“I am going to walk with the Baron and Baroness, thank you all the same!” she replied to Margaret’s remark, and turning on her heel, she re-entered her room. Margaret did not believe her statement, but she was glad she had had the courage to warn her—she knew it would have greatly annoyed Elinor if the girl she detested had accompanied them on that first evening. The walk proved after all to be a very ordinary one. They paraded up and down the Digue, until they were tired and then they sat down on green chairs and listened to the orchestra whilst Ralph smoked his cigarettes. Elinor was looking her best. She was pleased and mildly excited—her costume became her—and she was presumably enjoying herself, but as far as her joy in Captain Pullen went, she might have been walking with her father or her brother. The conscious looks that had passed between him and Harriet Brandt were utterly wanting.
They began by talking of home, of Elinor’s family, and the last news that Margaret had received from Arthur—and then went on to discuss the visitors to the Hotel. Miss Leyton waxed loud in her denunciation of the Baroness and her familiar vulgarity—she deplored the ill fate that had placed them in such close proximity at the table d’hôte, and hoped that Ralph would not hesitate to change his seat if the annoyance became too great. She had warned him, she said, of what he might expect by joining them at Heyst.
“My dear girl,” he replied, “pray don’t distress yourself! In the first place I know a great deal more about foreign hotels than you do, and knew exactly what I might expect to encounter, and in the second, I don’t mind it in the least—in fact, I like it, it amuses me, I think the Baroness is quite a character, and look forward to cultivating her acquaintance with the keenest anticipations.”
“O! don’t, Ralph, pray don’t!” exclaimed Miss Leyton, fastidiously, “the woman is beneath contempt! I should be exceedingly annoyed if you permitted her to get at all intimate with you.”
“Why not, if it amuses him?” demanded Margaret, laughing, “for my part, I agree with Ralph, that her very vulgarity makes her most amusing as a change, and it is not as if we were likely to be thrown in her way when we return to England!”
“She is a rara avis,” cried Captain Pullen enthusiastically, “she certainly must know some good people if men like Naggett and Menzies have been at her house, and yet the way she advertises her boots and shoes is too delicious! O! dear yes! I cannot consent to cut the Baroness Gobelli! I am half in love with her already!”
Elinor Leyton made a gesture of disgust.
“And you—who are considered to be one of the most select and fastidious men in Town,” she said, “I wonder at you!”
Then he made a bad matter worse, by saying,
“By the way, Margaret, who was that beautiful girl who sat on the opposite side of the table?”