"You thought to have ended with me."
She rested her head on her hands and looked at him. He preferred to have her mention Caspar Severance.
"Whenever I was beyond your eyes, you were not quite sure. You went back to your hotel and wondered. The wine was over strong for your temperate nerves, and there was so much to do elsewhere!" she mocked him.
"After all, I was a fragment. And you judged in your wise new-world fashion that fragments were—useless."
Just ahead was a tiny patch of earth, rimmed close to the edge by ruined walls. The current running landward drew them about the corner, under the madonna's hand, and the gondola came to rest beside the lichens and lizards of a crumbling wharf.
"No," she continued, "I shall not let you go so easily." One hand fell beside his arm, figuratively indicating her thought.
"And I shall carry you off," he responded, slowly. "It lies between you—and all, everything."
The gondolier had gone ashore. Silence had swallowed him up.
"All, myself and the others; effort, variety—for the man who loves you, there is but one act in life."
"Splendid!" Her lips parted as if savoring his words.