“I couldn’t,” said Bessie, with the slowest gravest gentlest of headshakes. “He’s really such a dear,” Mrs. Westgate pursued. “I couldn’t,” Bessie repeated. “If it’s only,” her sister added, “because those women will think they succeeded—that they paralysed us!” Our young lady turned away, but presently added: “They were interesting. I should have liked to see them again.” “So should I!” cried Mrs. Westgate, with much point. “And I should have liked to see the Castle,” said Bessie. “But now we must leave England.” Her sister’s eyes studied her. “You won’t wait to go to the National Gallery?” “Not now.” “Nor to Canterbury Cathedral?” Bessie lost herself for a little in this. “We can stop there on our way to Paris,” she then said. Lord Lambeth didn’t tell Percy Beaumont that the contingency he was not prepared at all to like had occurred; but that gentleman, on hearing that the two ladies had left London, wondered with some intensity what had happened; wondered, that is, till the Duchess of Bayswater came a little to his assistance. The two ladies went to Paris—when Mrs. Westgate beguiled the journey by repeating several times: “That’s what I regret; they’ll think they petrified us.” But Bessie Alden, strange and charming girl, seemed to regret nothing. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS I I was not rich—on the contrary; and I had been told the Pension Beaurepas was cheap. I had further been told that a boarding-house is a capital place for the study of human nature. I was inclined to a literary career and a friend had said to me: “If you mean to write you ought to go and live in a boarding-house: there’s no other such way to pick up material.” I had read something of this kind in a letter addressed by the celebrated Stendhal to his sister: “I have a passionate desire to know human nature, and a great mind to live in a boarding-house, where people can’t conceal their real characters.” I was an admirer of _La Chartreuse de Parme_, and easily believed one couldn’t do better than follow in the footsteps of its author. I remembered, too, the magnificent boarding-house in Balzac’s _Père Goriot_—the “pension bourgeoise des deux sexes et autres,” kept by Madame Vauquer, née de Conflans. Magnificent, I mean, as a piece of portraiture; the establishment, as an establishment, was certainly sordid enough, and I hoped for better things from the Pension Beaurepas. This institution was one of the most esteemed in Geneva and, standing in a little garden of its own not far from the lake, had a very homely comfortable sociable aspect. The regular entrance was, as one might say, at the back, which looked upon the street, or rather upon a little _place_ adorned, like every _place_ in Geneva, great or small, with a generous cool fountain. That approach was not prepossessing, for on crossing the threshold you found yourself more or less in the kitchen—amid the “offices” and struck with their assault on your nostril.