her. Its exterior continued very like
that of other worlds where two young people have their being. Now and
then a more transitory guest at the Grand Hotel Sardegna perhaps fancied
it the iridescent orb which takes the color of the morning sky, and is
destined, in the course of nature, to the danger of collapse in which
planetary space abounds. Some rumor of this could not fail to reach
Lanfear, but he ignored it as best he could in always speaking gravely
of Miss Gerald as his patient, and authoritatively treating her as such.
He convinced some of these witnesses against their senses; for the
others, he felt that it mattered little what they thought, since, if it
reached her, it could not pierce her isolation for more than the instant
in which the impression from absent things remained to her.

A more positive embarrassment, of a kind Lanfear was not prepared for,
beset him in an incident which would have been more touching if he had
been less singly concerned for the girl. A pretty English boy, with the
dawn of a peachy bloom on his young cheeks, and an impulsiveness
commoner with English youth than our own, talked with Miss Gerald one
evening and the next day sent her an armful of flowers with his card. He
followed this attention with a call at her father's apartment, and after
Miss Gerald seemed to know him, and they had, as he told Lanfear, a
delightful time together, she took up his card from the table where it
was lying, and asked him if he could tell her who that gentleman was.
The poor fellow's inference was that she was making fun of him, and he
came to Lanfear, as an obvious friend of the family, for an explanation.
He reported the incident, with indignant tears standing in his eyes:
"What did she mean by it? If she took my flowers, she must have known
that--that--they--And to pretend to forget my name! Oh, I say, it's too
bad! She could have got rid of me without that. Girls have ways enough,
you know."

"Yes, yes," Lanfear assented, slowly, to gain time. "I can assure you
that Miss Gerald didn't mean anything that could wound you. She isn't
very well--she's rather odd--"

"Do you mean that she's out of her mind? She can talk as well as any
one--better!"

"No, not that. But she's often in pain--greatly in pain when she can't
recall a name, and I've no doubt she was trying to recall yours with the
help of your card. She would be the last in the world to be indifferent
to your feelings. I imagine she scarc