mouth, and a pair of dark, tragic-looking eyes that appeared all the darker
by contrast with her powder-white hair. She was of foreign
nationality--Russian, probably, Ann reflected, with those high cheek-bones
of hers and that subtle grace of movement. But she was atrociously dressed.
Crammed down on to her beautiful white hair was a mannish-looking soft felt
hat that had seen its best days long ago, and the coat and skirt she was
wearing, though unmistakably of good cut, were old and shabby. In her hand
she held an open note-case, eagerly counting over the Swiss notes it
contained, while every now and again she lifted her sombre, tragic eyes and
cast a hungry glance towards the room where boule was played, the doors of
which were not yet open.

"She might be an exiled Russian princess," commented Ann, observing a
certain regal turn of the head which wore the battered mannish hat.

Tony nodded.

"That's just what she is. She used to play a lot at Monte before the war.
Now she can't afford to go there. So she lives here and plays every
night--on the proceeds of any odd jewellery she can still sell."

Ann regarded her commiseratingly. The woman seemed to her a pathetically
tragic figure--a sidelight on the many tragedies hidden among that
cosmopolitan crowd on the terrace. Then her straying glance shifted to a
man seated alone at the next table to the Russian's, apparently absorbed in
a newspaper. Tony followed the direction of her eyes.

"That chap plays bridge at the club sometimes," he vouchsafed. "I don't
know who he is--never spoken to him. Foreigner, too, I should imagine. He's
so swarthy."