"So Bastian takes you always to the dead sea," she tossed aboard.
"Bastian might convoy other forestieri," Lawrence defended.
"Really? here to the laguna morta?" and as his gondola slid into the channel, she added:
"I knew you were in Venice; you could not go without—another time."
"What would that bring?" he questioned her with his eyes.
"How should I know?" she answered, evasively. "Come with me out to the
San Giorgio in Alga. It is the loneliest place in Venice!"
Lawrence sat at her feet. The gondola moved on between the sea-weed banks. Away off by Chioggia, filmy gray clouds grew over the horizon.
"Rain."
She shook her head. "For the others, landward. Those opalescent clouds streaking the sky are merely the undertone of Venice; they are always here."
"The note of sadness," he suggested.