“Detestable!” put in Lady Garnett with genial petulance; “it was too small.  Half the world was crowded into it; and it was precisely the half-world——­”

“I can imagine it,” interrupted Rainham, with his grave smile; “and then?”

“Then we thought of Switzerland,” continued the young girl.  “We went to Geneva.  We were almost dead when we arrived, because we had to go a very roundabout way to avoid Paris; we could not go to Paris, because we were afraid of seeing the Republic.  It was very hot in Geneva.  No place ever was so hot before.  We lay on the sofa for three days, and then we were strong enough to run away.”

“It was purgatorial!” said the elder lady; “it was full of English governesses and Swiss pastors.”

“Then we went to look for cool places, and we had a charming week at Interlaken, and looked longingly at the Jungfrau, and contemplated the ascent.”

Lady Garnett laughed her quaint, little laugh.

“Interlaken might have sufficed, my dear; but, unfortunately—­it was one of Mary’s ridiculous economies—­we went to a pension; and we fell into the hands of an extraordinary woman with a fringe and a Bible, a native of North America, who endeavoured to persuade me that I was a Jewess.”

“No, no!” laughed Mary, “not quite so bad as that.  It was one of the other tribes she would have us belong to—­one of the lost tribes.  It was not personal.”

“Ah, Dieu merci! if they are lost,” ejaculated her aunt; “but you are wrong; it was most personal, Mary.”

“I will do her the justice to add that she only suggested it once,” continued the girl with a smile of elision.  “However, we had to flee from her; and so we came to Lucerne.”

“That was worst of all,” said Lady Garnett, arching her delicate eyebrows; “it was full of lovers.”

The solemn butler had placed a pair of obdurate birds before Rainham, which engrossed him; presently he looked up, remarking quietly: 

“Did you see the Sylvesters?”

“Ah yes! we saw the Sylvesters; we walked with the Sylvesters; we drank tea with the Sylvesters; we made music with the Sylvesters; we went on the lake with the Sylvesters.  That handsome artist, Mr. Lightmark, is it not, Mary? was there, making the running with Miss Eve.  The marriage seems to be arranged.”

She shrugged her shoulders; the precise shade of meaning in the gesture escaped Rainham; he looked over to Mary inquiringly.

“They seem very much attached to each other,” she remarked.

“Oh, they were imbecile!” added Lady Garnett; “try the Moselle, my dear, and leave that terrible sweet stuff to Mary.  Yes, I was glad to come away from Lucerne.  Everything is very bad now except my Constant’s vol-au-vent, which you don’t seem to have tried; but lovers are the worst of all.  Though I like that young man, Lightmark; he is a type that interests me; he seems——­”