"You were wishing the other day for a short life and a merry one," Pauline observed, as the Colonel turned to speak to Vittorio.
"Perhaps things have changed since then," Kenwick replied, in a low voice, with so much seriousness and significance that May gave him a quick, amused look, while Pauline experienced an unreasonable resentment. What business had a stranger like Kenwick to be talking to them in riddles?
And yet, the next day, when the whole party took the trip by steamer, the long length of the lagoon to Chioggia, Pauline was shocked to find herself almost resigned to the pretensions of the stranger as exhibited toward May.
The morning was a glorious one, cooler and clearer than the usual Venice June. Across the lagoon to the west, the Euganean hills stood out, sharp-cut in their pointed outlines as if carved in stone,—as indeed they doubtless are,—while to the northward, looking back across the domes and spires of the receding city, could be seen the distant snow-capped range of the Tyrolese Alps, so gracious in its undulating curves, as to make an impression almost of warmth and tenderness.
"May watched the water-logged craft as it vanished under a distant bridge"[ToList]
From the start, Kenwick had succeeded in engaging May's attention, having resort to the same means which had already proved efficacious. At his suggestion they had each brought a sketchbook, and, during the trip of several hours, they jotted down desultory notes of the passing scene. Here, a boat laden with market produce, its gay, striped sail bulging to the breeze; there, the towers of Malamocco and Poveglia, with the pretty vista of the channel between. Again, a rude shrine erected on piles, or a group of boys diving off a tumble-down wharf in the distance. It was very delightful, this monopoly of the young girl's attention. The eager interest with which she listened to his suggestions, the quick intelligence with which she acted upon them.
And Pauline, sitting with Geof a little apart from the others, tried in vain to take herself to task for leaving Kenwick so entirely to his own devices. She supposed she understood her sister too well to have any anxiety on her account. The ready interest of May's manner was precisely of the same sort as that with which she had listened to Nanni's instructions in rowing, or to Vittorio's lessons in the Italian tongue. Pauline remembered how, only the other day, Vittorio had made mention of a piccola bestia with whose name they were not familiar, and she smiled, as she recalled May's triumph when, at last, after a laboured description of its leading characteristics, it had dawned upon her that the small beast with a smooth coat, a pointed nose, a long tail, and—yes, that told the story!—four legs, was a mouse!
Nevertheless, though her conscience was easy with regard to her sister, Pauline told herself, severely, that Geof was being very hardly used, and that she, by her supineness, was as much to blame as Kenwick for the artist's unwarrantable behaviour. To be sure, Geof betrayed no dissatisfaction with the existing arrangement; he was far too well-bred for that,—and really, how fine he was, in this as in everything! One would have thought that he was deeply interested in telling her about the great sea-wall in which nature and man have gone into partnership, and upon the preservation of which depends the very existence of Venice. There it stretched for miles, the long, narrow strip of sand and masonry, and as the steamer plied the waters of the lagoon, hour after hour, in the bright June morning, they could hear the tread of the breakers on the beach outside, and realise something of the mighty forces that must be resisted in time of winter storms.