"He is out, somewhere. Will you go home with me, father?"
"How did you come here?" said Mr. Copley, sitting a little straighter up, and now beginning to replace or conceal confusion with displeasure.
"I will tell you. I will tell you on the way. But shall we go first, father? I don't like to stay here."
"Here? What in the name of ten thousand devils—— Who brought you here?"
"I am alone," said Dolly. "Hadn't we better go, father? and then we can talk as we go."
At this point a half tipsy Venetian rose, and stepping before the pair with a low reverence, said something to Mr. Copley, of which Dolly only understood the words, "La bella signorina;" they made her, however, draw her scarf forward over her face and brought Mr. Copley to his feet. He could stand, she saw, but whether he could walk very well was open to question.
"Signer, signor"—— he began, stammering and incensed. Dolly seized his arm.
"Shall we go, father? It is so late, and mother might want me. It is very late, father. Never mind anything, but come!"
Mr. Copley was sufficiently himself to see the necessity; nevertheless, his score must be paid; and his head was in a bad condition for reckoning. He brought out some silver from his pocket, and stood somewhat helplessly looking at it and at the shopman alternately; then with an awkward movement of his elbow contrived to throw over a glass, which fell on the floor and broke. Everybody was looking now at the father and daughter, and words came to Dolly's ears which made her cheek burn. But she stood calm, self-possessed, waiting with a somewhat lofty air of maidenly dignity; helped her father solve the reckoning, paid for the glass, and at last got hold of his arm and drew him away; after a gentle, grave salutation to the attendant which he answered profoundly, and which brought everybody in the little shop to his feet in involuntary admiration and respect. Dolly looked at nobody, yet with sweet courtesy made a distant sign of acknowledgment to their homage, and the next minute stood outside the shop in the dark little street and the mild, still air. I think, even at that minute, with the strange, startling inappropriateness of license which thoughts give themselves, there flashed across her a sense of the ironical contrast of things without and within her; without, Venice and her historical past and her monumental glory; within, a trembling little heart and present danger and a burden of dishonour. But that was only a flash; the needs of the minute banished all thinking that was not connected with action; and the moment's business was to get her father home. She had no thought now for the picturesque revealings of the moonlight and obscurings of the shadow. Yet she was conscious of them, in that sharp flash of contrast.
At getting upon his feet and out into the air and gloom of the little street, Mr. Copley's head was very contused; or else he had taken more wine than his daughter guessed. He was not fit to guide himself, or to take care of her. As he seemed utterly at a standstill, Dolly naturally and unconsciously set her face to go the way she had come; for one or two turnings at least she was sure of it. Before those one or two turnings were made, however, she was shocked and scared to find that her father's walk was wavering; he swayed a little on his feet. The street was empty; and if it had not been, what help could Dolly ask for? A pang of great terror shot through her. She took her father's arm, to endeavour to hold him fast; a task rather too much for her little hands and slight frame; and feeling that in spite of her he still moved unsteadily, and that she was an insufficient help, Dolly's anguish broke forth in a cry; natural enough in its unreasoningness—