Leonard and I left Rose to her tête-à-tête and took a seat in the lounge. A few yards from us, the little daily comedy which never failed to amuse the onlookers was in progress. Mr. Grant was seated in the easy chair affected by Mrs. Cotesham. She came stumping along from the lift and stopped about a foot from the chair. "This man has taken my chair!" she exclaimed in a loud voice, for the benefit of every one. "I left a book in it." Mr. Grant continued to read through his heavy spectacles, unmoved. She struck the side of his chair with her stick. "I want my chair," she repeated. Mr. Grant half turned round. "What does the woman want?" he snarled. "This isn't her chair. It's an hotel chair. I found it empty and I sat down. I am going to stay." "Where's my book?" Mrs. Cotesham demanded, handing him the end of her ear trumpet. "I threw it on the lounge," he shouted. "There it is. Now don't bother me any more." "He calls himself a gentleman!" the old lady declared, shaking with fury. "Never called myself anything of the sort in my life," he snapped. I rose, and wheeled the easy chair in which I was sitting to the side of Mr. Grant's. "Will you sit here, madam?" I ventured. "It is as near your favourite position as possible." She pushed her speaking trumpet almost into my face. "Say that again, young man," she directed. I repeated it at the top of my voice. She nodded and subsided into the chair. "I don't like having to sit near such people," she said, "but I prefer this side of the fireplace." Her neighbour looked out of the corner of his eye. "I wish the pestilential old woman would stay up in her room," he growled. "I hate her next me." She handed him her speaking trumpet. "Say that again, will you?" she invited. "I don't like people talking about me when I can't hear what they say." Mr. Grant shut his book with a snap, rose to his feet and hobbled across to a distant part of the lounge. "That old woman ought to be locked up," he declared at the top of his voice. "She's a damned nuisance to everybody!" He found another seat and recommenced his book. Mrs. Cotesham, with a purr of content, settled herself down in the chair which he had vacated, stretched out her feet upon the footstool and looked around triumphantly. "I've been to a good many hotels in my life," she confided to every one within hearing, "but I never met a man who called himself a gentleman, with such disgusting manners!" Leonard and I strolled away presently to find Rose. It was time for us to go back to our rooms and change for the evening performance. We found her with Kinlosti in his corner, and the air above them overhung with a thin cloud of blue tobacco smoke. Kinlosti was smoking furiously and talking hard. Rose welcomed our approach, I thought, with something almost like eagerness. "It is time to go, I am sure," she declared, springing to her feet. Her companion broke off in the middle of a sentence and frowned.