“Arches?” she asked. “Arches like one of Per’s designs? Oh, do show me.”
“Why, that open place there,” said Mr. Osborne, still immensely interested. “That arcade just opposite, with the ornamental arches in open work.”
“Oh, dear Dad,” she said, “very likely they are Per’s designs. That’s the new fish market, just being rebuilt.”
And then it struck her that her laugh might sound unkindly.
“It is quite possible they are Per’s designs,” she said. “Would it not be thrilling if they were? Giovanni”—again she spoke in Italian—“just land at the market and ask some of the workmen where the iron arches came from. I see one not yet put up, wrapped in straw. There is some label on it. See if it is from Osborne, Sheffield.”
Giovanni floated the gondola to the side of the landing place with the flick of a quick-turned oar, and got out. In a moment he came back, having read the stamped label on the packing, and reported the gratifying news.
“Oh, it’s too thrilling,” cried Dora, “to think that they came from your works. Dad, you’re a perfect wizard to see that, and guess it was Per’s. You must write to him and tell him that his ironwork is going up in Venice, and that you recognized it the first moment you—you saw the Grand Canal.”
Mr. Osborne gave a little inward tremolo of laughter.
“Oh, I’m not so blind yet,” he said, “and it’s seldom you see work like Per’s. There’s something, as you may say, so individual about it. God bless the boy, how he’ll like to hear that I spotted his design right across the Grand Canal. Eh, he might have been here, my dear, and studied the style of the architecture, when one sees how it fits in with the other monuments. I’ll write to tell him that.”