And poor Margaret wore the days away in sick dismay over her suddenly clouded fairy-dream; and her strange face grew thinner, sharper, more unearthly in its transparency than ever; and her superb form passing so often drearily to and fro in the walled-up hotel garden among the snow-laden shrubs and trees, arrested many a curious eye at the hotel windows to dwell upon the lonely British lady, with compassionate interest. Some weeks after their arrival, Margaret noted a new face at the hotel table. Not that new faces were much of a novelty in that everchanging scene, but the face of this woman was so attractive that every eye round the lunch-table fastened on her as she sauntered in, dressed in a driving habit, and seated herself _vis a vis_ to Margaret. "_Mon Dieu!_ that's a fine creature!" muttered the chevalier in his beard; "what a glorious head she has--by gar!" "Humph," grumbled Davenport, at Margaret's other side; "bad egg." Margaret met the full gaze of a pair of fascinating eyes, green-tinged, and yet chameleon-like, changing with every ripple of the soul from green to flashing black, or tender gray, or handsome brown. The small and well-shaped head which had awakened such rapturous admiration from the chevalier, was poised delicately upon a neck round and white and bending as a swan's. The hair, a light, gold-brown, shone sometimes molten in the sunlight, sometimes flaxen. It seemed to possess the chameleon-powers of the eyes, and took to itself all shapes and tinges, as the bird-like creature flashed a look from side to side; and one long snake-like tress floated carelessly beneath her vail down her back, and was suffered to ripple and twist itself into tiny ringlets, or waves, or coils, just as its willful nature impelled it. Margaret looked once and fully into the beautiful stranger's face, and she was forced to admit to herself that with all her fascinating blithesomeness and would-be innocence and frankness--she did not like it. "She hides a history!" was her conclusion. But the chevalier seemed actually entranced; he bowed profoundly, the instant their eyes met, and listened with eagerness to every low-toned direction she gave to the waiter, and with great gallantry passed whatever she required over to her, for which attention the fair woman only bowed with the most distant, though the prettiest air imaginable. She often looked at Margaret, however, as if anxious to make her out, and paused in her dainty nibbling whenever Davenport spoke to his ward, with her ear bent to catch the reply; and at the last she contrived to meet Margaret's eyes, and to smile in a sweet, engaging manner, as if she longed to make her acquaintance; and Margaret, without in the least knowing why, crimsoned and dropped her eyes instead of responding to the overture. The lady did not finish her lobster-salad, but soon rose and swept to the door, which the gallant chevalier sprang to open.