"Venice!" Clodagh said the word softly.
"Yes. Most tiresome!—most annoying! But he thinks it an opportunity that should not be lost. I have not had an interview with him since we left Nance at school. He came then to our hotel in London; I do not think you met him."
"No. But I remember his coming to see you. I remember Nance and I thought he had such a jolly laugh; we heard it from her bedroom—the one that opened off our sitting-room."
With the mention of this new subject, trivial though it was, Clodagh's manner had changed.
"But what about Venice?" she asked, after a moment's pause. "Will you go?"
Milbanke looked thoughtful.
"Well, I—I scarcely know what to say. Of course I could refuse on the ground of this business in Sicily. But it is a question of expediency. A few days with Barnard now may save me a journey to London next year. Still it is very provoking!"
"But Venice!" Clodagh suggested, and again her tone was soft. More than any other in Italy, the beautiful city of the Adriatic had appealed to her curiosity and her imagination. With a quick glance her eyes travelled over the sheltered, drowsy garden, sloping downward, terrace below terrace.
"I should love to see Venice," she said suddenly. "I always picture it so wide and silent and mysterious."
Milbanke looked up from the opening of his third letter.