“Look, John!” cried Allegra, laughing, as she pointed to the hedge of red roses in front of them, and the clusters of creamy bloom hanging over the verandah. “The roses have been blooming ever since we came to Italy. It is always rose-time here. You remember our reading in the dedication of ‘To Leeward’ how Marion Crawford strewed his wife’s pathway with roses on Christmas Day at Sorrento. We can find a flowery land for our honeymoon at any season of the year.”
“But why wait a year? Can you not prove me trusty and true in less than a year?”
“You are so impatient,” she said, plucking a handful of roses, and scattering the petals at her feet. “A year is so short a time.”
“Short, love! why, eight weeks have seemed an eternity to me without you; and you honoured me just now by saying that the time had appeared long, even to you—even to my liege lady, sitting serene in her palace of art, painting contadinas and their olive-faced offspring—even to you, whose love is as a thread of silk against a cable, compared to mine. Even to you, my mistress and my tyrant.”
“That was because you were so far away. But there will be nothing to hinder our seeing each other, as often as you may find convenient. I have set my heart upon painting steadily for a twelvemonth, without any distractions.”
“There is no such place as Venice for a painter. Think of the Miss Montalbas, and the splendid work they have done at Venice. Would you not like to be like them?”
“Would I not like to be like Apelles?”
“Well, Venice will be your treasury; Venice will fill that busy brain with ideas. You shall be fed upon pictures old and new—the new living pictures in the narrow streets and canals; the old masters in the churches and palaces. You shall learn of Tintoret and Veronese. You shall paint as much as you like. You shall have no distractions. We shall be strangers there, can live as we choose. Summer is the time for Venice, Allegra. Benighted English people have an idea that Italy is a place to winter in, and they go and shiver in marble palaces, and watch the torrential rain beating against windows that were never meant to shut out bad weather. The Italians know that their land is a land of summer, and they know how to enjoy sunny days and balmy nights. You don’t know how delicious life is on the Lido when the night is only a brief interval of starshine betwixt sunset and dawn. You don’t know what a dream of delight it is to float along the lagoons and watch the lamp-lit city melt into the mists of evening, breathing faint echoes of music and song. A great many things of beauty have been turned to ugliness, Allegra, since printing and the steam engine were invented; but, thank God! Venice is not one of them. You will think of my plan, won’t you, love? At the least, it is a thing to be considered.”
“Anything you say is worthy to be considered, John. And now come in and see Isola and Martin.”