"I am sure you will fall," said Leonora, nervously. "Do sit down!"
"If I had a millstone round my neck there would be some object in falling," said Batiscombe. "As it is, I should not even have the satisfaction of drowning."
"What an idea! Should you like to be drowned?" she said, looking up to him.
"Sometimes," he answered, still busy with the awning. Then he sat down again.
"You should not say that sort of thing," said Leonora. "Besides, it is rude to say you should like to be drowned when I am your guest."
"Great truths are not always pretty. But how could any man die better than at your feet?" He laughed a little, and yet his voice had an earnest ring to it. He had judged rightly when he foresaw that he must fall in love with Leonora.
Marcantonio, who did not understand English, was watching the proceedings on shore.
"Ah! it is magnificent!" he cried, with great enthusiasm. The royal personage who was to christen the ship had just broken the bottle of wine, and the little crowd of courtiers, officers, and maids of honour clapped their hands and grinned. They all looked hot and miserable and exhausted, but they grinned right nobly, like so many Cheshire cats. There was a sound of knocking and hammering, a final shout of warning from the dock officers, a slight trembling of the great hull, and then the ship began to move, slowly at first, and ever more quickly, till with a mighty rush and a plunge and a swirl she was out in the water. The people yelled till they were hoarse, the boatmen cursed each other by all the maledictions ever invented to meet the exigencies of a lost humanity, the royal personages stood together on their platform looking like a troupe of marionettes in a toy theatre, and congratulating each other furiously as though they had done it all themselves; everything was noise and sunshine and tepid water; Marcantonio was flourishing his hat, and Leonora waved a little lace handkerchief, while Batiscombe sat looking at her and wondering why he had never thought her beautiful before. Indeed, she was superb in her simple, raw silk gown, with fresh-cut roses at her waist.
"It seems to me, Marchese, that you are very enthusiastic," said Batiscombe to Marcantonio.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the other, shrugging his shoulders, "one cheers these things as one would cheer fireworks, or a race. It signifies nothing."