She glanced up at him, as they moved slowly forward across the hall.
"My very first evening," she said softly. "And I so want to enjoy it."
He paused deliberately, and looked at her.
"May I take that as permission to make it enjoyable—if I can?"
Her lashes drooped in instinctive, native coquetry.
"Aren't you going to introduce your uncle to me?" she said in a lowered voice.
He looked at her, mystified and attracted.
"If I knew you better, Mrs. Milbanke——" he began.
But without replying, Clodagh moved away from him across the hall and out on to the terrace. There, transfixed by a new impression, she paused involuntarily.
Venice is beautiful in the morning and exquisite in the twilight, but it is at night that the mystery of Venice—that most subtle of its many charms—enwraps and envelops it like a magic web. There is nothing in Europe to rival the literal, tangible romance of Venice at night: the faint, idle, infinitely suggestive lap of water against a thousand unseen steps; the secret darkness, revealed rather than dispersed by the furtive, uneven lights shed forth from windows or open doors; the throb of music that seems woven into the picture—an inseparable, integral part of the enchanted life. All is a wonder and a joy.