"Clodagh," he said timidly. "Clodagh, are you—are you very anxious? Will you enjoy this party very much?"
Clodagh looked down on him in frank surprise.
"Why, of course!" she said. "Why do you ask?"
His gaze wavered before her level glance. He looked round at the fast emptying room.
"No reason, my dear!" he murmured—"no reason, I assure you! Go to your party. Enjoy yourself!"
At his words she bent quickly and brushed his forehead with her lips, but so lightly, so unthinkingly that the act was valueless.
"Good-night!" she said—"good-night, James! And thank you!"
She straightened herself quickly; and with a mind already speeding feverishly forward towards the night's amusement, she turned and walked out of the room.
It was nine o'clock when she and Barnard arrived at the Palazzo Ugochini, and already the deep purple of the Venetian night was wrapping the waterways in mysterious shade. But to-night she was less absorbed in outward things. An engrossing idea occupied her mind. She felt at once surer—and less sure—of herself than she had felt the night before.
The time occupied in reaching the palace and mounting the marble steps seemed to her very brief; and almost before she realised that the moment had come, she heard her own and Barnard's names announced by Lady Frances Hope's English servant.