Though alone in the Hotel Lotus, Madame Beaumont preserved the state of a queen whose loneliness was of position only.  She breakfasted at ten, a cool, sweet, leisurely, delicate being who glowed softly in the dimness like a jasmine flower in the dusk.

But at dinner was Madame’s glory at its height.  She wore a gown as beautiful and immaterial as the mist from an unseen cataract in a mountain gorge.  The nomenclature of this gown is beyond the guess of the scribe.  Always pale-red roses reposed against its lace-garnished front.  It was a gown that the head-waiter viewed with respect and met at the door.  You thought of Paris when you saw it, and maybe of mysterious countesses, and certainly of Versailles and rapiers and Mrs. Fiske and rouge-et-noir.  There was an untraceable rumor in the Hotel Lotus that Madame was a cosmopolite, and that she was pulling with her slender white hands certain strings between the nations in the favor of Russia.  Being a citizeness of the world’s smoothest roads it was small wonder that she was quick to recognize in the refined purlieus of the Hotel Lotus the most desirable spot in America for a restful sojourn during the heat of mid-summer.

On the third day of Madame Beaumont’s residence in the hotel a young man entered and registered himself as a guest.  His clothing—­to speak of his points in approved order—­was quietly in the mode; his features good and regular; his expression that of a poised and sophisticated man of the world.  He informed the clerk that he would remain three or four days, inquired concerning the sailing of European steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in his favorite inn.

The young man—­not to question the veracity of the register—­was Harold Farrington.  He drifted into the exclusive and calm current of life in the Lotus so tactfully and silently that not a ripple alarmed his fellow-seekers after rest.  He ate in the Lotus and of its patronym, and was lulled into blissful peace with the other fortunate mariners.  In one day he acquired his table and his waiter and the fear lest the panting chasers after repose that kept Broadway warm should pounce upon and destroy this contiguous but covert haven.

After dinner on the next day after the arrival of Harold Farrington Madame Beaumont dropped her handkerchief in passing out.  Mr. Farrington recovered and returned it without the effusiveness of a seeker after acquaintance.

Perhaps there was a mystic freemasonry between the discriminating guests of the Lotus.  Perhaps they were drawn one to another by the fact of their common good fortune in discovering the acme of summer resorts in a Broadway hotel.  Words delicate in courtesy and tentative in departure from formality passed between the two.  And, as if in the expedient atmosphere of a real summer resort, an acquaintance grew, flowered and fructified on the spot as does the mystic plant of the conjuror.  For a few moments they stood on a balcony upon which the corridor ended, and tossed the feathery ball of conversation.