Miss Allan

Miss Allan belongs to the floating colony of English visitors who shuttle between the Ambroses' villa and the hotel, one of those acquaintances whose presence makes Santa Marina feel like a transplanted drawing-room. She teaches, reads, and watches, and her judgments carry a dry kindness that the more self-absorbed guests rarely notice. In a novel preoccupied with what people leave unsaid, she is one of the few who sees clearly and says little, a steady counterweight to the emotional weather around her.