The elder lady was still in bed, forgetting for once to pose picturesquely. Doris could not help thinking how abnormally plain she was, when deprived of all adventitious aids. Flat and rumpled hair is not becoming; and few faces fail to look plain in a mood of annoyed self-pity. Mrs. Brutt was not well; and, like many, people, when she was bodily out of sorts, she was sure to be also mentally out of sorts—in other words, out of temper. "You needn't be in such a desperate hurry," she complained as the girl made a move. "You are always wanting to rush away. I must speak first about my breakfast. It is quite unbearable, having no bells—no way to get hold of anybody. I never expected to find this sort of thing, when I settled to come up into the mountains." She had made the same remark at least twenty times already. "If I had imagined the wretched accommodation, nothing would have induced me to bind myself to stay. Six weeks of it! I shall be dead before the end." "Oh, I don't think you will." Doris thought it best to adopt a cheerful tone. "You are a most unsympathising person! Most unsympathetic!" The two words meant the same for Mrs. Brutt. "You have no feeling at all for others. So very selfish." "But I'm sorry you are not well. Only—if you hadn't secured the rooms, they would have been taken by somebody else. And, you know, you wanted to come here, because it is a cheap hotel." Mrs. Brutt objected to this view, and she spoke sharply. "I am paying an excellent price for absolutely nothing. That is not what I call cheapness. These are not rooms; they are mere cupboards. Miserable rat-holes! No comforts! No space! Actually, I have to keep one of my trunks in the verandah. All my things will be ruined." She gazed disgustedly at the opposite wall, which indeed did not lie far off. The boarded floor had no carpet, but a rug only, beside the bed. A wash-handstand of stained wood, with drawers below, served for a dressing-table; and above it hung an anti-vanity glass of small dimensions. There were also two cane chairs, a cupboard of limited capacity, and a writing-table—that sine quâ non of foreign bedrooms. As a make-weight to its interior simplicity, the room opened upon a balcony, with a full view of the stately Dent du Midi, seen sideways, and of less distant ranges, all bathed in sunshine. Doris wondered that anybody could grumble, with such an outlook. She had been up herself since six o'clock; and from her little balcony, facing another way, had watched the goats of the village, starting for their day upon the alps; gathered together by the goatherd with his horn; each small beast coming composedly from its own stable at the sound. Already Doris had had one ramble, and now she was more than ready for breakfast. It was all too delicious—except Mrs. Brutt. The girl was in dancing spirits with the air, the views, the novelty, the freedom.