"Well," said Mrs Jefferson, "talk of sermons in stones! Here's one in baths! I should like to know who you are. Seems to me you know everything, and have read everything, and seen most everything on the face of the earth. So few women begin to think of anything serious till they've forgotten their looks, that you must excuse my calling you an anomaly. Now do tell me you'll change your mind and join us to-night in the drawing-room. It's quite as selfish as _Yogaism_ to keep talents like yours in the background." The beautiful face grew cold and proud. "You must pardon me," she said, "if I venture to consider myself the best judge of what you are pleased to call--talents. They are not of an order to benefit a hotel drawing-room." "Oh!" said Mrs Jefferson, feeling somewhat snubbed. "I'm sure people would be delighted to hear you talk, even if you did rub some of their pet foibles the wrong way. I've quite enjoyed this morning, I assure you. You've diverted my thoughts from my own ailments, and stimulated my digestion. I feel like eating lunch for once. And that reminds me I must begin to dress. My fringe takes a quarter of an hour to arrange." She rose from the couch, her Turkish towelling drapery flowing far behind her small figure. Then she disappeared into her dressing-room. When she emerged from thence, her fringe artistically curled, her face becomingly tinged with pearl-powder, her dress and appointments all combining to give her small person importance, and show a due regard to the exigencies of fashion, she found the couch which the mysterious stranger had occupied was vacant. She loitered about in the hope of seeing her emerge from one of the dressing-boxes, but she was disappointed, and as the luncheon gong was sounding through the hotel she reluctantly took her way through the carpeted corridors and turned into the main entrance, her mind in a curious condition of perplexity and excitement. CHAPTER FOUR. CONJECTURES. Mrs Ray Jefferson, irrespective of a toilet of ruby velvet cut _en coeur_, and a display of diamonds calculated to make men thoughtful on the subject of speculation, and women envious on the subject of husbandly generosity (even when connected with Chemicals), was quite the feature of the Hotel drawing-room that night. She was full of her adventure of the morning, and her description of the beautiful stranger lost nothing from the picturesque language in which she clothed her narrative. "It's very odd the Manager won't tell us her name," she rattled on. "I've done my level best to find out, but it's no good. I suppose she pays too well for him to risk betraying her. I'm sure she's a Russian Princess; she has a suite with her, and carries musicians and sculptors, and heaven knows who else, in her train."