"Well, well! I'm very much obliged to you, very much, indeed; and I'm
sure my daughter is."
The girl said, "Oh yes, indeed," rather indifferently, and then as they
passed him, while he stood lifting his hat, she turned radiantly on him.
"Thank you, ever so much!" she said, with the gentle voice which he had
already thought charming.
The father called back: "I hope we shall meet again. We are going to the
Sardegna."
Lanfear had been going to the Sardegna himself, but while he bowed he
now decided upon another hotel.
The mystery, whatever it was, that the brave, little, fat father was
carrying off so bluffly, had clearly the morbid quality of unhealth in
it, and Lanfear could not give himself freely to a young pleasure in the
girl's dark beauty of eyes and hair, her pale, irregular, piquant face,
her slender figure and flowing walk. He was in the presence of something
else, something that appealed to his scientific side, to that which was
humane more than that which was human in him, and abashed him in the
other feeling. Unless she was out of her mind there was no way of
accounting for her behavior, except by some caprice which was itself
scarcely short of insanity.
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