“By the way, Dumps, Comtesse Riki has taken a most violent fancy to you.”

“What! to me?” I asked.

“Yes; and the Baroness Elfreda to Hermione.”

Now, Comtesse Riki was a very delicately made, exquisitely pretty girl, of the fairest German type. Elfreda, on the contrary, was short and exceedingly fat, with a perfectly square face, high cheek-bones, and a quantity of hay-coloured hair which she wore in two very tight plaits strained back from her face.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

“They’re both awfully nice; don’t you think so?” said Rosalind.

“I have scarcely given them a thought,” I answered.

My mind was still dwelling on the letter which Augusta had received. Presently Rosalind left us, and Hermione and I wondered what the result would be.

“Go to her door and knock, and see if she will come out and tell us; won’t you, Dumps?” said Hermione.

I did go and knock.