"My memory does not go back as far as that," said Kenwick. "I'm a child of the hour."

He was a man well on in the thirties, who looked as if he had lived hard; and since there was nothing in his chosen calling to account for such an impression, the observer was led to seek its origin in the realm of speculation. He had, to be sure, painted several good pictures, but that was ten years ago. Since then he had lived on his reputation, materially reinforced by a not inconsiderable income. As Pauline watched his face, it struck her that his smile, which she had always objected to, had grown positively glittering in its intensity. Uncle Dan, for his part, thought the young man seemed amusing, but he wished he had not happened to be old Stephen Kenwick's grandson.

"Then we may have you?" Geoffry was asking.

"I thought it was the poppies you wanted," said May, suspiciously.

"It is! it is!" cried Kenwick with fervour.

"But you make such a pretty setting," Daymond explained; "your dress, you know, and the general colour-scheme."

"What fun to be a colour-scheme," cried May. "Uncle Dan, do you think I might be a colour-scheme?"

"I don't know that you can help it," was Uncle Dan's rejoinder, intended to express a proper resignation, but betraying, quite unconsciously, an appreciation of more than the pale blue gown as a background.

Then Nanni, having returned to his post, was directed to row out a little from shore, and presently the two artists were at work, rapidly sketching in the bright figure with the slim black prow for a foil, and the silvery reaches of the lagoon beyond.

Uncle Dan was sitting in the chair where he could watch the faces of the young men. There was something in Kenwick's manner that antagonised him; it was, somehow, too appreciative.

"I make a condition," the Colonel exclaimed abruptly, in his voice of martinet. "If there's a likeness the sketch is forfeited."

"I'm safe," Geoffry laughed. "I never got a likeness in my life."

"I will be as evasive as possible," said Kenwick, somewhat nettled; "but it's rather late to impose conditions."

"Am I holding the poppies right?" asked May, after what seemed to her a long interval of silence. "I'm afraid they will begin to droop pretty soon."

"The poppies are all right," Geoffry assured her.

"Does that mean the rest of it isn't? I posed for the girls in a studio once, and they said I did it very well."

"Girls usually pose well," Kenwick observed; upon which May concluded, most illogically, that he was conceited.

Pauline, meanwhile, had not turned toward the other gondola which lay astern of theirs. She was watching her sister and wishing she could sketch. She thought, if she could, she would rather do her as she received the poppies from the hands of the gondolier. She had one of her prettiest looks then, and the little touch of action was more characteristic. There was something conventional, and therefore not quite natural in this passive pose; May was not in the habit of sitting still to be looked at.

"Would you like to see, Miss Beverly?"

The other gondola had glided up close alongside, and Daymond held out his sketch. Faithful to his bond, and to his professed disabilities, he had scarcely hinted at the face, but the pose was charmingly successful, and the scheme of colour was all he had promised. Bright as the poppies were, and well as they were indicated, without being individualised, in the sketchy handling, the really high light of the picture was caught in the golden hair, which gleamed against the silvery blending of water and sky, and was thrown into still brighter relief by the graceful black prow curving beyond it, but a little off the line.

"It is lovely," said Pauline, as she handed it to May.

"How pretty!" cried May; and then, recovering her presence of mind: "I don't see how you got such a good red."

Uncle Dan, meanwhile, was examining Kenwick's sketch.

"How the devil did you get that likeness?" he exclaimed, forgetting, for an instant, the condition he had made.

"Then the thing is forfeited," Kenwick remarked.

"That's a fact," the Colonel answered, turning up on the artist a glance of quick distrust. "What's to be done about it?"

"That is for you to say," Kenwick replied. "The sketch is yours."

The Colonel's face flushed. He had a very lively appreciation of a graceful act, and he was really delighted with the picture.

"Why, bless my soul!" he cried; "that's a present worth having! Eh, Polly?"

"Indeed it is!" Pauline agreed, cordially, taking the picture from her uncle's hand and studying it attentively.

"All the same," she said, as they were rowing towards home, half-an-hour later; "I should much rather have had Mr. Daymond's sketch. It is not a likeness, yet there's twice as much of May in it."

"Do you think so?" May queried, doubtfully. "Seems to me he didn't give me any nose."

"Oh, yes, he did; there was a little dot that did very well for a nose. And, besides, there isn't very much of you in your nose."

"I wish you had told me that my hat was tipped up on one side," May continued, reproachfully. She was examining Kenwick's sketch with much interest.

"It would have spoiled it if it hadn't been; your hair wouldn't have showed half as well."

"Perhaps not; and the hair does look pretty," May admitted. "Do you remember how pretty Mamma's hair was, Uncle Dan?"

"Of course I do. It was prettier than yours," the Colonel declared, cheerfully perjuring his soul in the cause of discipline.

"So I thought," said May. "There's always something better than ours. I wonder how it would seem to have anything really superlative."

As the gondola came up to the steps of the Venezia, May turned, and looking back at the gondolier, said: "The papaveri are beautiful, Nanni."

She was delighted with her acquisition of a new word, and still more so with the flash of pleasure her thanks called forth.

"No, he is not morose," she assured herself, as she stood on the balcony, a few minutes later, and watched the gondola gliding away in the golden afternoon light. The man was rowing slowly, against the tide, but presently the long, slim boat, with the long, slim figure at the stern, rounded the bend of the Canal and vanished.



VIII

The Pulse of the Sea

By the end of another week the life in Venice had come to seem the only life in the world, and even May admitted that there was something mythical about wheels and tram-ways and such prosaic devices for getting about on dry land. Both she and Pauline had acquired some little skill with the forward oar, for, as Uncle Dan justly observed, now that they sometimes succeeded in keeping the oar in the row-lock for twenty consecutive strokes, they were really very little hindrance to the progress of the boat! May declared that no person of a practical turn would ever take naturally to so unpractical an arrangement as that short-lipped makeshift, designed to eject an oar at the first stroke. Geoffry Daymond agreed with her in this, as in most of her opinions. He declared in confidence to his mother that her views must either be accepted or flatly contradicted, for they possessed no atmosphere, and they consequently afforded no debatable ground.

Kenwick, on the other hand, very rarely saw fit to agree with the positive young person who looked so pretty when she was crossed, or with any one else, for the matter of that. He told May that she would row better if she were not so wool-gathering, merely for the pleasure of hearing her scornful disclaimer; and when Pauline pointed out that she was herself the wool-gatherer, although her oar was quite as tractable as her sister's, he assured her that she was as much a child of the fleeting hour as himself.

It was Kenwick's method to talk to people about themselves, with a judicious linking together of his own peculiarities and theirs. He imagined that that sort of thing lent a piquancy to conversation. The aim of Oliver Kenwick's life was to be effective; his art had suffered from it, and even in social matters he sometimes had the misfortune to overshoot the mark.

"Uncle Dan," Pauline had asked, one day, after an hour spent in Kenwick's society, "what is the reason Mr. Kenwick makes so little impression?"

"Because he doesn't tally," May put in.

"Well," said Uncle Dan, scowling perplexedly; "I don't quite make him out. But we've always had a feeling in our family that some of the Kenwicks were not quite our own kind";—an expression of opinion on Uncle Dan's part which owed its careful moderation to the fact that he had accepted and still treasured the poppy sketch. For there was one thing that the Colonel deferred to even more than to his prejudices, and that was his sense of obligation.

He therefore submitted, with a very good grace, to seeing a good deal of the young man, and if it occasionally irked him to have Stephen Kenwick's grandson about, he found his account in the spirit and ease with which his two Pollys dealt with the situation.

Kenwick, of course, attached himself ostensibly to the Daymond party. He seemed to bear Geof no grudge because of his defection in the matter of the tramp among the Dolomites, which he himself, indeed, had appeared ready enough to relinquish. Without any preconcerted plan it usually happened that the two gondolas fell in with each other in the course of the afternoon, an arrangement which was much facilitated by the brilliant-hued banners floating at the respective prows.

"There's the flag-ship over by San Servolo," Geof would exclaim, seizing an oar and giving immediate chase; or they would cruise about in an aimless way until Kenwick dropped the remark that the Colonel had said something about a trip to Murano that day.

The casual nature of Kenwick's allusions to the Colonel's party afforded Geof no little amusement. His pleasure in Oliver's society had always partaken somewhat of the admiring sentiment a plain man entertains for a clever comedian. Being himself incapable of dissimulation, even in a good cause, he was the more disposed to condone any harmless exercise of a gift which he could never hope to acquire.

"I'm afraid they won't catch up with us any more, now that we have two oars," said May, one afternoon, as the red banner sped swiftly past the Riva, bound for the Porto del Lido. The day was bright and warm, and the pretty linen awning with its crimson lining was spread above their heads, somewhat obstructing their view. "I wish I could see whether they were coming," she added, with outspoken solicitude. "It's so much more fun to be a flotilla!"

