“But of course I don’t deny that the stand Lady Susan takes is not always easy to live up to--for the rest of us, I mean. Monsieur Grossart, our good proprietor, finds it trying at times, I know--he has said as much, privately, to Mrs. Ainger and me. After all, the poor man is not to blame for wanting to fill his hotel, is he? And Lady Susan is so difficult--so very difficult--about new people. One might almost say that she disapproves of them beforehand, on principle. And yet she’s had warnings--she very nearly made a dreadful mistake once with the Duchess of Levens, who dyed her hair and--well, swore and smoked. One would have thought that might have been a lesson to Lady Susan.” Miss Pinsent resumed her knitting with a sigh. “There are exceptions, of course. She took at once to you and Mr. Gannett--it was quite remarkable, really. Oh, I don’t mean that either--of course not! It was perfectly natural--we _all_ thought you so charming and interesting from the first day--we knew at once that Mr. Gannett was intellectual, by the magazines you took in; but you know what I mean. Lady Susan is so very--well, I won’t say prejudiced, as Mrs. Ainger does--but so prepared _not_ to like new people, that her taking to you in that way was a surprise to us all, I confess.” Miss Pinsent sent a significant glance down the long laurustinus alley from the other end of which two people--a lady and gentleman--were strolling toward them through the smiling neglect of the garden. “In this case, of course, it’s very different; that I’m willing to admit. Their looks are against them; but, as Mrs. Ainger says, one can’t exactly tell them so.” “She’s very handsome,” Lydia ventured, with her eyes on the lady, who showed, under the dome of a vivid sunshade, the hour-glass figure and superlative coloring of a Christmas chromo. “That’s the worst of it. She’s too handsome.” “Well, after all, she can’t help that.” “Other people manage to,” said Miss Pinsent skeptically. “But isn’t it rather unfair of Lady Susan--considering that nothing is known about them?” “But, my dear, that’s the very thing that’s against them. It’s infinitely worse than any actual knowledge.” Lydia mentally agreed that, in the case of Mrs. Linton, it possibly might be. “I wonder why they came here?” she mused. “That’s against them too. It’s always a bad sign when loud people come to a quiet place. And they’ve brought van-loads of boxes--her maid told Mrs. Ainger’s that they meant to stop indefinitely.” “And Lady Susan actually turned her back on her in the _salon?_” “My dear, she said it was for our sakes: that makes it so unanswerable! But poor Grossart _is_ in a way! The Lintons have taken his most expensive _suite_, you know--the yellow damask drawing-room above the portico--and they have champagne with every meal!”