"No—just the other thing."
Kitty lifted up a pebble and let it drop into the water.
"I don't know what you mean by that," said Alice Wensleydale, coldly. "If you don't help him you'll be sorry—when it's too late to be sorry."
"Oh, I know!" said Kitty. Then she moved restlessly. "I must go in. Good-night." She held out her hand.
Lady Alice took it.
"Good-night. And remember!"
"I sha'n't want anybody," said Kitty. "Addio!" She waved her hand, and Alice Wensleydale, whose way lay towards the Piazza, saw her disappear, a small tripping shadow, between the high, close-piled houses.
Kitty was in so much excitement after this conversation that when she reached the Campo San Maurizio, where she should have turned abruptly to the left, she wandered awhile up and down the campo, looking at the gondolas on the Traghetto between it and the Accademia, at the Church of San Maurizio, at the rising moon, and the bright lights in some of the shop windows of the small streets to the north. The sea-wind was still warm and gusty, and the waves in the Grand Canal beat against the marble feet of its palaces.
At last she found her way through narrow passages, past hidden and historic buildings, to the back of the palace on the Grand Canal in which their rooms were. A door in a small court opened to her ring. She found herself in a dark ground-floor—empty except for the felze or black top of a gondola—of which the farther doors opened on the canal. A cheerful Italian servant brought lights, and on the marble stairs was her maid waiting for her. In a few minutes she was on her sofa by a bright wood fire, while Blanche hovered round her with many small attentions.
"Have you seen your letters, my lady?" and Blanche handed her a pile. Upon a parcel lying uppermost Kitty pounced at once with avidity. She tore it open—pausing once, with scarlet cheeks, to look round her at the door, as though she were afraid of being seen.