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 interest in the young man’s troubles. Never before in the history of his connection with the Hotel du Lac had Gustavo   experienced such a munificent, companionable, expansive, entertaining, thoroughly unique and inexplicable guest. Even the fact that he was American scarcely accounted for everything.

The young man raised his head and eyed his companion gloomily.

“Gustavo, have you a sister?”

“A sister?” Gustavo’s manner was uncomprehending but patient. “Si, signore, I have eight sister.”

“Eight! Merciful saints. How do you manage to be so cheerful?”

“Tree is married, signore, one uvver is betrofed, one is in a convent, one is dead and two is babies.”

“I see—they’re pretty well disposed of; but the babies will grow up, Gustavo, and as for that betrothed one, I should still be a little nervous if I were you; you can never be sure they are going to stay betrothed. I hope she doesn’t spend her time chasing over the map of Europe making appointments with you to meet her in unheard of little mountain villages   where the only approach to Christian reading matter is a Paris Herald four days old, and then doesn’t turn up to keep her appointments?”

Gustavo blinked. His supple back achieved another bow.

“Sank you,” he murmured.

“And you don’t happen to have an aunt?”

“An aunt, signore?” There was vagueness in his tone.

“Yes, Gustavo, an aunt. A female relative who reads you like an open book, who sees your faults and skips your virtues, who remembers how dear and good and obliging your father was at your age, who hoped great things of you when you were a baby, who had intended to make you her heir but has about decided to endow an orphan asylum—have you, Gustavo, by chance an aunt?”

“Si, signore.”

“I do not think you grasp my question. An aunt—the sister of your father, or perhaps your mother.”

  A gleam of illumination swept over Gustavo’s troubled features.

“Ecco! You would know if I haf a zia—a aunt—yes, zat is it. A aunt. Sicuramente, signore, I haf ten—leven aunt.”

“Eleven aunts! Before such a tragedy I am speechless; you need say no more, Gustavo, from this moment we are friends.”

He held out his hand. Gustavo regarded it dazedly; then, since it seemed to be expected, he gingerly presented his own. The result was a shining newly-minted two-lire piece. He pocketed it with a fresh succession of bows.

“Grazie tanto! Has ze signore need of anysing?”

“Have I need of anysing?” There was reproach, indignation, disgust in the young man’s tone. “How can you ask such a question, Gustavo? Here am I, three days in Valedolmo, with seven more stretching before me. I have plenty of towels and soap and soft-boiled eggs, if that is what you mean; but a man’s spirit cannot be nourished on soap and   soft-boiled eggs. What I need is food for the mind—diversion, distraction, amusement—no, Gustavo, you needn’t offer me the Paris Herald again. I already know by heart the list of guests in every hotel in Switzerland.”

“Ah, it is diversion zat you wish? Have you seen zat ver’ beautiful Luini in ze chapel of San Bartolomeo? It is four hundred years old.”

“Yes, Gustavo, I have seen the Luini in the chapel of San Bartolomeo. I derived all the pleasure to be got out of it the first afternoon I came.”

“Ze garden of Prince Sartonio-Crevelli? Has ze signore seen ze cedar of Lebanon in ze garden of ze prince?”

“Yes, Gustavo, the signore has seen the cedar of Lebanon in the garden of the prince, also the ilex tree two hundred years old and the india-rubber plant from South America. They are extremely beautiful but they don’t last a week.”

“Have you swimmed in ze lake?”

“It is lukewarm, Gustavo.”

  The waiter’s eyes roved anxiously. They lighted on the lunette of shimmering water and purple mountains visible at the farther end of the arbor.

“Zere is ze view,” he suggested humbly. “Ze view from ze water front is consider ver’ beautiful, ver’ nice. Many foreigners come entirely for him. You can see Lago di Garda, Monte Brione, Monte Baldo wif ze ruin castle of ze Scaliger, Monte Maggiore, ze Altissimo di Nago, ze snow cover peak of Monte—”

Mr. Jerymn Hilliard Jr. stopped him with a gesture.

“That will do; I read Baedeker myself, and I saw them all the first night I came. You must know at your age, Gustavo, that a man can’t enjoy a view by himself; it takes two for that sort of thing—Yes, the truth is that I am lonely. You can see yourself to what straits I am pushed for conversation. If I had your command of language, now, I would talk to the German Alpine climbers.”

An idea flashed over Gustavo’s features.

  “Ah, zat is it! Why does not ze signore climb mountains? Ver’ helful; ver’ diverting. I find guide.”

“You needn’t bother. Your guide would be Italian, and it’s too much of a strain to talk to a man all day in dumb show.” He folded his arms with a weary sigh. “A week of Valedolmo! An eternity!”

Gustavo echoed the sigh. Though he did not entirely comprehend the trouble, still he was of a generously sympathetic nature.

“It is a pity,” he observed casually, “zat you are not acquaint wif ze Signor Americano who lives in Villa Rosa. He also finds Valedolmo undiverting. He comes—but often—to talk wif me. He has fear of forgetting how to spik Angleesh, he says.”

The young man opened his eyes.

“What are you talking about—a Signor Americano here in Valedolmo?”

“Sicuramente, in zat rose-color villa wif ze cypress trees and ze terrazzo on ze   lake. His daughter, la Signorina Costantina, she live wif him—ver’ yong, ver’ beautiful—” Gustavo rolled his eyes and clasped his hands—“beautiful like ze angels in Paradise—and she spik Italia like I spik Angleesh.”

Jerymn Hilliard Jr. unfolded his arms and sat up alertly.

“You mean to tell me that you had an American family up your sleeve all this time and never said a word about it?” His tone was stern.

“Scusi, signore, I have not known zat you have ze plaisir of zer acquaintance.”

“The pleasure of their acquaintance! Good heavens, Gustavo, when one ship-wrecked man meets another ship-wrecked man on a desert island must they be introduced before they can speak?”

“Si, signore.”

“And why, may I ask, should an intelligent American family be living in Valedolmo?”

“I do not know, signore. I have heard ze Signor Papa’s healf was no good, and   ze doctors in Americk’ zay say to heem, ‘you need change, to breave ze beautiful climate of Italia.’ And he say, ‘all right, I go to Valedolmo.’ It is small, signore, but ver’ famosa. Oh, yes, molto famosa. In ze autumn and ze spring foreigners come from all ze world—Angleesh, French, German—tutti! Ze Hotel du Lac is full. Every day we turn peoples away.”

“So! I seem to have struck the wrong season.—But about this American family, what’s their name?”

“La familia Veeldair from Nuovo York.”

“Veeldair.” He shook his head. “That’s not American, Gustavo, at least when you say it. But never mind, if they come from New York it’s all right. How many are there—just two?”

“But no! Ze papa and ze signorina and ze—ze—” he rolled his eyes in search of the word—“ze aunt!”

“Another aunt! The sky appears to be raining aunts today. What does she do for amusement—the signorina who is beautiful as the angels?”