The manageress of the hotel just then entered, bringing the book in which all hotel visitors registered their names. She was quite a stately person, attired in black silk, and addressed Diana with a motherly air, having been told by the bank manager, for whom she had a great respect, to have good care of her. Diana wrote her name in a dashing, free hand, putting herself down as a British subject, and naming Geneva as her last place of residence, when her attention was arrested by a name three or four lines above that on which she was writing--and she paused, pen in hand. “Are those people staying here?” she asked. The manageress looked where she pointed. “Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, Mrs. Cleeve, two daughters and maid,” she said. “Yes--they are here,--they always come here during a part of the season.” Diana finished writing her own inscription and laid down the pen. She was smiling, and her eyes were so densely blue and brilliant that the manageress was fairly startled. “I will dine in my room this evening,” she said. “I have had a long journey, and am rather tired. To-morrow, perhaps, I’ll come down to dinner----” “Don’t put yourself out at all about that,” said the manageress, kindly. “It’s not comfortable for a girl to dine in a room full of strangers--or perhaps you know Mrs. Cleeve and could sit at her table----?” “No--I do _not_ know Mrs. Cleeve,” said Diana, decidedly--“I’ve seen her at a charity bazaar and I believe she’s very stout--but I claim no acquaintance.” “She _is_ stout,” agreed the manageress with a smile, as she left the room. Diana stood still, absorbed in thought. Her features were aglow with some internal luminance,--her whole form was instinct with a mysteriously radiant vitality. “So Destiny plays my game!” she said, half aloud. “On the very first day of my return to the scene of my poor earthly sorrows I lose an old friend and find an old lover!” CHAPTER XXIII