"I think they will find us," said Pauline, smiling to herself, as if she had pleasant thoughts. She would trust Geoffry Daymond to overtake them. Pauline was no matchmaker, but, as she told herself, it was the sort of thing that was always happening in the family, and Geof's liking for May was as obvious as it was natural.

"Do you think, Vittorio, that we can really go out on the Adriatic?" May asked.

Vittorio had been at the forward oar for a day or two, and to-morrow his brother was to be dismissed and he was to return to his post.

"Hardly out upon the Adriatic," he said, and, turning, he laid his oar flat across between the two gunwales and balanced himself upon it in order to look under the flaps of the awning into the face of the Signorina. Vittorio was of a pre-eminently social disposition, and he liked to be in visible touch with his listeners. It was indeed refreshing to see his handsome face and brilliant smile once more. It quite flashed in upon them, being in full sunshine, as they looked out upon it from their shady covert.

"The new break-water runs out a very long distance into the open sea on either side," he explained; "and we shall hardly get to the end of it. But we can see over it, and there will be the bright sails such as the Signorina likes."

"How nice he is!" said May; "Now the other one would have said: 'No, Signorina,' and that would have been the end of it."

Yet, even as she spoke, a quick compunction seized her. She had never been able to rid her mind of a disquieting conviction that all was not well with this grave, taciturn being, whose personality was not less haunting than his bearing was unobtrusive. She did not remember that she had ever before felt so much concern for an indifferent person, and, being of an active temperament, she could not be content with a passive solicitude. It seemed to her that something must be done about it, and that it devolved upon her to solve the problem. Perhaps if she were to offer to give the man a gondola he would admit that he was miserable in that dreary hospital, and that he longed for the free life of the lagoons. The project appealed, indeed, so strongly, both to her imagination and to her judgment, that she had already made a mental readjustment of her finances to that end. There was a certain white silk trimmed with pale green miroir velvet that she had once dreamed of, which had somehow transformed itself in her mind into a slim black bark, fitted out in the most approved style with cushions and sea-horses, and tufted cords.

"I ought to be willing to dance in my tennis dress the rest of my days," she told herself; "for the sake of changing the whole course of a poor man's life!"

"Lungo!"

The familiar call took her quite by surprise, and looking out from under the awning, she espied the Daymond sea-horse on its blue ground, already close upon them. Geof was at the oar and Kenwick was sitting beside Mrs. Daymond.

"What do you say to our making an exchange of prisoners, Colonel Steele?" asked Mrs. Daymond. "You shall have one of my young men if you will give me one of your girls."

"Oh, may I come to you?" Pauline begged, mindful of her little air-castle;—for the Colonel always managed, when he could, to get Geoffry into his own boat, and the young man was already engaged in an animated conversation with her sister.

"Do come," said Mrs. Daymond. "And Mr. Kenwick, I shall have to give you up, for I can't spare an oar."

"Doesn't Mr. Kenwick row?" asked May, lifting a pair of satirical eye-brows.

"Not for other people," Kenwick laughed. "I keep my strength for paddling my own canoe." And, having seen Pauline safely established beside Mrs. Daymond, he stepped into the Colonel's boat, quite unconscious of the scarcity of encouragement he had received.

The Colonel welcomed him the more hospitably perhaps, for a consciousness of having been somewhat remiss at the outset. He need have had no misgivings, however, for Kenwick was so happily constituted as to consider a slight to himself quite inconceivable.

"It was very sweet of you to come to us," said Mrs. Daymond, as the gondolas glided away from each other. "We particularly wanted you this afternoon."

"I am glad of that," said Pauline, with one of her still smiles that seemed to give out as much warmth as brightness.

They had passed the island of Santa Elena, and were upon the broad path of the sea-going vessels, which was deserted to-day, save for one yellow sail, yet a long way off, that stood out in full sunshine against the quiet northern sky. The tide was coming in, though not yet strongly, and they were avoiding the current by keeping in toward the shore of the Lido.

Geof was rowing, with power and precision, as his habit was. It struck Pauline that he would have been a capital gondolier; and then she remembered that when he got her Uncle Dan talking about the war the other day,—a feat, by the way, which few succeeded in accomplishing,—she had thought to herself, what a superb soldier he would have made. Presently her eye wandered from the rhythmically swaying figure at the oar to the wide reaches of the seaward path, where the yellow sail showed, clear and remote as a golden bugle-note, its reflection dropping like an echo, far, far down into the depths. The other gondola had fallen back a few lengths, as was apt to be the case.

"Did you ever wonder why your men give us the right of way?" Mrs. Daymond asked. Her voice fell in so naturally with the dip of the oars and the lapping of the tide against the prow, that Pauline suddenly became aware of those pleasant sounds, which had escaped her notice till then.

"I should suppose of course your gondola ought to go first," she answered.

"Oh, no," Mrs. Daymond laughed; "it is not out of deference to me. It is only because Pietro is an old man, and they don't like to hurry him. Isn't that a pretty trait?"

"Yes, indeed! Is Pietro very old?"

"He is sixty-four. He rows as well as ever, only he hasn't quite the endurance he used to have. He was my husband's gondolier."

"And you have had him all these years?"

"Yes; since before Geof was born. Geof is twenty-nine," she added thoughtfully; "just the age of his father when we first met. He is like his father, only happier."

"Happier?" Pauline repeated, wonderingly.

"Yes; my husband had peculiar sorrows."

They were close upon the bright sail now, and they found that it was striped with red and tipped with purple. The slight breeze had dropped and the sail hung loose, glowing in the sunshine as the boat floated homeward with the tide. Two men lay asleep in the shadow of the sail, and the man at the rudder had let his pipe go out. As the gondola came alongside the boat, a small yellow dog sprang up and barked sharply at them, his body, from tip to tail, violently agitated with the whirr of the internal machinery. The helmsman, thus roused, pulled out a match and lighted his pipe; the sunshine was so bright that the light of the match was obliterated. Mrs. Daymond and Pauline watched the little drama rather absently.

"There are more sails," Geof remarked, nodding his head toward the mouth of the port, where brilliant bits of colour hovered like butterflies in the sun. Pauline did not say how pretty they were, but Geof, stooping to look under the awning into her face, did not feel that she was unresponsive. He had discovered before this that she had other means of expression than audible speech.

They had come about the end of the Lido, and were following the line of the break-water, and presently Mrs. Daymond broke the silence:

"My husband was a Southern Unionist," she said. "The war was an inevitable tragedy to him."

Pauline felt instinctively that it was not often that Mrs. Daymond spoke in this way of her husband to one who had not known him. She listened with a sense of being singled out for a great honour.

"He would have given his life for his country," Mrs. Daymond was saying: "He would have given his life for the Union,—but he was bound hand and foot, and he came away."

They were far, far out now, still rowing toward the open sea. As Mrs. Daymond paused, they could hear the voice of the Colonel, speaking to Vittorio, in his peculiar Italian, only a shade less English than his own tongue.

"And your husband came to Venice?"

"Yes; it was here that we met. He had been gathering material in many places for a history of Venice, and he had come; here to write. We spent three years here, summer and winter. He was fond of rough weather, and we get plenty of that here. And he was fond of work."

She paused again, watching the measured stroke of her son's oar.

"One summer we went into the Tyrol for a few weeks, and while we were away there was a fire, and all my husband's notes and manuscripts were burnt."

"Burnt?" Pauline repeated, with a catch of consternation in her voice.

There was not a trace of bitterness in the speaker's face; on the contrary, its usual clear serenity seemed touched to something higher and deeper.

"Then it was," she said, "that my husband had his great opportunity. He began his work again from the beginning. His courage did not flag for a single instant."

"He was a brave soldier after all," said Pauline.

"Yes; and he fell on the field. There was a terrible epidemic of fever, and he went about among the people doing them inestimable service in many ways. I could not go with him because of Geof, and,—I saw the end from the beginning. As I was saying, Pietro used to row us as long ago as that. He has carried Geof in his arms many a time. Ah! Now we feel the swell!"

As she spoke, the long, slow roll of the sea lifted their light bark like a piece of drift-wood upon its sweeping crest, letting it sink again in a strange and solemn rhythm. The actual rise and fall of the water was so slight that it was scarcely apparent to the eye; yet it had the reach and significance of an elemental force, and the gondola rose and sank with a certain tremor, foreign to its usual graceful motion.

"Perhaps we had better turn back, Geof," said Mrs. Daymond.

"Very well; but not until Miss Beverly has seen the sails outside."

Pauline went forward and stood upon the upper step, steadying herself by the oarsman's proffered shoulder. The motion seemed stronger, now that she was on her feet.

"Hold harder," said Geof; "you won't enjoy it if you don't feel safe. There! That's right."

Over the line of the jetty was the deep blue Adriatic, sweeping to the horizon, its nearer reaches dotted with brilliant sails, shining in every shade of red and yellow and ruddy brown. The long, outer shore of the Lido, stretching far away to the tower of Malamocco, was edged with white, as the gentle curve of the waves broke with a toss of spray upon the sand.

