'THERE IS DANGER—NEAR!'
Women are strange. This has been said before, I know, but it is doubtful if it is ever said twice with just the same meaning; and it is always true.
When Miss Jenrys learned that our guard was quite beyond the danger line, and that he might leave the hospital in a week, she promptly declared her second visit, in company with her aunt, her last, assuring him that, while one might disregard Mrs. Grundy when a friend was so ill as to be upon debatable ground, it would never do to risk her favour for a rapidly recovering convalescent. 'Besides,' she said with a smile that was kinder than her words, 'in a few days you will begin to pay some of the visits you now owe to Aunt Ann and to me.' And this he did.
When he left the hospital his physician forbade him to attempt anything more severe than a very short promenade once a day, and a little sight-seeing, if he choose to do it in a wheeled chair; for the rest, quiet and much sleep. As to his duties as guard, even the lightest of these were forbidden him for at least a fortnight.
It is hardly likely that the originators of the Fair City planned to do just that, or realized at first what they had done, but intentional or not, the White City was a paradise for lovers.
Those cosy nooks all about Wooded Island, those quiet corners about the lagoons, with seats invitingly placed; and what snug recesses, 'too small for numbers, roomy for two,' in the great buildings, among the pagodas, temples, pavilions and lofty inclosures, hospitably furnished by generous exhibitors; then there were half a hundred and more buildings, model dwellings, cottages, castles, villas, mansions, palaces, edifices, State and national, each with open doors, and many with cosy parlours, reception-rooms, assembly-rooms, where one or two could find quiet and seclusion in the midst of multitude; and last and best, there were the beautiful lake, the lake shore, the lagoons, the skiffs, launches, and the gondolas.
On the first day of his freedom from the hospital our guard tried his strength moderately, and took counsel with Miss Ross.
On the second day June came 'half-way,' as she expressed it, joining him upon the Plaza and leaving Miss Ross to my tender mercies, for he had unblushingly begged an hour of my time—which he stretched to two hours—that I might 'help him entertain the ladies.'
Even now I am not certain that Miss Ross was not a party to the plot by which we first found ourselves alone upon the Plaza; and a moment later saw our guard and Miss Jenrys afloat upon the Grand Basin, luxuriously established, because of the invalid, of course, in a canopied gondola, and looking as innocent as if they did not perfectly well know that their picturesque gondolier could not understand the least word of English.
We watched them until they passed under the bridge of the bears at the south end of the north canal, and when they came out into the lagoon and turned westward as if to skirt the island, I turned to my companion.