At the Beau Rivage, Sir Vernon and his daughters found a spacious suite of rooms on the third floor, many-windowed, balconied, looking over the lake. The two young men had secured quarters a little way off at the International. Sir Vernon grumbled at being put on the third storey, after having given due notice of his coming; but the American dollar and the Russian rouble had bought up the first and second stages of the big hotel, and an English country gentleman must needs be contented with an upper floor. But the rooms were lovely, and Daphne was delighted with their altitude. ‘We are all the nearer Mont Blanc,’ she said, standing half in and half out of the window; ‘one of the waiters told me it was over there—_tout près_—but though I have been straining my eyes ever since, I can’t discover a gleam of snow behind those dark hills.’ There were the loveliest flowers on the tables and cabinets, such flowers as one hardly expects to find at an hotel, were it never so luxurious. Madoline admired them wonderingly. ‘One would think the people here knew my particular vanity, and were anxious to gratify me,’ she said; and then turning to one of the waiters who was arranging books and writing-desks on the tables, she asked: ‘Have you always such lovely flowers in the rooms?’ ‘No, madame. They were ordered this morning by a telegram from Paris.’ ‘Father! No, Gerald; it must have been your doing.’ ‘A happy thought while I was loitering about that miserable railway-station,’ replied Gerald. ‘How good of you! Dear flowers. They make the place seem like home.’ ‘When you are settled at Montreux we can arrange for the contents of the Abbey hot-houses to be sent you weekly. It will be something for that pampered menial MacCloskie to look after, in the intervals of his cigars and metaphysical studies. I have an idea that he employs all his leisure in reading Dugald Stewart. There is a hardness about him which I can only attribute to a close study of abstract truth.’ Daphne was standing out in the balcony, with Edgar at her side, looking down at the scene below. Geneva seemed pretty enough in this night view—a city of lake and lamplight, ringed round with mountains; a city of angles and bridges, sharp lines, lofty houses, peaked roofs; the dark bulk of a cathedral, with, a picturesque lantern on the roof, dominating all the rest. ‘I think if it would only lighten I could see Mont Blanc,’ said Daphne, with her eyes fixed upon that bit of sky to which the waiter had pointed when she questioned him about the mountain. ‘One good vivid flash would light it up beautifully.’ ‘My dearest, how dangerous!’ exclaimed Edgar; ‘pray, come out of the balcony. You might be blinded.’ ‘I’ll risk that. It will not be the first time I have stared the lightning out of countenance.’ A summer flash lit up the sky as she spoke. There was one wide quiver of pale blue light, but never a glimpse of snow-clad peak gleamed from the distance.