“My dear lady!” I groaned. “This is too much! Come out with me this instant to row in a gondola. You haven’t seen the fingernail of Venice yet!”
Henrietta looked at me.
“You’re very kind,” she said slowly. “I don’t know but what I will, later on. Just now, though, I want you to tell me about things. I do want to get those letters done. They are, pretty near.” I suppose my face must have betrayed something, for she went on: “Perhaps you think it’s funny for me to write letters before I’ve seen much. But I’m made that way, you know. I really don’t need to see a place to tell about it. When I go into it, it sort of comes over me what sort of a place it is, and I just sit down and write it up as if I’d been all over. You might not think so to hear me talk. I’m not much on talking, same as business men who keep stenographers aren’t much on writing. But I can write two articles about the same thing, and you’d never guess they were by the same person till you came to the name at the end.”
I gazed at Henrietta with deepening interest.
“I hope you will send me your Venetian letters when they come out,” I ventured.
“I will,” declared she courteously.
She thereupon proceeded to ply me with questions the most diverse, the which for brevity’s sake I forbear to transcribe. Each was more amazing than the last, and when finally I found myself escorting her to her hotel, I wondered whether, after all, the rôle of Bantling would suit me. Nevertheless, I had an extreme curiosity to hear her comments upon those aqueous aspects of Venice which had as yet remained concealed from her. I also took occasion to stop at Zanetti’s and purchase a copy of Baedeker’s “Northern Italy,” which I begged of Henrietta to accept as a loan. I knew she would accept it on no other terms, and I assured her that she would find it invaluable in putting her notes into permanent form. She, thanking me warmly for my manifold kindnesses, declared that she would be delighted to accompany me in a gondola at three o’clock, when her letters would surely be ready for the post.
When I called for her at the time appointed, the porter informed me that the signorina had departed on the half-past-two train. In the face of my incredulity he then produced the new Baedeker and the following note:
Dear Friend!
I must beg your pardon for giving you the mitten, especially after you had been so polite. But I finished my letters much sooner than I expected, thanks to your book, and after looking same over there really did not seem to be much use in staying on. So, as I have already found Venice disappointing, and as I heard there was a train to Paris this afternoon, I decided to avail myself of the opportunity.