"You like it?" Geof inquired, looking up into her face.

"It's as pretty as a tune," she said. "A tune with a lot of harmony to make it really sing. Do you know what I mean?"

"Perfectly," he answered.

Then, as she stepped down and went back to her seat: "I'm going home as passenger," he announced. "We shall have the tide with us and Pietro won't need my help."

"That's right," said Mrs. Daymond. "We want you over here."

The sun had got low enough to shine in under the flaps of the awning, and Geof lifted the canvas from its iron rods, and handed it over to Pietro, who stowed it away, rods and all, in the stern of the gondola. The world seemed to open up immensely bright and big, and the sky struck them with the force of a revelation.

"There, I call this grand!" Geof cried, taking possession of the chair. "I've been feeling like an outcast or a galley-slave, or some such unlucky wretch, labouring away at the oar, with you two having the pick of everything inside."

"You seemed depressed!" his mother said, with amused appreciation of his lament.

They had turned toward home, and were just coming up with the Colonel's gondola. The men were resting on their oars, while the passengers stood up to survey the view beyond the jetty.

"You didn't come out far enough to get the swell," said Pauline.

"Yes, we did," May answered. "But we didn't like it; so we came back."

"Miss May was pretty badly frightened," Kenwick observed, with his most brilliant smile.

"Nonsense!" cried May; "I was no more frightened than anybody else! But I didn't like it. It felt so horribly big, and made us seem so little."

"And you were perfectly right, Polly," said Uncle Dan, placing his hand upon the small, gloveless one that lay on his arm. "The sea is no place for a gondola. I am sure Mrs. Daymond agrees with us."

"I think we both sympathize with May," she answered, glancing with interest at the charming young face, which was not quite clear of a certain puzzled disturbance.

Half-an-hour later they rounded the end of the Lido and came in full sight of the city, its domes and towers grouping themselves in ever changing perspective against the western sky. They overtook two or three of the brilliant sails they had passed on their outward way, still drifting city-ward with the tide. The men had taken to their oars and were helping the boats along.

As they drew near the poor, denuded island of Santa Elena, where only the vine-grown Abbey remains, of all its ancient loveliness, a cascade of lark-notes came pouring down from the sky. They strained their eyes to catch a glimpse of the birds, lost to sight in the dazzling ether, and as they looked, one tiny creature, with wings outspread, came singing down to earth.

The gondolas were nearing home, when Geof asked abruptly: "How did you like it, Miss Beverly,—being caught in the ocean swell?"

"I agree with May that it was rather solemn and awful," she answered; and then, with a slightly deepening colour: "but—I liked it."



IX

By-ways of Venice

"I say, Geof; isn't that Colonel Steele's gondola over there?"

"Why, yes!" Geof cried, with mock surprise; "how clever of you to see it! And, I say, Oliver, don't you think that looks a little like the tower of San Giorgio? Red, you know; rather marked, eh?"

The two young men were coming home from an early sketching-bout, as was evident from a glance at the gondola, which was distinctly in undress. Old Pietro knew better than to carry his best cushions and brasses on such occasions; nor did he display the long, black broadcloth,—the strassino—which gives such distinction to a gondola, falling in ample folds from the carved back of the seat, and hiding the rougher finish of the stern. Under the awning, on the very rusty and dilapidated cushions, sat Kenwick, and beside him, face up, was an oil-sketch of a half-grown boy, sitting at the prow of a fishing-boat, dangling his bare brown legs over the water, which gave back a broken reflection of the bony members. A red sail, standing out in full sunshine, furnished the background to the figure, but somehow, the interest centred in the thin legs, which the boy himself was regarding with studious approval. The legs were so extremely well drawn that one did not wonder at their owner's satisfaction in them.

"Pity you can't paint as well as you can chaff," the artist observed, glancing from his own clever sketch to his friend's block, which was leaning, face inward, against the side of the boat.

Geof was lolling on the steps, his legs somewhat entangled among the easels, paint-boxes, and the like that cumbered the floor of the boat, one arm resting on the deck of the prow. Like many athletic men, he had a gift for looking outrageously lazy. At Kenwick's retort, he turned from the contemplation of San Giorgio, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and folding his hands behind his head, bestowed an amiable grin upon his astute friend. He wondered just why Kenwick found it worth while to dissemble.

"The best thing you ever did was that poppy sketch," he remarked, regarding his companion with half-closed, indolent eyes. "But then, you haven't often the wit to choose such a good subject. I wish you were not so confoundedly afraid of doing anything pretty."

"My dear fellow," Kenwick retorted, "you may be a very decent architect, but I'll be hanged if you have the first inkling of what art means."

From which interchange of amenities, the average listener might not have inferred, what was nevertheless true, that the two men had a high opinion of each other's talents. Happily, there was no one to be misled, for Pietro, with all his advantages, had not yet mastered a word of English. The only feature of the situation intelligible to him, was, that Kenwick, too, discarded his pipe at this juncture, and the gondolier was, accordingly, obliged to stow away his own half-finished cigarette,—4th quality,—in the cavernous recesses of the stern. He had been counting upon smoking it out before arriving at the Palazzo Darino, though he had scented danger from the moment his eye fell upon Vittorio's gondola. A gondolier, however, is early schooled to study any whim rather than his own, and presently Pietro observed, rather than inquired: "To San Giorgio, Signore?"

"Sicuro!"

The red banner was hanging limp in the lee of the island, the prow of the boat being tied to a ring in the masonry, while Vittorio sat at the forward end, holding her off, lest a passing steamboat or outward bound coaster should drive her against the wall. Under the awning was a glimpse of light draperies, and, as Pietro's gondola drew near, the young men could hear a fresh, girlish voice reading aloud.

"We're not in visiting trim," Geof called, gathering himself together, as they came up; "but we must know what you are improving your minds upon."

"We are reading Ruskin," May replied, in her most edifying tone of voice.

"Oh, St. Mark's Rest," said Kenwick. "You're getting enlightened about the pillars."

"It's very interesting," Pauline declared. "You know he tells us to have our gondola moored over here, and read what he has to say. Doesn't everybody do it?"

"Well, I don't think you'll ever find San Giorgio fringed with gondolas," Kenwick mocked; "but I'm sure it shows a beautiful spirit in those who do come. I recognize Miss May's docility."

"You are quite right," said May, with dignity. "It was I who proposed it. Do you read Ruskin, Mr. Daymond?"

"Of course I do. One would be lost without him, here in Venice."

"We almost got lost with him the other day," she rejoined. "We poked about in the rain in search of a San Giorgio on the wall of a house, who was described as 'vigorous in disciplined career of accustomed conquest.' We found the right bridge, with an unpronounceable name, and we turned and looked back, just as we were bid, and never a San Giorgio did we find. Imagine our disappointment when a shop-keeper told us that San Giorgio was partito!"

"He was probably partito on his 'career of accustomed conquest,'" Pauline observed. "Is that what you two artists have been about?"

"We have been making a couple of daubs and abusing each other," said Geof.

"Yes," Kenwick declared; "Daymond spends his time washing in sails and clouds and watery wastes, and won't take the trouble to draw a figure."

"Oh, well," said Daymond, philosophically, "I know that if I should ever want to exhibit, which Heaven forbid! Kenwick could well afford to put in the figures at ten francs the dozen. I don't suppose you mind being interrupted," he added, tentatively.

"No, indeed," said May. "Our scene was in need of figures, too. Even Uncle Dan failed us. He hates to be read to, and he wouldn't come and moor."

"Besides," said Pauline; "he wanted to go and sit at Florian's and watch the children feeding the pigeons. He says he shouldn't grow old if he lived in Venice."

"He had better, then," said Daymond. "Venice is very becoming to old things. Don't you want to come and see some of those Madonnas we were telling you about, with parasols over their heads?"

"Good," May agreed, promptly giving Ruskin the go-by. "And why don't you come in our gondola? You don't want all that clutter going about with you."

"I'm afraid if we don't go home and brush up, we shall have the appearance of a clutter in your boat," said Geof.

"Speak for yourself," Kenwick protested. He flattered himself that he was as well dressed in painting rig as under any other circumstances; and quite right he was, too. For Oliver Kenwick had no mannish contempt for appearances. He could not have done justice to the ragged shirt and begrimed legs of a model, if he had been wearing such a superannuated coat as Geoffry Daymond elected to paint in. Yet, as the two men stepped into Vittorio's gondola, it was he of the shabby apparel who seemed to give character to the group, while Oliver Kenwick would have made very little impression, if he had chosen to refrain from conversation. This he rarely did, however, and he lost no time in engaging May's attention.

"It's a pity we haven't time this morning to row out to St. George in the Seaweed," he said. "There's a Madonna there, on the angle of the wall, that's worth seeing. When we do go, you will have to guess whom it is like."

