The luncheon was a ceremonious affair. “It is part of the scenery,” the lady had remarked, “so why hurry it just to gaze on other scenery?” Coffee was served in the tiny balcony, by which time the Bay had put on other and gayer apparel; so the view had to be examined afresh. All of which took time. It was three o’clock before the bills were called for.
Several times during the delicious loafing on the balcony m’lady had examined her steamer-list and had stared at the man as if to find his name written on his forehead. He noted her interest, but claimed none for his own. “Look, my dear,” she would say, “at lazy old Vesuvius; isn’t he a villainous old giant, dirty, evil and full of cunning. I bet he is planning another blow-off.” And he would reply without any “dear” at all, not seeming to need that handle of a name to lift his comments.
“Why do you wish to go to America?” she asked, this being the nearest she ever came to breaking into the mystery of their personal lives.
“It is my home,” he answered in some surprise.
“I thought you were English?”
“Oh!” he remembered. “I am an American, even if I am half English. My mother was English, but father was so colossally American that it swamped the English strain.”
“That’s rather unusual, isn’t it?” she inquired. “It is more often that American women marry Englishmen.”
“Not at all; they’re more heavily advertised, that’s all. English women are very often attracted by men of the type of my father. There are many marriages of that sort. And the English father is mighty happy over it, I can tell you, for he gets off without the hint of a dowry. No decent American would listen to the suggestion of a dot, you know.”
There the subject dropped, and for a time all subjects. In lazy silence they looked on the view and thought their own thoughts.
Once he remarked, “I’m curious to know what that English butler is doing in an Italian inn. He can’t be happy outside of the West End. I wager he is hiding from the police. He looks it.”