A Stranger in Mayfair

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“Clara, who is that gentleman? He looks familiar.”

The question startled Clara Woodward, a slender, light-haired girl, out of her deep reverie. They had been sitting silently for ten minutes, and she had used most of the time to ponder the limitless wonders of her friend Harold Webb: his gentle good looks, his kind smile, his intelligent eyes, the dashing cut of his clothes.

It was hopeless. He was in London, and here she was in the entrance hall of a hotel in Paris. While to another girl this might have seemed wonderful (it was quite a grand, ancient hotel, the Crillon, situated handsomely on the Place de la Concorde, and the hall itself was opulent, gilded and hung with old tapestries), to Clara it seemed a tragedy. With an inward sigh she turned her attention to her Aunt Bess.

“Which one do you mean?”

“There, the rather tall and thin one, with the brown hair.”

Clara turned her gaze across the hotel’s lobby. “And the short beard? That’s Charles Lenox, I believe.” In fact she knew it perfectly well. Two or three people had pointed him out to her, and she had once met him at a party in Belgravia. “I know he just recently married Lady-”

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