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.
"We speak together to-night, then?"
She shook her head at him, smiling all the time though, and with that little tantalising look in her eyes which Leonard and I both knew so well.
"I am not sure," she replied. "The management will complain if I talk so much with one of the guests, but I will play 'Valse Triste' for you. Au revoir!"