"Probably Pauline," May ventured. "One keeps seeing her in the Madonnas and saints."

"No, it's not your sister," said Kenwick, with unmistakable meaning.

"You don't mean me!" May exclaimed. "No mortal artist could make a Madonna of me!"

"This may not have been done by a mortal artist. At any rate nobody knows who did it. But it's a lovely thing"; and Kenwick paused, with a view to doing full justice to the implication.

"Have you never painted Pietro?" Pauline was asking, as she watched the striking figure of the old gondolier, rowing homeward. He had rescued his cigarette, which he was smoking, with a dandified air, as he made leisurely progress across the basin. Pietro had been a handsome young blade in his day, and there were moments when he recalled the fact.

"Oh, no; I'm not up to that kind of thing," Geof answered; "you know I don't pretend to paint. My business is with bricks and mortar. It's only when I'm loafing that I dabble in colours."

"Yet I liked your sketch of my sister, particularly."

"You don't mean it," Geof exclaimed; "why, that's worth knowing!"

He looked thoughtfully at the graceful young creature in question, once more engaged in animated conversation. She was pretty,—no doubt of it,—preposterously pretty! The colouring of face and head was delicious, and there was nothing slip-shod about the modelling, either. All bright and clear and significant. She made him think of a perfectly cut jewel. It was rather odd that it should have been possible to hit off anything so definite, so almost matter-of-fact, in a mere sketch.

"I suppose it was because I didn't try for too much," he said aloud. "The sketch was only a hint."

As he turned his eyes from May's face to that of her sister, it was hardly more than a glance he bestowed upon the latter. He was impressed with the fact that it was impossible to subject the nevertheless perfectly unconscious countenance, whose eyes met his so frankly, to the candid scrutiny he had given her sister.

"I'm afraid I shouldn't succeed as well with you," he remarked.

"I wouldn't try, if I were you," Pauline laughed; "I can't get even a photograph that my friends will accept. Have you any good portrait of your mother?"

"No; Kenwick tried her two years ago, but it wasn't a go."

"Of course not."

"Why, of course not?"

"Yes; why, of course not?" Kenwick demanded. The sound of his name had naturally attracted his attention, and, quite as naturally he was piqued by what he heard.

Pauline hesitated a moment, not disconcerted, but reflecting.

"Perhaps only because you're not an old master," she said; "Mrs. Daymond ought to have been painted three or four hundred years ago."



"And whom should you have chosen to do it?" Geoffry asked. It struck him that this was quite his own view, only he had never thought it out before.

"Let me think," said Pauline. "Not any of the great Venetians. They were too,—well, too gorgeous."

"Raphael?" May suggested.

"No, not Raphael. Ah! Now I know! Sodoma could have done it."

"That's true," said Geoffry. "It ought to have been Sodoma." Then, "I believe you feel about my mother something as I do," he added, as May and Kenwick entered upon a lively discussion of their views upon the Sienese painter, in which they seemed able to discover nothing in common beyond a great decision of opinion.

The gondola was making its way down narrow canals, whose placid water found the loveliest Gothic windows and hanging balconies to reflect, and under innumerable bridges, each more delectable than the last. Now and then they stopped at some doorway opening upon the water, where they landed, and, passing through a ware-room golden with heaps of polenta, or dusky with bronzes and wrought iron, they came out into a court-yard embellished by an exquisite old stone staircase, with quaint carved balustrade and leisurely landings, where beauteous dames of by-gone centuries may have paused, as they descended, decked in rich brocades and costly jewels. Or again, an antique well-head, half-concealed by tools and lumber, kept its legend in faithful bronze or marble. The Madonnas, under their iron canopies looked down, serene and beneficent, standing, here, above a little frequented court; there, over the gateway of an old palace. There was one which Pauline was the first to espy, as they approached it under the arch of a bridge. The figure was upon the angle of a wall, glassed just where two canals met at her feet. Above her head was a square canopy, over the edge of which delicate green vines and tendrils waved, while in and out among them, tiny birds fluttered and chirped.



As Vittorio rested on his oar, Kenwick took pains to assure May that there were no longer any lights burned before these Madonnas, and Vittorio was called upon to account for the omission. While he eagerly claimed that the Madonna at his ferry was never left without a light, between sundown and sunrise;—mai, mai!—Pauline replied to a remark that Geoffry had made an hour previous.

"The feeling one has about your mother," she said, "almost makes a Catholic of one. You can see how natural it is for these poor fellows to worship the Madonna, and how much better it must make them."

"It is humanizing," Geoffry admitted. "There's no doubt of it"; and thereupon it struck him, for the first time, that there was a look of his mother in Pauline Beverly's face. Perhaps that accounted for something that had perplexed him of late.



X

A Benediction

The thing that had perplexed Geoffry Daymond was nothing less inexplicable than the persistency with which the face of Pauline Beverly had come to insinuate itself into his thoughts. When in her society, to be sure, he was not aware of regarding her with an exclusive interest. Indeed it was, more particularly, May who amused and occupied him, as often as Kenwick gave her the chance. The individuality of that surprisingly pretty young person was so sharp-cut and incisive that it fixed attention. It not infrequently happened that everybody present desisted from conversation, merely for the pleasure of a placid contemplation of her mental processes. These were simple, and to the point, and usually played about visible objects. The vital matter with May, in each and every experience, was to formulate a judgment and to compare it with that of other people. If others differed from her, all the better. Opposition is a sharpener of the wits; and she found Kenwick invaluable in his character of universal sceptic.

No one but Uncle Dan ever really took her down, and that he did so neatly, that she was never seriously disconcerted by it. Had it been otherwise, Uncle Dan would have held his peace, for he prized the exuberance and unconsciousness of her egotism, which he recognized as the all too fleeting prerogative of youth, and he would not, for worlds, have really checked it.

When she informed him that the heroic age was past, and that this was a mercantile era, the old soldier, remembering the '60's, told her she had better look up era in the dictionary. When she announced, with all the zest of discovery, that Titian could not draw, it was Uncle Dan who observed that he could paint pretty well, which was the main thing.

Yes; she caught the attention, as the most distinct sound, the most obvious sight is pretty sure to do, when people are taking life easily, and seeking only amusement, and she was so refreshingly unconscious that one could look and listen one's fill, and no harm done.

Yet Geoffry Daymond discovered that when he was making believe paint pictures, in the first freshness of early morning, or when he was smoking his after-dinner cigar, in the lingering June twilight, the face that interfered with the one occupation and lent charm to the other, was not framed in golden hair, nor animated with the lively and bird-like intelligence which he found so amusing. And not only was it Pauline Beverly's face, with its softly blending colours, and its quiet, indwelling light, that floated before his mental vision, but he found that he remembered her words and even the tones of her voice, when the gay and occasionally witty talk of the others had gone the way of mortal breath. He somehow came to associate certain inflections of her voice with the sweet sounds that make the undertone of Venetian life; the plash of the oar, the cooing of doves about the Salute, the bells of Murano, softened in the distance, the sound of the surf beating outside the Lido of a still evening, when one floats far out on the lagoon, and the familiar, every-day world seems farther away than those other worlds, shining overhead. He speculated a good deal over this new preoccupation, and more still over the sense of passive content that had come to be associated with it.

For Geof was of an active temperament and possessed of but scant talent for repose. This was his first real vacation in seven years, yet, in spite of his good resolve to idle away a month in Venice for his mother's sake, he had been on the point of finding an outlet for his surplus energies in that tramp in the Cadore, when,—just what was it that had deterred him from carrying out the plan? He believed, at the time, that it was merely the prospect of better acquaintance with the prettiest and brightest girl it had yet been vouchsafed him to meet. As he had since heard May remark,—for having once adopted an opinion, she was fond of testing it in more than one direction,—it is such a comfort to get hold of anything superlative! He was not aware that the elder sister, who certainly could not claim a single superlative quality, had played any part at all in that first impression; yet the thought of her had gradually come to be the hourly companion of his solitude. And now, for the first time in his life he found himself luxuriating, not only in solitude, but in idleness.

When he had been making a desultory sketch, away out toward Malamocco, or in among the vignoli in the northern lagoon, pausing perhaps, for a good five minutes, between grassy banks, to listen to the whistle of the blackbird in the hedge, he felt no imperative call to seize an oar and double the rate of speed on the homeward way. On the contrary, he found it a perfectly congenial occupation to lounge among the cushions of the gondola and let Pietro row him home at his own leisurely rate, while the two good comrades had a meditative smoke.

It was because Geof was aware that this state of things was abnormal, that he found it perplexing, and because, much as he enjoyed the experience itself, he did not relish the sense of having somewhat lost his bearings, that he was glad to seize upon the clue which he had got hold of there at the foot of the stone Madonna. Miss Beverly was like his mother; that was all there was about it. Such a resemblance as that would make any face linger agreeably in his thoughts.

