in a lounging chair engaged with a cigarette and a copy of the Paris Herald. He glanced up with a yawn—excusable under the circumstances—but as his eye fell upon the letter he sprang to his feet.
‘Hello, Gustavo! Is that for me?’
Gustavo bowed.
‘Ecco! She is at last arrive, ze lettair for which you haf so moch weesh.’ He bowed a second time and presented it. ‘Meestair Jayreen Ailyar!’
The young man laughed.
‘I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, Gustavo, but I’m not sure I should answer if my eyes were shut.’
He picked up the letter, glanced at the address to make sure—the name was Jerymn Hilliard, Jr.—and ripped it open with an exaggerated sigh of relief. Then he glanced up and caught Gustavo’s expression. Gustavo came of a romantic race; there was a gleam of sympathetic interest in his eye.
‘Oh, you needn’t look so knowing! I suppose you think this is a love-letter? Well it’s not. It is, since you appear to be interested, a letter from my sister informing me that they will arrive to-night, and that we will pull out for Riva by the first boat to-morrow morning. Not that I want to leave you, Gustavo, but—Oh thunder!’
He finished the reading in a frowning silence while the waiter stood at polite attention, a shade of anxiety in his eye—there was usually anxiety in his eye when it rested on Jerymn Hilliard, Jr. One could never foresee what the young man would call for next. Yesterday he had rung the bell and demanded a partner to play lawn tennis, as if the hotel kept partners laid away in drawers like so many sheets.
He crumpled up the letter and stuffed it in his pocket.
‘I say, Gustavo, what do you think of this? They’re going to stay in Lucerne till the tenth—that’s next week—and they hope I won’t mind waiting; it will be nice for me to have a rest. A rest, man, and I’ve already spent three days in Valedolmo!’
‘Si, signore, you will desire ze same room?’ was as much as Gustavo thought.
‘Ze same room? Oh, I suppose so.’
He sank back into his chair and plunged his hands into his pockets with an air of sombre resignation. The waiter hovered over him, divided between a desire to return to his siesta, and a sympathetic
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