“It is not only such as they!” he interposed. “The world, your world, would not understand, either. It is only here and there one finds one—like you, Signorina—with sympathy as pure as yours.”
Her face had turned the tint that autumn paints wild strawberry leaves, a rich translucent flush that deepened the light in her eyes. It was a lyric world to-day! Just then Tita’s voice spoke warningly from the water-side. She looked around, and through the gathering shadows, saw her father’s form standing in the door of the caffè across the piazzetta.
“Oh!” she said confusedly, and turning, hastily crossed the pavement to the gondola.
Tita’s oar swung vigorously on the return, for Count Gamba was in haste. He was voluble, but Teresa, as she looked out through the curtains, was inattentive.
Swiftly as they went, a gondola outstripped them on the canal. It held the low-browed carpenter whom Tita had throttled in the shop. In addition to a superstitious mind, the carpenter possessed a malicious tongue and loved a sensation. He knew that the father of little Pasquale was at work that day on the Giudecca. As the doctor had driven all save the mother from the shop, there was little profit to be got by remaining. He therefore hastened to bear the news to the quay where the stone masons labored overtime. He had drawn his own conclusions. The child was mortally hurt—dying, doubtless—and as he revolved in his mind the words with which he should make the announcement to the father, the wicked milord and his evil eye entered with all their dramatic values.
Teresa noted the speed of the gondola as it passed to tie to the rising wall, saw the gesticulations of the blue-clad workmen as the man it bore told his story. Even in the failing light she saw the gesture of grief and despair with which one, the center of all eyes, threw up his arms and sank down on to the stones, his head in his hands. As her father’s gondola swept by, the figure sprang up suddenly and his brown hand flew to his belt.
“My Pasquale—dead!” he shouted; “I’ll kill the Inglese!”
Teresa stifled a cry. Her father had seen and heard also, though he did not know the explanation. Nor could he have guessed what an icy fear had gripped the heart of the girl beside him.
“An ugly look!” he muttered, as the frantic form scrambled into the carpenter’s craft.