Summary

Milly and her mother, having finished their lunch, are sitting on the balcony at their villa in the French Riviera. Marie, the housekeeper, brings them a card announcing that they have a visitor named Mr. Prodger. Both Milly and her mother are flustered, as they rarely receive visitors anymore. Mother is unsure whether they should accept the visitor, and laments their English servants from home who would be able to tell her what he was like. Marie whispers in French that he is a good-looking man, and Milly communicates the message to her mother. Mother, still undecided, asks where Mr. Prodger is. Marie tells her he is in the vestibule, and upon imagining Mr. Prodger surrounded by "all those valuable little foreign things that didn't belong to them," Mother tells Marie to bring Mr. Prodger to the salon (2).

Mother wonders if Miss Anderson, her...