It had got to be the middle of June, when parish processions are the order of the day. They were rowing up the Grand Canal, one Sunday afternoon, Geof and his mother, on their way to the festa, which was timed for the latter part of the day. Pietro and the gondola were in gala costume, snow-white as to Pietro, and, as to the gondola, the new brussels carpet of dark blue, to match Pietro's sash and hat-ribbon and the sea-horse banner floating at the bow. As they passed under the Rialto, and swung round the great bend of the Canal, Geof observed, in an unconsciously weighty tone: "Mother, I have made a discovery."

"And that is?"

"Miss Beverly looks like you."

At this simple statement of fact, the face of Geof's listener underwent one of those subtle changes of expression which the Colonel, in an inspired moment, had likened to the play of light upon the waters of the lagoon. For, being gifted with intuition, unhampered by the more laborious processes of the manly intellect, Mrs. Daymond instantly perceived that Geof had confessed more than he was himself aware.

She did not reply at once; to her, too, appeared the face of Pauline Beverly, as unlike her own, she thought, as well might be, and infinitely more attractive to her for that. Yes, there was only one thing that could possibly make them seem alike to Geof. She glanced at the face beside her, so sound, so vigorous, so magnanimous, as it seemed to her partial eyes. He was gazing straight ahead, with the direct look that his mother liked. He did not seem impatient for an answer; he had rather the appearance of being pleasantly absorbed in his own thoughts. It had evidently never once occurred to him to consider, in this connection, how often he had declared that he should never lose his heart until he had found a girl who was like his mother.

For a moment she was tempted to remind him of it,—but only for a moment. For Geof's mother was not the woman to take unfair advantage of a defenceless position, even where her own son was concerned. So she only said, after an interval of silence that Geof had scarcely noticed: "I am glad you think us alike, for I have never met a young girl who was as sympathetic to me as Pauline Beverly."

"Sympathetic! That's it; that hits her off exactly!" Geof declared; and then, with an accession of spirits which rendered him suddenly loquacious, "And I say, Mother!" he exclaimed, "what a jolly old boy the Colonel is! I just wish you could have heard him fire up the other day, when Kenwick got off one of his cynicisms at the expense of Abraham Lincoln. Tell you what, the sparks flew! Oliver was up a tree like a cat!—Hullo! There's the flag-ship!" he interrupted his flow of words to announce, as they came in sight of San Geremia.

The procession, or the component parts of it, not yet reduced to order, was just issuing from the church; priests and choristers in their gay vestments, huge candles, flaring bravely in the face of the sun, brilliant banners and gaudy images, all in a confused mass, and the people crowding on the flagged campo before the church. Vittorio's gondola was disappearing down the broad Canareggio Canal, and Pietro needed no bidding to follow after. The crowd of boats of every kind, gondolas, sandolos, barchettas, batteias, and the score of floating things that only your true Venetian knows by name, became so closely packed in the more restricted limits of the Canareggio, that it was impossible for Pietro to get near the sea-horse on the red ground, floating so conspicuous, yet so aggravatingly unapproachable a few rods ahead. He did succeed, however, in forcing a passage after it, and he made his way to the three-arched bridge which spans the Canareggio, and under which he passed to a good point of view. Here they were obliged to tie to a totally uninteresting gondola, with the width of the closely packed canal between their own and the Colonel's boat. They had been carried somewhat farther along the canal than the others, but Pietro managed to turn his long bark about so that his padroni should face the bridge, which brought Vittorio's gondola also in their line of vision, and there were friendly wavings of hats and parasols between the two.

Presently the procession drew near, and crossed the bridge, banners waving, candles flaming, priests intoning. The band struck up, and the voices of the priests were drowned in the songs of the choristers.

The quay, on either hand, was crowded with people in gala dress, and from every window, the whole length of the canal, bright flags and stuffs depended, shawls and variegated quilts, table-cloths, and rugs, whatever would take on a festal air in the sunshine. Beautiful silken banners, too, waved from lines that spanned the canal, high above the heads of the floating populace, their painted Saints and Madonnas shot luminously through by the level rays of the sun.

As the procession passed on down the quay, and the high priest drew near, bearing the Host under its embroidered canopy, the throngs on the fondamenta dropped on their knees to catch the scattered blessing, rising again, an instant later, one group after another, which gave to the line of figures an undulating motion, as of a long, sinuous body, coiling and uncoiling.

The pleasure of Vittorio's passengers was not a little heightened by the proximity of Nanni's old gondola, which lay only one boat's width removed from their own, and was filled to overflowing with the wives and children of his two gondolier brothers. The Signorinas were by this time on terms of intimacy with Vittorio's family, their chief pet among the children being the smallest boy, always spoken of by his adoring parents as the piccolo Giovanni. "Pickle Johnny," Uncle Dan called him, and, being a specialist in names, the Colonel had no sooner invented one for this small and rather obstreperous manikin, than he took him into his particular favour.

The attention of the girls, meanwhile, was pretty evenly divided between the moving show upon the quay and the quite as active contingent in Nanni's gondola. Indeed there were about as many babies in the one as in the other, for it is a pretty and childlike fancy of the Venetians to dress up their children as saints and angels, and lead them, with a becoming reverence, not all untouched by vanity, in the wake of the holy men. Here were small Franciscans in their brown cowls, tiny St. Johns, clad in sheepskins and armed with crosses, little queens of heaven in trailing garments of blue tarleton, and toddling white angels, with spangled wings and hair tightly crimped.

As the last of these heavenly apparitions disappeared down a dark alley, "Pickle Johnny" set up a howl of disappointment, which his mother tried in vain to suppress. In vain did his father scowl upon him over the heads of his passengers in a semblance of terrible wrath, in vain did his uncle produce a row-lock for his delectation; "Pickle Johnny" mourned the loss of the last baby angel and would not be comforted.

May was looking on with an amusement that was not without relish, when, chancing to glance at the harassed face of Nanni, the most conspicuous victim of "Pickle Johnny's" ill-judged exhibition of feeling, she experienced a sudden change of mood, and came instantly to the rescue.

"Let me take the bambino," she begged. "I can make him good."

The mother, a stout, comely woman in a plain black gown, demurred decorously, but was glad enough to yield, and Nanni, taking the child in his arms, stepped across the intervening gondola, to which his own was tied, and deposited his wondering burden in the arms of the Signorina who stood up to receive it. As he did so, that flash of grateful recognition which he was so chary of, crossed his grave face. Then, before "Pickle Johnny" could decide upon any definite line of action, the Signorina made haste to divert his mind by surrendering to him the cluster of silver trinkets which dangled from her belt. Pencil and penknife, scent-bottle, glove-buttoner, and, best of all, a tiny mirror, in which he viewed his still tearful countenance with undisguised satisfaction.

Uncle Dan looked on indulgently, and Pietro's passengers, over the way, found the scene worthy of attention, as did others of the floating audience. The golden head, bent over the swarthy little cherub, was a sight that would have attracted Oliver Kenwick's notice, for example, even if he had had no personal interest in the chief actor. He was with some New York friends, in a gondola three or four boat-lengths away, and so absorbed was he in the little drama, that, when a remark was addressed to him that called for a retort, his gift of repartee quite failed him.

Presently the sound of wind instruments again made itself heard, and again the procession emerged from the narrow by-ways where the blessing had been plentifully strewn, and moved up the quay toward the three-arched bridge. By this time the poor little saints and angels were pretty tired and draggled. The small St. John, in a very bad temper, was banging about him with his cross, while the queen of heaven, reduced to tears of anguished fatigue, had been picked up in the strong arms of her father, where she was on the point of dropping asleep. "Pickle Johnny," too, was getting fretful again, having exhausted the charms of scent-bottle and toy looking-glass, and May was beginning to repent of her bargain.

"Give him to me," said Pauline. "He is sleepy, poor little tot!"

She took him in her arms, and in thirty seconds the little tot was fast asleep. Oliver Kenwick became once more available for social purposes. There was nothing picturesque, nothing effective about this; it would not have attracted attention, any more than the sight of a young mother, holding her sleeping child.

The gondola lay with its stern toward the bridge, which the procession was crossing, and Pauline sat facing the open lagoon, where the sunset light already showed warm and mellow. She turned a bit in her seat, to see the bright banners and the candle-flames cross the bridge, and presently the high priest with his attendants had paused upon the central arch. At the stroke of a bell the Host was lifted, and all the populace fell upon their knees. Vittorio, in his snowy costume, knelt at the stern of his boat, Nanni, darkly clad, inclined his head and bent his knee, while the little children in his gondola dropped like a flock of doves upon the floor, where they huddled together, heads down, and eyes peering out. Old fishermen in their blue blouses, aged women, stiff, and slow, managed somehow to get upon their knees. The Colonel stood, hat in hand, facing the bridge, while May glanced, with bright interest, from one picturesque figure to another, noting the fact, in passing, that Geoffry Daymond's hat was lifted, and Oliver Kenwick's was not.

