Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted damsel must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her companion and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where three gentlemen stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours of tobacco.

They were indistinct; she could see that one of them was of good stature.

One she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly Jewish.

The third was distressingly branded with the slum and gutter signs of the Ahasuerus race.

Three hats on his head could not have done it more effectively.