When dinner is over they saunter out to the Kursaal. The band is playing, the _salons_ are crowded. The lights sparkle amid the trees, and fall on fair faces and lovely toilettes, on sovereigns of the _demi-monde_, supreme and defiant; on other sovereigns and celebrities, quite unobtrusive, undistinguished. They mingle with the crowd. Lady Jean, Sir Francis, and Lauraine are walking on a little in advance of the others. A fountain is throwing up showers of silver spray, the white gleam of a statue shines through the foliage; on the chairs beneath the trees two people are sitting--a man and a woman. The light falls on her face: it is very lovely, though owing much to art. Her hair is of too vivid a gold to be quite natural; the great grey eyes are swept by lashes many shades darker than their original hue. She is talking and laughing loudly. The man leans carelessly back on his seat, tilting it to an angle that threatens its upset and his own. Perhaps it is that fact, reminding her so of a trick of Keith's, that makes Lauraine look a second time. Her heart gives a wild throb, she feels cold and sick with a sudden shame. She sees it is Keith himself.... Just as they pass, the tilted chair is pulled back to its level with a ringing laugh. "I declare to you it's impossible to speak when you will not look," says a shrill French voice. His eyes go straight to that passing figure. He starts, and his face grows darkly red. The eyes meet for a second's space. In hers is pained rebuke, in his--shame. There is no word, no sign of recognition. But all the night seems full of dizzy pain to Keith. "It is very annoying," murmurs Lady Jean the next morning, as she sits at the breakfast-table. "Why could they not have gone somewhere else?" "What is annoying?" questions Lauraine, looking up from her chicken cutlets at the clouded, handsome face opposite. "Why, those Americans; one meets them everywhere! Hortense tells me they arrived last night--that Woollffe woman, you know, and her niece; and they have the next rooms to mine; and, of course, we will meet them everywhere; and oh! I am so sick of them, you can't imagine!" "Mrs. Woollffe is a very kind-hearted woman," murmurs Lauraine. She is pale and languid, and her eyes have a weary, sleepless look in them that tells of many hours of wakefulness. She and Lady Jean are alone. "Kind-hearted!" echoes Lady Jean. "My dear, so is our greengrocer's wife, or our dressmaker, for all we know; but that is no reason why we should receive them in our drawing-rooms. Now, I have done my best to avoid this dreadful woman, for two seasons, and here she is, next door to me!" "You are not bound to associate with her, if you are so exclusive," says Lauraine, a little contemptuously. "But there are many women received in society who have not half the honesty and sterling worth of Mrs. Bradshaw Woollffe."