Part 6

"A matter of race!" cried May. "Why, Uncle Dan, when that Italian in the train the other day stared us out of countenance and we asked you to do something about it, you told us it was the custom of the country!"

"That's only Uncle Dan's way of shirking his responsibilities," Pauline explained. "It's lucky for you, May, that I'm getting on in life. I don't know what you would do if you hadn't any better chaperon than Uncle Dan."

"And yet, you don't seem so very old," May remarked, rather doubtfully, tilting her golden head at a critical angle. "I don't believe anybody would suspect you of being twenty-seven."

"That's a comfort," laughed Pauline, with a humorous appreciation that was like Uncle Dan's.

Pauline Beverly had not, like her sister, a reputation for beauty, yet she possessed undeniable charm. Her hair was of a sunny brown, and softly undulating; her eyes were of the same shade as her hair, and capable of a changing light, and, when she smiled, her face, soft and pure, but not brilliant in colouring, had somehow the look of a brook rippling over brown pebbles in a shady place, where the sunshine comes in threads and hints, rather than in an obliterating flood of light. The years, whose sum seemed to May so considerable, had performed their modelling very gently, conferring upon the countenance that winning quality which is the gift of those who habitually think more of others than of themselves.

They were coming in past the red sentinel-tower of San Giorgio, May still sitting on the low steps facing the stern of the gondola. As the young girl looked past her companions, across the silvery spaces of the lagoon, her eyes grew dreamy and far-away. So marked was the phenomenon, that Uncle Dan was moved to exclaim: "A penny for your thoughts, Polly."

May started, for she was not often caught sentimentalising. Then, with the directness which characterised her, she said: "I was wondering whether one might not perhaps find a soul here in Venice."

"A soul? What kind of a soul?"

"Oh, any sort would do, I suppose. You know Signor Firenzo told me my voice was bellissima, but that I hadn't any soul."

"Perhaps Signor Firenzo is a better judge of voices than of souls," Pauline suggested, with a confident little smile.

"A young girl like you hasn't any business with a soul," Uncle Dan declared. "If you think you see one coming over the lagoon you had better turn round and look at the Lion of St. Mark's. He hasn't the sign of a soul, yet he's the best of good fellows, as anybody can see."

May promptly turned, and fixed her eyes upon the classic beast in question.

"I didn't know that lions had such long, straight tails," she remarked.

"The wings strike me as being more out of the common," Uncle Dan chuckled, much reassured by Polly's ready return to the judicial attitude.

"I should almost think," said Pauline, musingly, "that a lion that had wings and a taste for literature might perhaps have a soul after all!"

A Reverie

When Vittorio was told to come for them in the evening, he had cast a significant glance at a certain radiant white cloud, billowing in the West, and said: "Speriamo"; which, in the vocabulary of the gondolier means: "Let us hope for the best and prepare for the worst." Upon which the cloud had gradually taken on more formidable proportions, until, just at dusk, it burst in a torrent of rain, which swept the Grand Canal clear of sight-seers, and sent the nightly serenaders, who usually act as magnets to the wandering gondolas, into the hotels for refuge. A band of them were established in the long, wide corridor of the Venezia, where their strong, crude voices and their twanging strings reverberated rather noisily.

Wondering how it must seem to have nerves young enough to sustain such rough treatment, the Colonel abandoned his nieces to their self-inflicted ordeal, and mounted the stairs to his own familiar quarters. And there, as he closed the door behind him, he ceased to speculate upon such ephemeral matters.

He had come up, ostensibly to write some letters, but instead of doing so, he lighted a cigar, and seated himself at the window, watching the swoop of the rain along the hurrying waters of the Canal. The tide was coming in and the wind was with it. One gondola at the ferry was struggling across the current, with difficulty held to its course by the efforts of its straining oarsman. The passengers had taken refuge under the felze, or gondola hood. Impatient of the slow progress of the boat, the Colonel looked down into the hotel-garden directly beneath his windows, which was drowned in a moist blur, that only seemed intensified where it focused about the electric lights. Over there again, across the Canal, stood the great Salute, showing ghostly and unreal in its massive whiteness, half obliterated by the driving rain. It would have seemed that the most perfunctory letter-writing might have been an improvement upon such a prospect as that. Yet the Colonel sat on, puffing in a desultory manner at his excellent cigar, and reflecting that another five years had gone by.

A curious thing, he was thinking to himself, how inevitably he found himself in Venice once in five years. It was not in his plan to do so. He would have been just as ready to return after an interval of two years, or of three; but, for one reason or another, he never seemed able to arrange his affairs to that end until the fifth year had come round. Somebody was sure to die and leave him executor of his will; or this or that charity of which he was treasurer made a point of getting into a tight place. To-morrow was the twenty-ninth of the month;--to-morrow always was the twenty-ninth on his first arrival in Venice. Yet that, too, was the merest accident, as he assured himself with some heat. None of these things was premeditated.

He should call upon her to-morrow,--certainly. It would be a downright discourtesy to wait until they had met by chance. He wondered if she were expecting him. Probably not; she had other things to think of, especially now that her son was with her.

It would be a pleasure to see her,--her beautiful, friendly eyes, that enchanting smile, that wonderful turn of the head. As though she could ever have cared for a battered old wreck like him! And yet he knew, with an indubitable knowledge, that he should ask her again. And the answer would be the same as it had been twenty-five years ago, when she was but a three-years' widow.

He had been hasty, he had not sufficiently respected her past. He should have waited. And yet, when he came again, after five years, perhaps that, too, was an error of judgment. Perhaps his coming, after so long an interval, caused the revival of old memories, caused a shock which might have been avoided if he had ventured sooner. And then, when another five years had passed, he had begun to age. A man who has seen field service has not the staying powers of other men. That London doctor knew all about it in a moment. Yes, he had already begun to age, fifteen years ago. And now!

The Colonel relighted his cigar, which had gone out. How the rain kept at it! He could hear the swish of it on the wall of the house across the garden. Even Venice could be dreary.

He had never seen her anywhere else. He did not ask himself why he had refrained from seeking her out in her own home, not five hundred miles from his own,--why he had always come to her here in Venice, where all her married life had been spent. After all, a man does what he must. And to-morrow he should ask her again! He did not wish to, he did not even intend to. He could resolve not to, here, in cold blood, with the disheartening rain blotting out the rose-bushes down below, and a disheartening conviction of failure blotting out his nerve and courage. But to-morrow she would rise to meet him, in her own gracious way; he should touch her beautiful, firm hand, where a single jewel shone. He thought if he could ever see another ring upon that hand, one which, having no significance of its own, might weaken the significance of that diamond, now grown old-fashioned in its low setting, there might be a chance for him. But, no; there would be but the one ring, and there would be no chance for him;--and yet he should ask her!

There was another gondola struggling across the Canal. Why should anyone be out in such weather? It must be a lover, or some such sanguine person, bent, as like as not, upon a fruitless errand. The Colonel had but scant sympathy with lovers; they so rarely had any discrimination.

Yes, she would come forward, with extended hand, to meet him. He wondered whether the streak of grey on the right temple would have widened appreciably. Perhaps it would have spread itself, like a fine white film of lace, over the abundant hair. It would probably be very becoming. That was another curious thing; every time he saw her she had grown more beautiful. The years that had dealt so harshly with him had touched her only to an added grace and tenderness; experience had drawn only noble lines upon her face, and there was an ever-increasing warmth and graciousness of countenance which was infinitely finer than the bloom of youth. People made a great deal of youth, but really, when you came to think of it, what a meagre, paltry thing it was! A man hardly began to live before he was thirty-five!

"Uncle Dan, may we come in?"