But no one knew who the little lady was, whence she had come, and why. She kept entirely to herself, and was thankful for the luxury of loneliness after some overwhelming sorrow.
One day she was requested to go. The proprietor of the hotel was distressed, but he could not do otherwise than comply with the demands of his guests.
"It is not known who you are, Mademoiselle," he said. "And you are not approved of. You English are curious people. But what can I do? You have a cheap room, and are a stranger to me. The others have expensive apartments, and come year after year. You see my position, Mademoiselle? I am sorry."
So the little tired lady had to go. That was how the story went. It was not known what became of her, but it was known that the English people in the Kurhaus tried to persuade her to come to them. But she had lost heart, and left in distress.
This could not have happened in the Kurhaus, where all were received on equal terms, those about whom nothing was known, and those about whom too much was known. The strange mixture and the contrasts of character afforded endless scope for observation and amusement, and Bernardine, who was daily becoming more interested in her surroundings, felt that she would have been sorry to have exchanged her present abode for the English quarter. The amusing part of it was that the English people in the Kurhaus were regarded by their compatriots in the English quarter as sheep of the blackest dye! This was all the more ridiculous because with two exceptions--firstly of Mrs. Reffold, who took nearly all her pleasures with the American colony in the Grand Hotel; and secondly, of a Scotch widow who had returned to Petershof to weep over her husband's grave, but put away her grief together with her widow's weeds, and consoled herself with a Spanish gentleman--with these two exceptions, the little English community in the Kurhaus was most humdrum and harmless, being occupied, as in the case of the Disagreeable Man, with cameras and cheese-mites, or in other cases with the still more engrossing pastime of taking care of one's ill-health, whether real or fancied: but yet, an innocent hobby in itself and giving one absolutely no leisure to do anything worse: a great recommendation for any pastime.