“I passed you this afternoon and you did not see me,” said Felicia as they were going in to dinner. “You were in the diligence office.” “Yes,” said Raine, “I was engaging a seat to Chamonix. I am going climbing with some Oxford people.” “When do you start?” “To-morrow,” said Raine. “I think I may be away some weeks.” He could not help noticing the look of disappointment in her eyes, and the little downward droop of her lips. He felt himself a brute for telling her so abruptly. However, he checked the impulse, which many men, in a similar position, have obeyed, out of mistaken kindness, to add a few consoling words as to his return, and took advantage of the general bustle of seat-taking to leave her and go to his place at the opposite side of the table. Many new arrivals had come to the pension during the last few days. Colonel Cazet and his wife had joined their friends the Pornichons; several desultory tourists, whose names no one knew, made their appearance at meal-times, and vanished immediately afterwards. When questioned concerning them, Mme. Boccard would reply: “_Oh, des Américains!_” as if that explained everything. In addition to these, Mr. Skeogh, the commercial gentleman who had surrendered to Frau Schultz's seductions, had this evening introduced a friend who was passing through Geneva. By virtue of his position as visitor of a guest, Mme. Boccard placed him at the upper end of the table between Frâulein Klinkhardt and Mme. Popea, instead of giving him a seat at the foot, by herself, where new arrivals sat, and whence, by the rules of the pension, they worked their way upwards, according to seniority. There were twenty-one guests that night. Mme. Boccard turned a red, beaming face to them, disguising with smiles the sharp directing glances kept ever upon the summer waiter and his assistant. The air was filled with a polyglot buzz, above which could be heard the great voices of the old soldiers and the shrill accents of the Americans fresh from the discovery of Chillon. At the head of the table, however, where the older house-party were gathered, reigned a greater calm. Both Mr. Chetwynd and Felicia were silent. Raine conversed in low tones with Katherine, on America, where she had lived most of her younger life. She very rarely alluded to her once adopted nationality, preferring to be recognized as an Englishwoman, but Raine was recording his impressions of a recent visit to New York, and her comments upon his criticisms were necessary. Around them the general topic was the _fête venétienne_ that was to take place on the lake. To Mr. Skeogh, who had never seen one, Frau Schultz gave hyperbolic description. Mr. Wanless, a grizzled and tanned middle-aged man, with a cordless eyeglass and a dark straggling moustache, who had travelled apparently all over the world, rather pooh-poohed the affair as childish, and, in a lull in the talk, was heard describing a Nautch-dance to Mme. Popea.