"Who is that girl? The whole hotel is falling over itself to wait on her."
The speaker was a short, thick-set man, with a red face and fishy eyes.
"That's Pansy Langham, the millionairess," his neighbour replied. "She came over in her yacht from Teneriffe this afternoon. Barclay her name was before she came into her money."
"A millionaire, is she? That's the second one of the species in Grand Canary then. For there's a French millionaire staying in a villa at the back here. Le Breton, his name is. But what's brought the girl to these parts? There's not much here to attract a woman with money."
"She's here for her health, I believe."
"Not lungs, surely! She looks healthy enough."
"No, she had an accident about a couple of months ago. Some half-mad horse mauled her horribly, all but killed her. I remember reading about the case in the papers. They say she's a very decent sort, in spite of her millions. Gives an awful lot away in charity."
As the girl approached the table, the red-faced man screwed an eyeglass into one fishy eye and surveyed her from head to foot.
"She's not bad looking," he said in a condescending manner, as if it were his prerogative to criticise every woman who crossed his horizon. "But she's not a patch on the red-haired woman in the villa at the back here. Now, she's what I call a beauty."
He did not trouble to lower his voice, and his words reached Pansy.