Footsteps and voices resounded on the veranda--I beg pardon, the piazza; the scraping of chairs, the ping of a smitten bell.

Customers were turning up.

Mrs.Schomberg was begging Davidson hurriedly, but without looking at him, to say nothing to anyone, when on a half-uttered word her nervous whisper was cut short.
Through a small inner door Schomberg came in, his hair brushed, his beard combed neatly, but his eyelids still heavy from his nap.

He looked with suspicion at Davidson, and even glanced at his wife; but he was baffled by the natural placidity of the one and the acquired habit of immobility in the other.
"Have you sent out the drinks ?" he asked surlily.
She did not open her lips, because just then the head boy appeared with a loaded tray, on his way out.

Schomberg went to the door and greeted the customers outside, but did not join them.