Part 39

They spent an hour, catalogue in hand, among the less important pictures, while Uncle Dan amused himself with some old engravings, and then, having earned their reward, the two girls strolled back to the great saloons, where nothing less splendid than Tintoretto and Veronese makes its appeal to the conscience of the sight-seer.

Pauline descended the steps to the main entrance hall, from which one has the best view of Titian's Assumption. She seated herself on the broad divan, and looked up through the arched doorway to the glorious soaring figure, that seems, not up-borne by the floating cloud of cherubs and angels, but rather drawing all that buoyant throng upward in its marvellous flight. Geoffry Daymond, pausing at the top of the short flight of steps a few minutes later, face to face with Pauline, fancied that he discovered a subtle kinship between her countenance and the pictured one; and then, as he turned to compare them, he unhesitatingly gave his preference to the girl of the nineteenth century, with the rare, sylvan face and the uplifted look. As she became aware of his approach a lovely colour stole into her face, and there was a welcome in her eyes which she was too sincere to deny.

"We wondered whether we should find you here this rainy morning," she said, as he came toward her down the steps; and she spoke with such quiet composure that a sudden leaping emotion that had stirred him was checked midway.

"I was looking for you," he replied. "We came across the Colonel and he told us you were here."

"We always come here when it rains, because the light is so good," Pauline observed, wondering that she could think of nothing better to say.

"Yes; I know it. I passed your sister just now, standing with her back to the world at large, studying a Tintoretto portrait."

"May really understands a good deal about pictures," Pauline remarked, still wondering that nothing but platitudes would come to her lips. She had left her seat, and they were moving toward the steps.

"It seems an age since I have seen you," said Geof, neglecting to reply to her last observation, which, truth to tell, he had scarcely heard.

"It does seem a good while," she admitted. "Not since Quattro Fontane;" and then she laughed. "That was only yesterday morning, but one doesn't reckon time by clocks and calendars in Venice."

"If the clocks and calendars would only pay the old gentleman as little attention as we do," Geof rejoined, "how lucky we should be!"

"I wonder whether we should really want time to stand still,--even in Venice," said Pauline, as they passed up the steps into the room where May had last been seen.

"That would depend," Geoffry answered, and there was that indescribable something in his voice which she had heard more than once of late, and which she always found extremely discomposing. The passing of that breath of feeling was still troubling the waters of her consciousness when, a moment later, they were met by the other three.

Mrs. Daymond came forward and took both Pauline's hands, and, straightway it seemed to Pauline as if a bountiful beneficent power had encompassed her round about.

"Geof," said his mother, turning to him, with the unfailing grace of tone and gesture which was a source of perennial delight to the Colonel; "I find that Colonel Steele's Venetian education is only half accomplished. He does not know San Simeone. Supposing we all go and see the old hero. It has stopped raining and the men must be longing to have us come out again."

"I'm always ready for St. Simon," Geof declared.

"I don't see how we ever overlooked him in the books," said May. "He sounds perfectly tremendous, with his hollow cheeks and his solemn dead face."

"Then we are all going?" and Mrs. Daymond looked questioningly at Pauline who had not spoken. It was as if the elder woman had divined something of the unwonted reluctance that had possessed itself of the young girl.

"Do you mind if I stay behind?" Pauline asked, hesitatingly; "I should like to stay on here for a little while, and then I should be glad of the walk home. So please take both the gondolas."

"Polly doesn't like sharp contrasts," the Colonel remarked, as he passed, with the others, out of the gallery and down the stairs. "She has probably got her mind going on some little private inspiration, and she doesn't take to the idea of a dead saint."

"No more do I!" Geof announced, with a reckless inconsistency, that took no thought of appearances; and, having seen the party safely ensconced under the felze of Pietro's gondola, he retraced his steps, his head slightly bent, his hands clasped behind him.

The rain had ceased, and a timid relenting had stolen into the west. Geof turned and glanced from the sky to Vittorio's gondola which still lay moored under the shelter of the bridge.

"If I only dared!" he said to himself; and then, flinging his head back, with a free, boyish gesture, he strode on to the entrance of the gallery.

Pauline had returned to her seat before the great Titian. She was the only person in the room at the moment. Geof came across the stone floor with a ringing step which caused her to turn, in startled certainty that it was he. There was something in the manner of his approach that affected her like a summons, and she rose to her feet.

He came up to her and, looking straight into her face, he said: "You must come out. The sun will be out before we know it, and one always wants to be out-of-doors when it clears."

"Are the others waiting?" she asked.

"No; Pietro has taken them off. But I think you are right; St. Simon is not what we want this morning. Supposing we make a call upon the Rezzonico Madonna."

"But I was going to walk home," Pauline demurred, quite sensible of her own futility.

"You can't. It's really very wet. Do come and take a look at the Madonna."