/poitrinaire/."

Godfrey shook his head, the word was beyond him.

"/Anglice/ consumptive," she explained. "There are lots of us in
Switzerland, you know, and on the whole, we are a merry set. It is
characteristic of our complaint. But never mind about me. There are
two or three people here. I daresay you will think them odd, but they
are clever in their way, and you ought to have something in common.
Come in."

He followed her into the beautiful cool saloon, with its large, double
French windows designed to keep out the bitter winds of winter, but
opened now upon the brilliant garden. Never before had he been in so
lovely a room, that is of a modern house, and it impressed him with
sensations that at the moment he did not try to analyse. All he knew
was that they were mingled with some spiritual quality, such as once
or twice he had felt in ancient churches, something which suggested
both the Past and the Future, and a brooding influence that he could
not define. Yet the place was all light and charm, gay with flowers
and landscape pictures, in short, lacking any sombre note.

Gathered at its far end where the bow window overlooked the sparkling
lake, were three or four people, all elderly. Instantly one of these
riveted his attention. She was stout, having her grey hair drawn back
from a massive forehead, beneath which shone piercing black eyes. Her
rather ungainly figure was clothed in what he thought an ugly green
dress, and she wore a necklet of emeralds in an old-fashioned setting,
which he also thought ugly but striking. From the moment that he
entered the doorway at the far end of that long saloon, he felt those