IV

He reported what had passed to her father when Mr. Gerald came back from
his stroll into the town, with his hands full of English papers; Gerald
had even found a New York paper at the news-stand; and he listened with
an apparent postponement of interest.

"I think," Lanfear said, "that she has some shadowy recollection, or
rather that the facts come to her in a jarred, confused way--the
elements of pictures, not pictures. But I am afraid that my inquiry has
offended her."

"I guess not," Gerald said, dryly, as if annoyed. "What makes you think
so?"

"Merely her manner. And I don't know that anything is to be gained by
such an inquiry."

"Perhaps not," Gerald allowed, with an inattention which vexed Lanfear
in his turn.

The elderly man looked up, from where he sat provisionally in the hotel
veranda, into Lanfear's face; Lanfear had remained standing. "_I_ don't
believe she's offended. Or she won't be long. One thing, she'll forget
it."

He was right enough, apparently. Miss Gerald came out of the hotel door
towards them, smiling equally for both, with the indefinable difference
between cognition and recognition habitual in her look. She was dressed