Lawrence could see her from the open door, a white figure, loitering in a bed of purple tulips. Her dark hair was loosely knotted up; stray wisps fell about her ears.
Lawrence closed the door that opened from the canal and walked softly through the plats of lilies and tulips. Miss Barton glanced up.
"Ecco! il cavaliere!"
"Didn't you expect me!" he asked, clumsily, revealing one potent reason for his appearance.
She smiled for an answer.
"Last night," he began again, explanatorily. Her eyes followed his lips and interrupted him.
"What do you think of our place?" She had turned away as if to direct his speech into indifferent channels.
He looked about bewildered.
"I can't think anything; I feel it; it's one mass of sense."
"Exactly. We found it, papa and I, one day two years ago when we were paddling around the Giudecca. One is so much at home here. At night you can see the lights along the Lido, and all the campaniles over there in Venice. Then the Redentore sweeps up so grandly—"