Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/66

60 back-view Gretchen had been curiously contemplating. She took a long time to eat an egg, thought Gretchen, as she observed the deliberate way in which the shell was being attacked. They were strange people, certainly; it could not be good for a child of four years to gorge himself with melon, as the owner of the curly head was doing. Gretchen began to wonder what would follow upon the melon. A large soup-tureen solved the question. What had come before had only been a slight skirmishing, this was the earnest of dinner beginning. Under the claws of the vultures, the pyramid of melon-rinds vanished, together with the last lingering egg-shell. One pale red slice remained; it was on the plate of the black-haired young woman. At this rate she ate her way on steadily through the long and complicated meal, always a stage or two behind the rest of the party. When they were eating fish she was eating soup; when they had reached the national mamaliga (a preparation of the maize grain, and first cousin to the Italian polenta), she was preparing to dissect the fried trout on her plate.

Meanwhile the brother and sister had ended their repast, and Kurt produced an elegant cigar-case.

"I wish I had told Tolnay to bring me some stronger cigars from Pesth," remarked the precocious youth, as with the aid of the medicinal stanzas he kindled the spark in his "Virginia."

"I am very glad you did not," said Gretchen; "you smoke far too much for your age. I wonder where you have picked up those expensive habits!"

"At school," said Kurt, with a peculiar twinkle of his eye. "I have learnt a great deal at school; smoking is not my only accomplishment. But never mind," he added cheerfully, "I shall make Mr Howard replenish my case. Since I have not asked him for money, it is at least fair that he should give me cigars."

"Kurt, do stop talking nonsense," said Gretchen, impatiently, while with her eyes she still followed the movements of their neighbours. As she spoke her attention was arrested by something unlooked for.

Up to this moment the black-haired woman had remained so immovable in her position, with her back and the massive coils of her hair turned so steadily towards the Mohrs' table, that Gretchen was positively taken by surprise to see her now slowly turning her head.

She had demolished her fried trout inch by inch, until there remained only one inch to be disposed of, and now she paused in the act of carrying the last morsel to her mouth, and, with the crisp brown tail held delicately between the fingers of her right hand, she deliberately turned in her chair and faced round towards the neighbouring table. Her hand remained poised in its position, and the loose silk sleeve, falling back, showed a full and well-shaped arm. It was an expressive arm, but it was not a white arm – dark-skinned, and with a soft shade over it as of a dusky down. The hand was of the same rich hue, and the well-cushioned fingers held the fishy tail with great firmness, although most delicately. Gretchen noticed that the finger-tips were tinged with a deeper shade of yellow. It was only later that this yellow shade was explained to her as the result of the innumerable cigarettes which the Roumanian lady of degree fabricates for her own use and with her own skilful hands.

The turning of the stranger's