Pauline sat with her head bent over the sleeping child. At the sound of the third bell, which was the signal for all that multitude to cross themselves and rise to their feet, she lifted the chubby hand, and made the sign of the cross with it upon the little breast. She did it as simply and naturally as if she had been the best Catholic of them all.

A moment later, "Pickle Johnny," with the blessing upon his drowsy little person, had been handed back to his uncle, and Vittorio was skillfully making his way out among the thronging craft toward the lagoon, which was swimming in a golden mist.

Pietro rowed in the other direction, and there was a friendly exchange of greetings between the passing gondolas.

"Did you see that?" Geoffry asked, as they came out upon the broad bosom of the Grand Canal.

"Yes; I saw it, Geof," his mother answered; "I feel as if we had all received the benediction."



XI

At Torcello

For all the questionings and probings which May Beverly applied to the successive phenomena of the world about her, she had passed her twenty years as light of heart and as free of real perplexities as any fifteenth-century maiden in her turret chamber. Prosperous and sheltered as her youth had been, she had, up to this time, apprehended scarcely anything of the real drama of life.

Whether it was due to a seasonable and inevitable development, or to a quickening of the imagination caused by the potent loveliness of Venice, it was certainly true that the young girl was passing through a new and curiously stimulating experience. Many things had been revealed to her of late, which as yet she only half comprehended; for whereas she had formerly had an eye only for details, she was now beginning to combine and interpret; and having hitherto been chiefly occupied with the surface, she was learning to divine, if not to penetrate, the depths. It was doubtless due to this general rousing of the imagination, to which she perhaps owed her unalterable conviction that Vittorio's brother had, in some mysterious way, been singled out by misfortune, that the thought of him had come to play so large a part in her consciousness.

It was quite true, as she declared, that neither she nor Pauline had ever succeeded in attaining to the easy and spontaneous footing with him which had been established with Vittorio from the very first. Vittorio was both gay and communicative, and none the less a perfect servant for that. He would row by the hour, without volunteering a remark, yet a friendly word never failed to elicit the flashing smile and ready response which conferred such grace upon him. A little diplomacy on the part of the girls had effected an entrance to his house, and to his confidence. They knew that he had married his Ninetta without a dowry because "she pleased him," and that their eldest child had died of a fever; that Constanza was the scholar of the family, and Giulia the caretaker. They knew that the eldest boy was named for one of his grandfathers, and the second for the other; that the third boy, Vittorio, wanted to be a soldier, and that the piccolo Giovanni was going to be the best gondolier of them all. They knew why a light was always burning, day and night, before the little image of the Madonna on the stairs, and why the whole family had made a pious pilgrimage to the church of San Antonio at Padua the previous year. They knew how severe the father of Vittorio and Nanni had been to his boys; how he had, on more than one occasion, pitched them overboard, straight into the canal, yet how he was, nevertheless, "a just man!" They were acquainted with Vittorio's harmlessly revolutionary views, and with his reasons for not voting. They were familiar with his simple creed, to hope all things and leave the rest to the Madonna. And of Nanni's experiences and beliefs they knew nothing.

During the week when he had served them as gondolier he had never volunteered a remark and he had given only the shortest possible answers when addressed. Yet upon the mind of May, at least, his personality had made a strong impression. His tall, poorly clad figure, swaying at the oar, his sombre, almost tragic gaze, fixed straight before him, his deep, grave voice, not more musical, but more perfectly modulated than his brother's,—all went to form an enigma and an appeal.

Since his release from their service they had met him several times, rowing quite by himself in his shabby old gondola. Once they had come upon him out by St. George in the Seaweed where the loveliest of all the parasol Madonnas keeps guard over the still lagoon. He could have had no prosaic errand there. Was it because he loved the beauty of the scene, the grace and poetry of the dear young mother with the child, keeping their watch of centuries, above the old red wall where the lizards sun themselves? Or had he gone there to say an Ave as the pretty Catholic custom is?

Another time they had encountered Nanni's boat when they were rowing out towards San Clemente in the starlight. There were stars in the water as in the sky, and the city was hidden behind the Giudecca, but the great campanile, showing pale and mysterious in the lights of the Piazza, sent its white shaft far down into the water of the lagoon on the hither side of the dark Giudecca. As the shadowy gondola, with its tiny light, came stealing over the star-strewn water, May recognized the solitary oarsman. Something withheld her from commenting on the fact, and when, a few seconds later, Vittorio exclaimed, "Ecco, mio fratello!" Uncle Dan had remarked what quick eyes these fellows have, and that nobody else could have recognized a man in the dark, like that. And May had said nothing, and the fact that she had kept silence gave her a curious pang of unwilling self-consciousness. So she began talking very fast of the Bellini Madonnas in the church of the Redentore, whose great dome towered black against the hovering reflection of the city lights, and of how they were not Bellinis after all, and since experts could make such bad blunders, whom were you to trust?



They had had no intercourse with Nanni since the day they had rowed out to the Porto del Lido, and May had protested against the ocean swell. She often thought of the sensation it had caused in her, and a curious longing had come over her to feel once more that strange, disconcerting thrill.

She wondered whether she should ever have a chance to speak to Nanni and make him the offer of a gondola; she wondered if his face would flash with pleasure and gratitude. Would he tell her why he had chosen exile from the life and occupation he loved so well? Would he tell her something about himself, give her the key to his strange melancholy and reserve? She had very little hope of such a consummation, but she was determined to make the attempt at the first opportunity.

And a few days after the Procession at the Canareggio, when he had so gratefully handed "Pickle Johnny" over to her care, the opportunity presented itself. For on that day the red and blue banners made the long-anticipated trip to Torcello, that ancient cradle of Venice that rocks on the bosom of the lagoon, miles away to the northward. An extra oar was requisite for each gondola, and Nanni was drafted for the occasion. Old Pietro brought with him a slender slip of a grandson, a boy of sixteen, Angelo by name, who made up in skill and elasticity for the robustness yet to come.

Kenwick was of the party, and in great spirits; but indeed there was not one of them all who was not sensible of that agreeable exhilaration which attends a propitious start. The morning was true Venetian, soft and fair as a dream. Sweet scents were wafted over the water, and no one thought to question whence they came. The men pulled with a will, for it was a long trip, and all too soon they found themselves thridding their way through low banked water-ways to the landing near the quaint old church of Santa Fosca, their coming hailed with joy by a rapidly recruited army of ragamuffins. Immediately upon landing, Vittorio and Angelo were despatched to a neighbouring cottage in search of chairs and table, and presently the party were established at their luncheon under the beautiful colonnade of the Cathedral.

The ragamuffins, encouraged by a very ill-advised distribution of coppers which had taken place at their first onslaught, were collecting about the table with clamorous entreaties for l'ultimo. Uncle Dan had begun it by his inability to resist the supplicating eyes of a beatific midget who chewed the hem of her frock with the whitest of little teeth. Kenwick, taking his cue from the Colonel, had mischievously carried out the principle, by presenting a soldo to each one of the assembly having the slightest pretence to comeliness. Upon which the two Pollys, unable to tolerate such cruel discrimination, had offered prompt reparation to the feelings of the ugly ones. The consequence was, that Vittorio and Angelo passed a lively half-hour in the role of sheep-dogs, keeping the small and ravening wolves at bay while the meal was going forward, dodging about after them among the pillars of the colonnade, and conjuring them, with awful threats, to keep their distance, or else they should receive niente, niente!

Happily the supply of food was double the legitimate demand, and while the gondoliers returned the table and chairs the two young men amused themselves and the rest of the company, by feeding the little beggars. It was an engrossing sport for all concerned, and May, seeing her opportunity, slipped away to the landing.



She found the two gondolas moored a few rods down the rio, lying close to the shore in the shadow of the alder bushes that leaned sociably over the bank. Pietro was lying flat on the floor of his boat, fast asleep; Nanni, whose gondola was the first she came to, was sitting in the bow with a book in his hand, which he slipped into his pocket at the approach of the Signorina. His hat was lying on the floor, and the flickering shadows of the leaves on his face and figure made a peaceful impression of summer and happy ease.

"Oh, Nanni; would you please hand me my sketch book?" May asked, as she came up, and stood on the bank above him. He was already on his feet, and he stooped for the book, which he handed to her with his curiously inexpressive manner.

The young girl hesitated a moment, half-abashed by the stillness and the solitude and the stately deference of this man whose life she was so desirous of influencing. But she had too much spirit to retreat, and as Nanni stood before her, grave and respectful, she said, in her carefully correct, curiously unidiomatic Italian: "Nanni, I am not content to have you go back to Milan. You were born to be a gondolier. It cannot be that you do anything else as well, or that you like any other life, really. Wait," she commanded, as he seemed about to interpose. "You must let me finish. I want,—I want—" and a sudden confusion seized her; "I want to make you a present of a gondola."

