She picked out a card from her pocket-book, on which was inscribed, in Spencerian definiteness of black and white, "Miss Barbara Allen." It had been the card of Lady Boxspur's eminently respectable maid—and Frances Durkin had saved it for just such a contingency.
He read the name, slowly, and then placed the card in his vest pocket. If he noticed her smile, he gave no sign of it.
"And you like Genoa? I mean, is there anything to like in this place?" he asked companionably. "I'll be hanged if I've seen anything but a few million mementoes of Christopher Columbus!"
"There's the Palazzo Bianco, and the Palazzo Rosso, and, of course, there's the Campo Santo!"
"But who cares for graveyards?"
"All Europe is a graveyard, of its past!" she answered lightly. "That was what I thought you Americans always came to see!"
He laughed a little, in turn, and she both liked him better for it and found it easier to go on. She felt, from his silences, that no great span of his life had been spent in talking with women. And she was glad of it.
"I like the Riggi," she added pregnantly.
"The Riggi—what's that, please?"
"That's the restaurant up on the hill." She hesitated and turned back, before unlocking her door. "It's charming!"