Mademoiselle Stephanie Lagrange was a very pretty woman--a fact of which she was perfectly cognisant, as most pretty women are. She had a profusion of light silky hair, and large steel-gray eyes that were lacking neither in fire nor audacity. Her lips were thin and rather finely curved; but her chin was almost too massive to be in proportion with the rest of her features. Her figure was well-nigh perfect; and as she was a splendid horsewoman, she never appeared in the Row without having a hundred pair of eyes focused on her, and a hundred tongues asking eagerly who she was. In case the reader should put the same question, it may be as well to state that Mademoiselle Lagrange was a prominent member of the celebrated Ventelli Circus troupe, on whose posters and placards she was designated in large letters as "Queen of the Haute Ecole." Whether Mademoiselle Lagrange was of French or English extraction was a moot-point with several of those who knew her best, seeing that she spoke both languages equally well. Some there were who averred that she spoke English with a slight French accent, and French with a slight English accent; but be that as it may, no one knew from her own lips where she was born or of what nationality her parents had been.
As soon as she was left alone, Stephanie took off her hat and veil and seated herself on the window seat, from whence she could look into a strip of old-fashioned garden at the back of the tavern. As she nibbled at a biscuit and sipped her sherry--Steph was by no means averse to a glass of good wine--she soliloquised, half aloud: "Why has my good friend George left me and who is the person he has gone to see?--Eh bien, cher monsieur, there appear to be certain secrets in your life of which I know nothing. It must be my business to find out what they are. I like to have secrets of my own, but I don't like other people to have secrets from me."
At this point, in came bustling Mrs. Purvis, ostensibly to inquire whether the lady was in need of anything, but in reality to satisfy in some measure the cravings of her curiosity. She found Mademoiselle Stephanie by no means disinclined for a little gossip; only, when she came to think over the interview afterwards, she discovered that it was she who had answered all the young lady's questions, but that the young lady had answered few or none of hers.