A puzzled scowl contracted the fine open brow of the gondolier. That a king should not do as he pleased was as puzzling as it was grievous.
"He is doing well, Nanni?"
"Si, Signore, benissimo; and yet he loves the gondola and the old life."
The Colonel drew his brows together as if the statement had not given him unmixed pleasure. "Do you think he is ever sorry for the education and the change?" he asked.
"Sorry? Oh, no! His profession is his life. Even here when he ought to rest, he goes again and again to the Scuola di San Marco, the great hospital, to see the sick people and talk with the doctors. Signore," and Vittorio's voice sank to a stage whisper: "Nanni is writing a book. It is about the sanitation of the houses."
The gondolier had stepped forward close behind the cushioned seat, and was stooping, with bended knee, his head almost on a level with the padrone's. Keeping the oar constantly in motion, and with an occasional deft turn of the wrist to avoid a collision,—for the Grand Canal was a crowded thoroughfare at this hour,—he nevertheless seemed to have eyes only for the erect figure and the grizzled head of his old friend.
"Our benefactor does not permit us to speak to him of what is in our hearts," he said, in his stately Italian; and again his voice dropped, and this time to a wonderfully melodious tone: "But the Madonna listens to us every morning and every evening. We all remember the padrone, even the piccolo Giovanni, whom he has never seen."
A look of comical deprecation crossed the face of the passenger, and he said, rather abruptly: "I hope Nanni is good to the rest of you."
"Si, Signore; Nanni is a good brother; but we are many and he is not rich. Ecco! The gondola of the Signora Daymond. Will the Signore speak with her?"
"Not to-day," the Colonel answered, hastily; and in another instant, before the occupants of the other boat had looked in their direction, Vittorio had stepped back to his post at the stern, and had given a twist of the oar that sent the gondola straight across the prow of a steamboat coming down stream.