“I must say,” added Nancy Fabian, “that I met Count Chalmys in Paris just before the Art Classes disbanded, and I never saw anything out of the way. He was always very gallant and kind.”
“You never told me how it was you met him, Nancy,” said her father.
Nancy flushed but decided to speak out. “Well, he was studying art posing at the school, and having the dark beauty and magnificent form of a Greek, he was requested to pose as a gladiator. He explained to me later, that it was the first time in his life that he posed, but he did it for fun more than anything else. I believe him, too, because he certainly doesn’t need the money which was paid for the posing.”
Nancy’s explanation added still other tangles to the maze, and the two men wondered what would be the final ravelling of it all.
While the girls went for their long cloaks to wear, that evening, in the gondolas, Mr. Alexander slipped away to converse with an official-looking man he had met in the corridor. The Fabians and Mrs. Alexander came downstairs first, but were soon joined by the four girls. As they passed the hotel office, Mr. Alexander followed after them.
It was a beautiful night, with a clear sky overhead and twinkling lights bobbing along the Grand Canal, as gondolas passed up and down filled with happy passengers. When the Fabian party in their gondolas drew near the Palazzo Dario, they wondered at the crowd gathered in gondolas along both sides of the Canal.
A row of gondolas was stationed across the Canal on either side of the Palazzo Dario, and Mr. Fabian learned that they could not pass without a permit.
“What’s the matter? I haven’t heard of any important event about to take place here tonight?” said Mr. Fabian.
“No! But ’tis so. Meester Griffet pay much money for use of Palazzo this night. You wait here on line and see the play go on,” said the officer, as he made an opening for the gondolas of the generous Americans to wedge in on the front line.
Thus it happened that not long after the Fabian party reached the spot, a camera-man climbed upon a platform built opposite the Palazzo Dario, and took his seat behind the apparatus. The blinding Cooper-Hewitt lights used in Studios, were so placed over the balcony and entrance of the Palazzo that they would reflect and bring out every detail in the picture about to be taken.