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Miss Pinsent sent a significant glance down the long laurustinus alley from the other end of which two people—a lady and a gentleman—were strolling toward them through the smiling neglect of the garden.

“In this case, of course, it’s very different; that I’m willing to admit. Their looks are against them; but, as Mrs. Ainger says, one can’t exactly tell them so.”

“She’s very handsome,” Lydia ventured, with her eyes on the lady, who showed, under the dome of a vivid sunshade, the hourglass figure and superlative coloring of a Christmas chromo.

“That’s the worst of it. She’s too handsome.”

“Well, after all, she can’t help that.”

“Other people manage to,” said Miss Pinsent skeptically.

“But isn’t it rather unfair of Lady Susan—considering that nothing is known about them?”

“But my dear, that’s the very thing that’s against them. It’s infinitely worse than any actual knowledge.”

Lydia mentally agreed that, in the case of Mrs. Linton, it possibly might be.

“I wonder why they came here?” she mused.

“That’s against them too. It’s always a bad sign when loud people come to a quiet place. And they’ve brought van loads of boxes—her maid told Mrs. Ainger’s that they meant to stop indefinitely.”

“And Lady Susan actually turned her back on her in the salon?”

“My dear, she said it was for our sakes; that makes it so unanswerable! But poor Grossart is in a way! The Lintons have taken his most expressive suite, you know—the yellow damask drawing room above the portico—and they have champagne with every meal!”

They were silent as Mr. and Mrs. Linton sauntered by; the lady with tempestuous brows and challenging chin; the gentleman, a blond stripling, trailing after her, head downward, like a reluctant child dragged by his nurse.

“What does your husband think of them, my dear?” Miss Pinsent whispered as they passed out of earshot.

Lydia stooped to pick a violet in the border.

“He hasn’t told me.”

“Of your speaking to them, I mean. Would he approve of that? I know how very particular nice Americans are. I think your action might make a difference; it would certainly carry weight with Lady Susan.”

“Dear Miss Pinsent, you flatter me!”

Lydia rose and gathered up her book and sunshade.

“Well, if you’re asked for an opinion—if Lady Susan asks you for one—I think you ought to be prepared,” Miss Pinsent admonished her as she moved away.

III

Lady Susan held her own. She ignored the Lintons, and her little family, as Miss Pinsent phrased it, followed suit. Even Mrs. Ainger agreed that it was obligatory. If Lady Susan owed it to the others not to speak to the Lintons, the others clearly owed it to Lady Susan to back her up. It was generally found expedient, at the Hotel Bellosguardo, to adopt this form of reasoning.

Whatever effect this combined action may have had upon the Lintons, it did not at least have that of driving them away. Monsieur Grossart, after a few days of suspense, had the satisfaction of seeing them settle down in his yellow damask premier with what looked like a permanent installation of palm trees and silk sofa-cushions, and a gratifying continuance in the consumption of champagne. Mrs. Linton trailed her Doucet draperies up and down the garden with the same challenging air, while her husband, smoking innumerable cigarettes, dragged himself dejectedly in her wake; but neither of them, after the first encounter with Lady Susan, made any attempt to extend their acquaintance. They simply ignored their ignorers. As Miss Pinsent resentfully observed, they behaved exactly as though the hotel were empty.

It was therefore a matter of surprise, as well as of displeasure, to Lydia, to find, on glancing up one day from her seat in the garden, that the shadow which had fallen across her book was that of the enigmatic Mrs. Linton.

“I want to speak to you,” that lady said, in a rich hard voice that seemed the audible expression of her gown and her complexion.

Lydia started. She certainly did not want to speak to Mrs. Linton.

“Shall I sit down here?” the latter continued, fixing her intensely-shaded eyes on Lydia’s face, “or are you afraid of being seen with me?”

“Afraid?” Lydia colored.”Sit down, please. What is it that you wish to say?”

Mrs. Linton, with a smile, drew up a garden-chair and crossed one openwork ankle above the other.