But Sophy lay long awake. It seemed to her that life clung about her like a strong, dark web, meshing every natural movement of her heart. The idea of thrusting another man into her son's life—another "father"—became more and more painful to her. The idea of giving up Amaldi was unendurable. The idea of his giving up his country for her sake revealed itself suddenly as a sacrifice too terrible for her to accept.
The more she struggled for some egress from the clogging meshes, the tighter they closed about her. At dawn she was still wide awake, but when Bobby and his grandmother set out for Murano at eight o'clock she was sleeping like one drugged.
LIII
She did not wake until eleven, and by the time that she was dressed it was after twelve. Recalling what Lady Wychcote had said about lunching with Bobby at Murano, she thought for a moment of going there and trying to find them in time for luncheon. Then she recoiled from the idea of being with her mother-in-law for several hours. But she was too restless to read or go out in the gondola. Rosa told her that Lady Wychcote had gone to Murano by steamer.
She decided finally that she would take a long walk among the little by-streets of Venice and have luncheon at some small ristorante, all alone. She went out into the soft brilliance of the September day, and the very radiance of the sunshine had a curious melancholy for her mood. It was a relief to her, after crossing the ugly iron bridge over the Grand Canal, to find herself in the shadowed by-ways. Now and then, through a gate in some wall, a plot of flowers laughed out at her, or she saw the flicker of sunlit green high above. But the shadowed water ran darkly, and the smell of the cool, dank streets was like the breath of sleeping centuries. She came to the portico of an old church, and went in. The fumes of incense brought back that day in London, so many years ago, when she had gone to see Father Raphael of the Poor. She bent her head, standing all alone in the dark, quiet church, and her heart hung leaden in her breast. Even Father Raphael could not have helped her now, she thought ... for there seemed to her no clear way of right and wrong here. All was subtle, inextricably tangled—a maze of approximations, instincts, conflicting duties, inclinations.
She roused, glanced listlessly at the paintings over the High Altar, then went out again. She stood a moment in the street before the church, considering her next move. She was now not far from the Piazza San Marco. She recalled a little place in the next Rio where she could get a simple meal, and had taken a step forward when a burst of laughter made her look round. Her heart was jumping fast—that laughter was so painfully familiar—like the whinny of a young mare in springtime. Then she saw. Three people—a man and two women—had just turned the corner, about twenty yards away, and were coming towards her. The girl who walked a yard or so in advance had burnished, ruddy hair. She swung her white beret in her hand as she walked, and her blowing white serge gown moulded her handsome legs and vigorous young bust. The man's gait was rather sullen, the elder woman's frankly protesting.
"For goodness' sake, have some consideration for me, at least, Belinda!" she called fretfully. But in reply the girl only laughed her careless, whinnying laugh again.
Sophy had just time to spring back behind the dark columns of the porch before they could recognise her. She had been as if paralysed just at first. She squeezed in among the columns, with a feeling of sick faintness. Now they were at the church door ... they paused.
"Now here's where I balk!" rang out Belinda's voice. "No more rotten old churches in mine to-day, thank you. Come along, Morry."