In addition to these, Mr. Skeogh, the commercial gentleman who had surrendered to Frau Schultz's seductions, had this evening introduced a friend who was passing through Geneva. By virtue of his position as visitor of a guest, Mme. Boccard placed him at the upper end of the table between Frâulein Klinkhardt and Mme. Popea, instead of giving him a seat at the foot, by herself, where new arrivals sat, and whence, by the rules of the pension, they worked their way upwards, according to seniority.
There were twenty-one guests that night. Mme. Boccard turned a red, beaming face to them, disguising with smiles the sharp directing glances kept ever upon the summer waiter and his assistant. The air was filled with a polyglot buzz, above which could be heard the great voices of the old soldiers and the shrill accents of the Americans fresh from the discovery of Chillon. At the head of the table, however, where the older house-party were gathered, reigned a greater calm. Both Mr. Chetwynd and Felicia were silent. Raine conversed in low tones with Katherine, on America, where she had lived most of her younger life. She very rarely alluded to her once adopted nationality, preferring to be recognized as an Englishwoman, but Raine was recording his impressions of a recent visit to New York, and her comments upon his criticisms were necessary. Around them the general topic was the _fête venétienne_ that was to take place on the lake. To Mr. Skeogh, who had never seen one, Frau Schultz gave hyperbolic description. Mr. Wanless, a grizzled and tanned middle-aged man, with a cordless eyeglass and a dark straggling moustache, who had travelled apparently all over the world, rather pooh-poohed the affair as childish, and, in a lull in the talk, was heard describing a Nautch-dance to Mme. Popea.
It seemed commonplace enough, this pension dinner-party. Hundreds such were at that moment in progress all through Switzerland, differing from each other as little as the loads of any two consecutive London omnibuses on the same route. Yet to more than one person it was ever memorable.
Little Miss Bunter, who sat next to Felicia, had grown happier of late. The summer had warmed her blood. Also she had lately received an eight-page letter from Burmah which had brought her much consolation. There was a possibility, it hinted, of the marriage taking place in the spring. She had already consulted Katherine as to the trousseau, and had made cuttings from _Modern Society_ of the description of fashionable weddings during the past two months. Having these hopes within her, and one of the new dresses chosen by Katherine, without, she looked much fresher than usual this evening. Her sandy hair seemed less lifeless, her complexion less sallow. She did not speak much, being constitutionally timid. Her opinions were such weak, frail things, that she was afraid of sending them forth into the rough world. But she listened with animated interest to the various conversations. Raine's talk particularly interested her. She had a vague idea that she was improving her mind.