“Perhaps, M. Nevil, I do want commanding. I am wilful. Half my days will be spent in fits of remorse, I begin to think.”
“Come to me to be forgiven.”
“Shall I? I should be forgiven too readily.”
“I am not so sure of that.”
“Can you be harsh? No, not even with enemies. Least of all with... with us.”
Oh for the black gondola!—the little gliding dusky chamber for two; instead of this open, flaunting, gold and crimson cotton-work, which exacted discretion on his part and that of the mannerly gondoliers, and exposed him to window, balcony, bridge, and borderway.
They slipped on beneath a red balcony where a girl leaned on her folded arms, and eyed them coming and going by with Egyptian gravity.
“How strange a power of looking these people have,” said Renée, whose vivacity was fascinated to a steady sparkle by the girl. “Tell me, is she glancing round at us?”
Nevil turned and reported that she was not. She had exhausted them while they were in transit; she had no minor curiosity.
“Let us fancy she is looking for her lover,” he said.