed a rough good humour when pleased, and a large amount of
natural shrewdness, which stood her instead of cleverness. But she was
an unscrupulous liar, and rather boasted of the fact than otherwise. Having plenty of money at her command, she was used to take violent
fancies to people--taking them up suddenly, loading them with presents
and favours for as long as it pleased her, and then dropping them as
suddenly, without why or wherefore--even insulting them if she could
not shake them off without doing so. The Baron was completely under her
thumb; more than that, he was servile in her presence, which astonished
those people, who did not know that amongst her other arrogant
insistences, the Baroness laid claim to holding intercourse with
certain supernatural and invisible beings, who had the power to wreak
vengeance on all those who offended her. This fear it was, combined
with the fact that she had all the money and kept the strings of the
bag pretty close where he was concerned, that made the Baron wait upon
his wife’s wishes as if he were her slave. Perhaps the softest spot in
the Baroness’s heart was kept for her sickly and uninteresting son,
Bobby Bates, whom she treated, nevertheless, with the roughness of a
tigress for her cub. She kept him still more under her surveillance
than she did her husband, and Bobby, though he had attained his
nineteenth year, dared not say Boo! to a goose, in presence of his
Mamma. As the cheese was handed round, Elinor Leyton rose from her seat
with an impatient gesture. “Do let us get out of this atmosphere, Margaret!” she said in a low
tone. “I really cannot stand it any longer!”

The two ladies left the table, and went out beyond the balcony, to
where a number of painted iron chairs and tables were placed on the
Digue, for the accommodation of passing wayfarers, who might wish to
rest awhile and quench their thirst with _limonade_ or lager beer. “I wonder who that girl is!” remarked Mrs. Pullen as soon as they were
out of hearing.