woman have caused him such violent emotion? Why? Women were jolly
things that did not matter much--except Isabella. She mattered, of
course, but somehow her mental picture came less readily to his mind
than usual. The things he seemed to see most distinctly were her
hands--her big red hands. And then he unconsciously drifted from all
thought of her.

"She certainly looks younger in daylight," he said to himself. "Not
more than thirty perhaps. And what strange hats with that shadow over
her eyes. What is she doing here all alone? She must be somebody from
the people in the hotel making such a fuss--and that servant--Then why
alone?" He mused and mused.

She was not a _demi-mondaine_. The English ones he knew were very
ordinary people, but he had heard of some of the French ladies as
being quite _grande dame_, and travelling _en prince_. Yet he was
convinced this was not one of them. Who _could_ she be? He must know.

To go back to the hotel would be the shortest way to find out, and so
by the next descending train he left the Buergenstock.

He walked up and down under the lime-trees outside the terrace of her
rooms for half an hour, but was not rewarded in any way for his pains.
And at last he went in. He, too, would have a dinner worth eating, he
thought. So he consulted the _maitre d'hotel_ on his way up to
dress, and together they evolved a banquet. Paul longed to question
the man about the unknown, but as yet he was no actor, and he found he
felt too much about it to do it naturally.

He dressed with the greatest care, and descended at exactly half-past