Lanfear returned,
"though I'm in San Remo for such a short time it's scarcely worth while
to change."

"Well, perhaps if you came here, you might stay longer. I guess we're
booked for the winter, Nannie?" He referred the question to his
daughter, who asked Lanfear if he would not have some coffee.

"I was going to say I had had my coffee, but I'm not sure it _was_
coffee," Lanfear began, and he consented, with some demur, banal enough,
about the trouble.

"Well, that's right, then, and no trouble at all," Mr. Gerald broke in
upon him. "Here comes a fellow looking for a chance to bring you some,"
and he called to a waiter wandering distractedly about with a "Heigh!"
that might have been offensive from a less obviously inoffensive man.
"Can you get our friend here a cup and saucer, and some of this good
coffee?" he asked, as the waiter approached.

"Yes, certainly, sir," the man answered in careful English. "Is it not,
perhaps, Mr. and Misses Gerald?" he smilingly insinuated, offering some
cards.

"Miss Gerald," the father corrected him as he took the cards. "Why,
hello, Nannie! Here are the Bells! Where are they?" he demanded of the
waiter. "Bring them here, and a lot more cups and saucers. Or, hold on!
I'd better go myself, Nannie, hadn't I? Of course! You get the crockery,
waiter. Where did you say they were?" He bustled up from his chair,
without waiting for a distinct reply, and apologized to Lanfear in
hurrying away. "You'll excuse me, doctor! I'll be back in half a minute.
Friends of ours that came over on the same boat. I must see them, of
course, but I don't believe they'll stay. Nannie, don't let Dr. Lanfear
get away. I want to have some talk with him. You tell him he'd better
come to the Sardegna, here."

Lanfear and Miss Gerald sat a moment in the silence which is apt to
follow with young people when they are unexpectedly left to themselves.
She kept absently pushing the cards her father had given her up and down
on the table between her thumb and forefinger, and Lanfear noted the
translucence of her long, thin hand in the sunshine striking across the
painted iron surface of the garden movable. The translucence had a
pathos for his intelligence which the pensive tilt of her head enhanced.
She stopped toying with the cards, and looked at the addresses on them.

"What strange things names are!" she said, as if musing on the fact,
with a sigh which he thought disproportioned to the depth of her
remark.