go after him and tell him?"

"No; I explained; he's all right," Lanfear said.

"You want to be careful, Nannie," her father added, "about people's
feelings when you meet them, and afterwards seem not to know them."

"But I _do_ know them, papa," she remonstrated.

"You want to be careful," her father repeated.

"I will--I will, indeed." Her lips quivered, and the tears came, which
Lanfear had to keep from flowing by what quick turn he could give to
something else.

An obscure sense of the painful incident must have lingered with her
after its memory had perished. One afternoon when Lanfear and her father
went with her to the military concert in the sycamore-planted piazza
near the Vacherie Suisse, where they often came for a cup of tea, she
startled them by bowing gayly to a young lieutenant of engineers
standing there with some other officers, and making the most of the
prospect of pretty foreigners which the place afforded. The lieutenant
returned the bow with interest, and his eyes did not leave their party
as long as they remained. Within the bounds of deference for her, it was
evident that his comrades were joking about the honor done him by this
charming girl. When the Geralds started homeward Lanfear was aware of a
trio of officers following them, not conspicuously, but unmistakably;
and after that, he could not start on his walks with Miss Gerald and her
father without the sense that the young lieutenant was hovering
somewhere in their path, waiting in the hopes of another bow from her.