“Oh, I don’t know,” said George. “People talk an awful lot of rot about the danger.”
But now they were passing a high wall on the land side, covered with flowering heliotrope, and Fanny’s little nose lifted. “Oh, George,” she breathed. “The smell! The most divine....”
“Topping villa,” said George. “Look, you can see it through the palms.”
“Isn’t it rather large?” said Fanny, who somehow could not look at any villa except as a possible habitation for herself and George.
“Well, you’d need a crowd of people if you stayed there long,” replied George. “Deadly, otherwise. I say, it is ripping. I wonder who it belongs to.” And he prodded the driver in the back.
The lazy, smiling driver, who had no idea, replied, as he always did on these occasions, that it was the property of a wealthy Spanish family.
“Masses of Spaniards on this coast,” commented George, leaning back again, and they were silent until, as they rounded a bend, the big, bone-white hotel-restaurant came into view. Before it there was a small terrace built up against the sea, planted with umbrella palms, set out with tables, and at their approach, from the terrace, from the hotel, waiters came running to receive, to welcome, Fanny and George, to cut them off from any possible kind of escape.
“Outside?”
Oh, but of course they would sit outside. The sleek manager, who was marvellously like a fish in a frock coat, skimmed forward.