Mrs. Vanderstein could hear the sounds of a constant stream of carriages and motors stopping or starting below her window, and knew that it was not to her door that they crowded, but across the road under the magnificent stucco portico of Fianti’s Hotel.
“Barbara, has no one interesting appeared?” she called again after a few minutes.
“Not yet,” was the reply. “There’s a victoria driving along the street now, though, which looks something like a Royal turnout. Rather a nice looking pair in it.”
“Is it a pair of foreign looking gentlemen?” asked Mrs. Vanderstein excitedly.
“No, a pair of Cleveland bays. I hate them as a rule, but from here they don’t look bad. All back, though, of course.”
“My dear girl, do tell me about the people. I don’t want to hear about your horrid horses. I believe all sorts of celebrities go in and out of Fianti’s while I am lying here, and you never even notice them.”
“Yes, yes, I do,” said Barbara. “I will call you directly any one passes who looks as if he might be accustomed to wield the sceptre, or who is wearing a crown over his top hat.”
Mrs. Vanderstein made a little impatient movement. It annoyed her that her companion did not take her duties more seriously—did not, in fact, seem to understand how much more important was this task of keeping a good look-out in the wide bow of the window than any of the others that she was apt to approach in a quite admirable spirit of thoroughness. Why, wondered Mrs. Vanderstein, could the girl not do as she was asked in this matter, without making those attempts to be facetious which appeared so ill-advised, and which fell so extremely flat, as a moment’s observation would have made apparent to her? She did not make jokes about the flowers while she arranged them, nor about Mrs. Vanderstein’s correspondence, to which it was her business to attend. She was able to answer the telephone or order the carriage without indulging in unseemly giggles. Why then, in heaven’s name, couldn’t she take up her post of observation at the window without finding in it an excuse for pleasantries as dull as they were pointless?
Mrs. Vanderstein sighed deeply and wriggled her head deeper in the cushions.
Madame Querterot saw the cloud and guessed very easily what had caused it: she had often noticed similar disturbances of her customer’s otherwise easy-going temper. Knowing with remarkable accuracy on which side of her bread the butter was applied, she at once set herself to calm the troubled waters.