The owner of that name had done what everyone naturally does with a steamer-list or a programme or a column of “those present,” glanced quickly at her own name to discover if it had been printed correctly. It is most annoying to have a “Mrs.” where a “Miss” should be. Then her nervous finger-nail had underscored aimlessly, until the name fairly popped out of the list.
“‘Miss Geraldine Wells,’” he read. “There! I’ll call you ‘Jerry.’ Is it a go?”
Miss Geraldine Wells almost leaped in astonishment. But his innocent face assured her. She looked aloft critically, as if to judge if the name were worthy. The butler arrived with a tray of change.
“Is it a go?” he asked again.
“Yes, dear.”
“Please! Please!” he shook his head firmly. “Please don’t do that.”
The butler was handed his tip and was waved away.
“Your ear-tips are beginning again,” she told him in the tone she might have used to announce a spoon in his coffee cup.
Meanwhile the butler was bowing and muttering half-coherent “Thenk-you-m’lud’s.” His eye had taken on a fine frenzy.
“That funny remark has cost you——” Richard calculated aloud, “twenty lire is $3.86, and your share is $1.93. It cost you just $1.93 in American money. You got my mind so upset that I gave that idiot a 20-lira gold-piece too much. He’ll probably murder us now for our money, or what is worse, scream the news to the neighbourhood. We’ll have to pay high to get out of this. By rights you ought to take the whole cost.”