She paused and looked down upon him, with earnest, supplicating eyes. She did so dearly long to gain her point; she was so sure, so touchingly sure that she knew best,—and then, the face before her,—what was it that it said? There was no grateful flash, only an increased dignity and reserve.

"Signorina," he said, very gently, with a high-bred restraint of manner that impressed her strangely, and increased her confusion, adding to it, indeed, a sense of insufficiency and incompetence that she had never before experienced: "Signorina,—you mistake me and my life. I am not at liberty to say what would surely set your mind at rest, but,—I have no wish to change my life, and,—I cannot accept your gift."



She had thought to press the matter, to represent to him his own short-sightedness, his misapprehension of his own best good; but she found it impossible to urge her case. She felt herself confronted with a will so much stronger than her own that she had not a word to say. She only murmured: "I am very sorry about it," and was turning dejectedly away, when Nanni's voice arrested her.

"Signorina," he cried, "Signorina, will you not forgive me?"

She turned, and there was a look of entreaty, a touch of real emotion in his face which startled her.

"Why, Nanni," she said; "there is nothing to forgive. You know best." She had not often said those three words in the easy self-confidence of her youth. "You know best," she said. "It is I who should beg pardon for thinking I knew."

She held out her hand to him, as naturally as she would have done to Geoffry Daymond, and Nanni, stooping, lifted it to his lips.

The child did not know that it was the universal custom of his class; that there was nothing else to be done when a gentlewoman extended her hand to a gondolier. She only knew it was the first time in her life that such a thing had happened to her, and she turned away in much perturbation.

She found herself face to face with Geoffry Daymond, who was coming along the bank in search of her.

"Ah, here you are," he cried gaily. "We thought we might have made a mistake and fed you to the populace! The little brutes have eaten every edible crumb we had, and seemed to want to try their appetites on the table-cloth. Now we are all going up the tower of the cathedral to have a look at things."

She wondered whether Daymond had seen that strange and rather dreadful thing that had happened. Had she known him better, she would have been sure that his burst of eloquence could have but one interpretation. He had seen and wondered; two facts which must be suppressed.

As May and Geof came up the path, Kenwick, who was sitting in the stone chair which is accredited to the ancient Attila, observed the look of slowly subsiding emotion in the young girl's face, and a sudden pang seized him, whether of friendly concern or of selfish annoyance, he would have been the last to inquire. That they should have passed him by, in his picturesque situation, without a word, thus cutting him off from the delivery of a witticism which he had concocted for their edification, was certainly a grievance, and as he rose to his feet, unregarded, and followed after, it is perhaps not to be wondered at, if the thought crossed his mind, that it might be worth while to cut Geof out.



XII

A Promotion

Torcello offers a number of diversions besides that of camping under the colonnade, or sitting in the chair of Attila, and May had soon found relief from her momentary discomfiture, in the somewhat arduous exercise of climbing to the top of the cathedral tower, and in readjusting her mistaken notions as to the relative position of the various islands in the northern lagoon. Venice, floating like a dream-city upon the brimming tide, was not at all in the direction in which May had expected to find it; indeed, so fixed was her idea of its proper whereabouts, that she was within an ace of becoming argumentative on the subject. Her amusingly irrational attitude gave rise to some lively sparring between herself and Kenwick, who was at even more pains than usual to monopolise her attention, both then and afterwards.

On their return to sea-level, it was he who pointed out to her each detail of the antique mosaics and other mediaeval quaintnesses of the cathedral; it was he who gave her a rapid sketch of the history of the island,—recently gleaned from guide-books;—and when, presently, the whole party went for a stroll in a flower-strewn meadow, he took such decided possession of her, that the two were allowed to fall back, and discuss at their leisure one and another question of vital interest which he brought forward.

In the intervals of conversation Kenwick, watching the straggling group in front, found it curiously gratifying to observe that Daymond did not seem to have much to say for himself. Kenwick had not by any means made up his mind to cut Geof out, but the possibility of such a feat gave a new zest to his intercourse with May. He was one of those men who, in their admirations at least, unconsciously take their cue from others. His judgments were not spontaneous, and the value he placed upon any good thing was greatly enhanced by the knowledge that it was an object of desire to other persons. Even in the pursuit of his art, he was governed less by a spirit of praiseworthy emulation than by the sentiment of rivalry.

Having, then, definitely conceived the idea, which had, indeed, been hovering in his mind for some time, that Geoffry Daymond was seriously interested in May Beverly, the situation had gained a piquancy which Kenwick found extremely seductive. He was far too wedded to his career of "free-lance,"—a title which he took no little pride in appropriating,—to have regarded with equanimity that awkward contingency which goes by the name of consequences, but he was fond of playing with fire, as over self-confident people are apt to be. It must also be admitted that he took a very real pleasure in the bright beauty and alert intellect of the young student of life who carried her golden head so high and free, and with so individual a grace.

That he could, if he would, gain an influence over this frankly impressionable nature, he did not for a moment doubt. Indeed, he had never doubted his ability to win the interest of any woman, and since he had never been so ill-advised as to put his fortunes to the touch, nothing had yet occurred to disturb his self-confidence.

To-day, as he sauntered beside May Beverly in the quiet green meadow, in shadow for the moment, only because a cloud had floated across the sun,—so recently, that the insects had not ceased to hum, and sweet odours still told how herbs and flowers had been steeped in sunshine but a moment since,—he experienced a relish of life such as had only occasionally fallen to his share. And when, presently, the sun came out in full force, inducing the four more taciturn strollers to retrace their steps, Kenwick felt that blaze of light to be doubly inopportune.

A few minutes later the flotilla was again on its way, awnings spread, and flags flying. A breeze had sprung up, and when they were free of the Burano canals, they found the water delicately ruffled. It was the sweetest, gayest little breeze, and in sheer exuberance of shallow emotion, the tiny waves plashed about the prow.

May, who was sailing under the blue banner on this occasion, glanced now and then across the water, at the figure of Nanni, rowing the forward oar. She had not quite her usual vivacity, a fact which did not escape the attention of Kenwick in the other boat, and one upon which he was at liberty to put any interpretation he chose.

The tide was in their favour, and they were making such good speed that the oarsmen petitioned for a detour among the canals of San Erasmus, where are market-gardens and fields and hedges. It was here that Geof had listened to the whistle of the blackbird only the other day, as his boat lay moored to the bank, while he sketched the tiniest of little chapels, nestling modestly in the sparse shade of two dark cypresses. His mind recurred to that peaceful hour, as he chatted in desultory fashion with May, but those quiet musings seemed very far away and unreal in the clear, matter-of-fact atmosphere that that charming young person created about her, even in her quieter moods. Still further to deter him from sentimental reminiscences, two small curs rushed forward on the left bank of the tranquil water pathway—barking vigorously, and rousing to an equally noisy demonstration another pair of sentinels on the opposite shore.

As the gondolas went their way, however, without evincing any intention of trespassing on dry land, the dogs subsided, and in the sudden lull that followed, other senses than that of hearing were quickened. May was just rousing to wonder what it was that smelt so sweet, when Angelo, unable to resist the occasion, turned, and touching his hat, remarked, with laconic eloquence: "Strawberries"; a suggestion which was not to be resisted.

They moored at a modest landing, in the shadow of an acacia tree, when Geof and Angelo were promptly dispatched upon a foraging expedition, the ambitious stripling, who had so boldly taken the initiative, beaming broadly at the success of his venture. May stepped forward and took her favourite seat on the gondola steps, and, as the other boat came up and tied to theirs, Kenwick was brought face to face with her.

"Strawberries?" he repeated, in reply to the joyful announcement; "my life is saved!" Then, in a low voice: "I have been simply starving ever since we left Torcello," he averred.

"You have?" May exclaimed, with discouraging literalness. "I suppose it is the breeze, or perhaps the walk in the meadows."

"Yes," Kenwick answered, and there was something so very like sincerity in his tone, that it did convey a dim impression of what was almost a genuine feeling; "it was the walk in the meadow!"

May laughed lightly, yet a trifle constrainedly, he pleased himself with fancying. "You shall starve no more," she said, "for here are the strawberries."

The two ambassadors were striding down a rural path, their hands laden with small baskets of diminutive scarlet strawberries. At their heels came three dogs and one cat, acting as vanguard to a woman and a young girl, who carried blue china plates of most aesthetic homeliness. A small and bashful boy was clinging to his mother's skirts, taking, perhaps, his first impressions of the great world.

"Scusi, Signorina!"

It was Nanni, stepping across Pietro's gondola to get ashore. May looked up and her eyes met those of the gondolier.

"Prego," she answered, and there was a gentle courtesy in her voice, and a kindness in her eyes, that would have been grateful to any man. As Nanni stepped ashore and joined his brother and old Pietro under the trees, it may be that he blessed her for them. But he had betrayed no pleasure, and once more a sense of the sadness of life stole like a shadow across the young girl's spirit.

To divert her thoughts, and to have an excuse for turning her back on Kenwick, she tried making friends with the bashful bambino, who had seated himself upon the grassy bank and was gazing furtively at her bright silk waist.

