"Where do you live, little Rosemary?" he asked, grimly schooling his voice, when he felt that he could trust himself to speak.
"The Hotel Pension Beau Soleil, Rue Girasole, in the Condamine, Monte Carlo," answered the child, as if she were repeating a lesson she had been taught to rattle off by heart.
Lost as he was to most external things, Hugh roused himself to some surprise at the name of the hotel.
"Why, that is where Mademoiselle de Lavalette and her mother live!" he exclaimed.
"They're the ladies Angel lent the money to, because she was so sorry for them," said Rosemary. "I've heard them talking about it with her, and saying they can't pay it back. They're angry with her for asking, but she had to, you see. When they go past us in the dining-room they turn their backs."
Hugh's attention was arrested now.
"Do they dine?" he asked. "Every night?"
"Oh yes, always. Mademoiselle has lovely dresses. She is pretty, but the Comtesse is such an ugly old lady; like Red Riding Hood's grandmother, I think. I'm afraid of her. Jane says her Madame and Monsieur don't believe she's really a Comtesse. I had to knock at her door with a letter from Angel to-day, for Angel doesn't know I'm afraid. I couldn't help being glad Madame wouldn't let me in, for it seemed as if she might eat me up. I knocked and knocked, and when I was going away, I saw Mademoiselle coming in, in a pink dress with a rosy hat."
"I think she'll pay your mother back to-morrow," said Hugh, remembering the fatness of the pink bag.
"She didn't say she would. She was so cross with me that she called me a petit bête, and snatched the letter out of my hand."