Part 37

As May forced her thoughts to take shape, she felt that it was her own mind rather than Pauline's that was being enlightened. It was as if Pauline must understand,--as if it were Pauline who was making things clear to her. Yet Pauline did not say a word. She only listened, her head inclined a bit, her eyes intent and comprehending.

"I think," May went on, "I think it must have been something really high and fine in him that made the sordidness of it all seem so intolerable. I suppose it is as Uncle Dan says;--these things are a matter of race. I think Nanni must have more than his share of the family inheritance. Did you never feel it, Pauline?"

"Yes, there was certainly something impressive about him," Pauline admitted.

"I'm glad you thought so, too. Well, do you know, Pauline, it came to me last night like a revelation, that I had been all wrong and morbid about it. I remembered how he had said to me, one day when I was talking to him about coming back to Venice: 'You mistake me and my life, Signorina.' It did not impress me so much at the time--something drove it out of my head;--but, suddenly, as I saw his face last night, I seemed to understand what he meant."

They were passing near two fishing-boats moored to a cluster of piles, a single deck-light shining clear and steady, reflected in the water like a long yellow finger. The men had deserted the boats and were swimming somewhere out of sight in the darkness, their voices sounding curiously near and distinct across the water.

"I suppose it was the song that touched him," May was saying. "It is such a beautiful song, and the moment I began singing, I felt as if it had been written expressly for him. Pauline, he had a look such as a man might have who was facing a great renunciation, with the spirit of a hero. And it came to me like a flash, that a man who could look like that need not mind where he lived, or what his service was. And when I heard to-day that he had gone back to his work, I was not at all surprised, and I was not even sorry for him, as I should have been yesterday. I felt as if I understood."

May had been speaking fast, with an eager, half questioning manner, as if everything depended upon Pauline's agreeing with her. Now she paused, and looked into her sister's face, close beside her in the dim light. And Pauline returned her look with one that set her heart at rest.

"I think you have discovered something very deep and true," she said, gently. "And it is one of those things that nobody can tell us, that we must discover for ourselves. But, May," she added, after a moment's reflection, "I don't believe we need think of the man's work as mean or sordid. I should think it might be a very valuable sort of service that he renders at the hospital. Do you remember that day, the first week we were here, when we were waiting for the sacristan at the Madonna del Orto, and a little girl on the quay fell down and hurt her arm?"

"Yes; I remember,--and how quickly Nanni sprang ashore and picked her up."

"Well;--do you know, May, there was something in the way he bent over the little thing and examined her arm to see if it were really hurt, that impressed me very much. His touch was so gentle, and there was so much intelligence in the way he did it, that I have thought, ever since, what a blessing it must be to have such a man about in a hospital."

"Yes," said May, thoughtfully,--"perhaps that is why he chooses that life. That would explain a great deal. I am glad you reminded me of it, Pauline,"--and again she reached her arm over the side of the boat, and let the cool water slip through her fingers, watching the little ripple they made upon the surface. "Perhaps that was what Mr. Daymond meant when he said he had had a talk with Nanni, and he did not think that I need have any more anxiety about him,--that he was doing the work he could do best, and that he was happy in doing it."

"And you had told Mr. Daymond, before that, that you were disturbed about it?" Pauline asked, with a swift, uncontrollable contraction of the heart.

"Yes; we had a talk about Nanni the evening of the illumination. Pauline," May exclaimed, with a sudden change of tone, "what a waste it is that that nice fellow hasn't any sisters!"

"Who? Mr. Daymond?"

"Yes; he would make such a perfect brother. He is so dear, and good, and--unromantic!"

As the words fell, crisp and incisive on the still night air, their point and meaning piercing like finely tempered steel to Pauline's innermost consciousness, the search-light flashed out again, striking full upon the Salute. For a fleeting instant the glorious dome curved white and luminous against a lowering sky, vanishing again as the light was withdrawn. Pauline caught her breath, and the blood raced through her veins. She was startled, she assured herself, by the suddenness of the flash.

When she spoke, her voice was tranquil as ever, yet curiously shot through with feeling.

"If Geoffry Daymond told you that," she said, "I think you may feel satisfied."

"I do," May answered, noting with surprise that her sister had given Geoffry Daymond his full name;--it was not Pauline's way. "Yes, I do," she repeated, "it is a great relief."

It was only for a moment that Pauline's interest in her sister's story had wavered. She had listened, and with unerring comprehension, thanks to which she had not been misled as another might have been.

"There comes the moon out of the clouds," she exclaimed. "Take us where we can see the moon, Vittorio."

"Si, Signorina."

They had come opposite the Salute, and now the prow of the gondola turned in at the narrow rio that runs between the great church and the lovely old Abbazia of San Gregorio. There were deserted gondolas and other craft moored at one side of the little canal, and as they pushed their way past them, the oar lapped the water with the peculiar sound it makes in passing through a restricted passage. They glided under a low bridge, beyond which the moon appeared, just issuing from a bank of cloud, and, a moment later, they had floated out into the Giudecca, among the tall black hulls of the shipping lying there at anchor.

"How good and genuine the moon looks after those search-lights!" May exclaimed, with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Yes, but they were a wonderful sight," Pauline maintained.

"Perhaps so; but they were artificial, and one does like things to be natural."

They had rowed the length of the Giudecca, watching the moon's vicissitudes among the clouds, and now they had once more turned toward home, making their way through one of the prettiest rios of the Tolentini quarter.

"I suppose," Pauline remarked, as they came out upon the Grand Canal, "that, in a deep sense, artificial things,--of the good kind,--are just as natural as things we have no control over. I suppose we get our search-lights from Nature, only in a more round-about way."