Kenwick took the little ruse kindly. He had noticed that she spoke to Nanni in a subdued tone, and he flattered himself that he had the key to her change of mood. He employed himself with handing plates about, while Geof dispensed the strawberries.

It was a pretty and peaceful scene. Kenwick had stepped into Mrs. Daymond's gondola, and was invited to take the seat beside her; Geof stood on the shore talking with the men. Uncle Dan and Pauline, sitting side by side, found their attention about equally divided between the toothsome strawberries and the little drama going on between May and the bambino.

May had shared her fruit with the child, and now she was amusing herself with decorating his small, grimy toes with coppers. He was an unsophisticated little beggar, and evidently had no intelligent interest in the cool, round coins, which nevertheless tickled his brown toes agreeably. He looked up and smiled, showing a row of tiny white teeth, and with the movement all the coppers slid off into the grass.

The mother had been watching the little scene, and May had a comfortable assurance that that wealth of soldi would presently be restored to its legitimate function in the scheme of things. She turned from her pretty fooling, and Kenwick promptly remarked: "Are you aware that you have sown the seeds of mendicancy in the soul of that innocent child?"

"Oh, no; those were nothing but coppers," she retorted brightly, "and I have sown them in the grass."

They had spent half-an-hour at their picnicking, and now a new division of the party was proposed, according to which the four young people should row out a bit toward the Porto, leaving the elders, in Pietro's gondola, to take the more direct way home. And so it came about that presently the Colonel found himself, floating with the Signora down the quiet rio by which they had entered the vignoli. So elderly was the aspect of the gondola with its three gray heads to one black one, that the very dogs refrained from barking, and in the grateful hush, broken only by the dip of the oar, and the not all unmelodious creak of Pietro's heavy boots, the liquid note of the blackbird sounded sweet and clear.

The reflection crossed the Colonel's mind that this was the first time, in all these weeks, that he had been alone with the Signora. He wondered, in a self-distrustful way, what would come of it. It was certainly very sweet to him to have her there beside him, quite to himself. He wondered whether it struck her that it was an intimate, confidential sort of situation. He was sitting a little forward, as his habit was, and as he glanced under the awning, at the pretty, rural bit of country that bordered the canal, it was easy to include her face in his survey from time to time.

They chatted for a while of this and that indifferent topic, but it was clear that they were both preoccupied and they soon fell silent. The Colonel indeed, was nervously sensible that fate was closing in about him, and that he might, at any moment, be betrayed into a false step. For, despite his practical, Yankee common-sense, the old soldier was something of a fatalist, and in the one most critical relation of his life, he had always felt himself subject to mysterious and irresistible influences.

Presently, as they came out upon the sparkling waters of the lagoon, the Signora spoke. There was something in her voice that caused the Colonel to turn, at the first word, and as he looked into her face, he pleased himself with noting a new animation, that seemed a direct reflex of the light that played upon the waters. Had he not long ago discovered that mystic kinship?

"Geof and I are very grateful to you," she was saying, "for bringing those charming girls of yours to Venice."

"You like them!" he exclaimed. "I knew you would. Nice girls, both of them. It has been a great thing for them, having you here, and Geof. Geof's a capital fellow."

She turned upon her companion a questioning, yet on the whole a pretty confident look. "Colonel Steele," she asked, "should you greatly mind if one of your Pollys should find it in her heart to make my boy happy?"

"What's that?" the Colonel cried. "You don't mean?—Bless my soul, I never thought of such a thing!"

"It seems the most natural thing in the world to me," she said. "And yet,—supposing your Polly should fail us! I can't expect Geof to be as irresistible to other people as he is to me." She smiled, as if she were half in jest, yet there was real anxiety in her tone as she asked: "What do you think about it, Colonel Steele?"

"Why; I'm sure I don't know. It's something of a shock,—that sort of thing always is, you know. Young people do go into it so easily. Of course Geof's a fine fellow. You mean the little one?"

"Of course," said Mrs. Daymond; for though Pauline was far from little, she had not the height of her tall young sister.

"Of course, of course. Well, well! And you want to know what I think about it? I think she would be a lucky girl. That would make her your daughter, wouldn't it? Why, of course she'll say yes! Any girl would be a fool who didn't, and Polly's no fool. I only wish you had another son for the other one!"

"I'm afraid she won't take Geof for my sake," Mrs. Daymond said, smiling, half sadly.

"Oh, yes, she will; I'm sure she will!" cried the Colonel. "But what I don't understand is—Geof. To be taken with a child like Polly, when,—" He turned sharp about, and looked into her face, and there was no mistaking his meaning. It was almost as if he had spoken the words she had so often heard from his lips.

A great tenderness and compunction swept over the Signora, and found expression in her face. Her beautiful grey eyes met the impassioned trouble of her old friend's gaze, with a gentle directness that in itself went far toward disarming and tranquillising him.

"I sometimes think," she said, "that perhaps this is what all our—trouble has meant, yours and mine."

There was something indescribably consoling in the community of sorrow the words seemed to imply. He had never thought before, that his life-long chagrin had awakened anything more than a momentary regret in her mind, that it had been a sorrow to her as well.

They were rowing past the cypresses of San Michele, and the Colonel lifted his hat and placed it on his knees, looking straight before him, with the slightest possible working of the muscles of his face. The voice he was listening to was sweet and low, the tender cadence of it seemed to inform the words she used with a spirit not inherent in them.

"I think," she was saying, "that I should be perfectly happy if I could know that the long misunderstanding that has caused us both so much pain, had had a meaning as sweet and acceptable to you as it would be to me."

The Colonel pulled out his pocket-handkerchief and wiped his forehead, surreptitiously including his eyes in the process.

"I've been a brute," he muttered, in rather a husky voice, scowling savagely into the crown of his hat, which he had lifted from his knees. As if displeased with its appearance, he put it on his head, where he planted it firmly.

She knew that she had all but won the day, and she ventured what she had not ventured before. For it had never been her way to prate of an impossible friendship; if she used the word she meant to honour it. And to-day something told her that at last she held control of the situation.

There was nothing in her voice to betray the intense exertion of will that she was conscious of making; on the contrary, her words sounded only wistful and entreating, as she said:

"What friends we should be!"

And because it was the first time she had made that appeal to him, and because these weeks of pleasant, normal companionship had subtly and surely changed their relation, the Colonel could meet her half-way, like the gallant fellow he was.

"What friends we shall be!" he cried, clasping the hand which she had involuntarily lifted. "And we won't let it depend upon those youngsters either!"

The gondola had entered one of the canals of the city, and presently they passed under a bridge and came out in front of the square of San Paolo and San Giovanni, where the superb statue of Coleoni on his magnificent charger stands clear-cut against the sky.

"Glorious thing, that," the Colonel remarked, as he invariably did, as often as his eye fell upon it.

"Yes," she replied; "it is the very apotheosis of success. And yet,—one sometimes questions whether a perfectly successful man is as enviable as he seems. What do you think about it, Colonel?"

"Signora," the Colonel answered, with a flash of feeling in his rugged features that would have done credit to Vittorio's expressive face, "I have had my promotion, and I envy no man!"



XIII

Illuminations

If Geoffry Daymond had known no more about Nanni than was known to May herself, the little incident which had caused such perturbation in the young girl's mind would not have made any special impression upon him. The scene itself, indeed, might have lingered in his mind as one of those charming surprises that lurk in the enchanted atmosphere of the lagoons. The striking beauty of Nanni's countenance is the possession of many an honest gondolier, nor would the glow of feeling which animated the face, have been anything unprecedented in a man of his class. Old Pietro himself, slumbering at that moment on the floor of his gondola, often exhibited a startling power of facial expression, which fairly transfigured his weather-worn features. No, in a simple gondolier both beauty of face and brilliancy and depth of expression are quite in the natural order. And if it is not often that one sees these advantages heightened by so admirable a foil as was provided on this occasion, it is simply because such vivid grace of the contrasting type is rare.

Geoffry's first sensation then, as he caught sight of the two figures, was one of gratification to his artistic sense; and even when May extended her hand, and Nanni, after the custom of the gondolier, raised it to his lips, it did not at once strike the young man as other than natural and fitting. In an instant, however, he recalled the fact, which he had learned of Pietro a month previous, that this was no mere gondolier, but a man of education and consequence in the world; a circumstance which, undeniably, put a different face upon the matter. It accounted too, perhaps, for the curiously appealing impression of the man's personality. There was undoubtedly something pathetic in this son of a line of gondoliers, reaching back farther than many a titled family, this man with an innate love for the craft, a genuine passion for the lagoons, placed in the artificial environment of modern society, constrained to deal with the hard-and-fast exactions of modern science. No wonder that there was that about him that excited the imagination. Geof had himself felt it; his mother had spoken of it. Who could know how powerful the appeal might be to one who had not the key to the puzzle?