“That should be as you wished. I am not much acquainted with the usages in such matters, but I presume that it would be entirely practicable. We could ask the vice-consul.”
“Yes—”
“He must have had considerable experience in cases of the kind. Would your friends meet you in New York, or—”
“I don't know,” said Clementina with a pang for the thought of a meeting she had sometimes fancied there, when her lover had come out for her, and her father had been told to come and receive them. “No,” she sighed, “the'e wouldn't be time to let them know. But it wouldn't make any difference. I could get home from New Yo'k alone,” she added, listlessly. Her spirits had fallen again. She saw that she could not leave Venice till she had heard in some sort from the letter she had written. “Perhaps it couldn't be done, after all. But I will see Mr. Bennam about it, Mr. Osson; and I know he will want you to have that much of the money. He will be coming he'e, soon.”
He rose upon what he must have thought her hint, and said, “I should not wish to have him swayed against his judgment.”
The vice-consul came not long after the minister had left her, and she began upon what she wished to do for him.
The vice-consul was against it. “I would rather lend him the money out of my own pocket. How are you going to get along yourself, if you let him have so much?”
She did not answer at once. Then she said, hopelessly, “I've a great mind to go home with him. I don't believe there's any use waiting here any longa.” The vice-consul could not say anything to this. She added, “Yes, I believe I will go home. We we'e talking about it, the other day, and he is willing to let me go with him.”
“I should think he would be,” the vice-consul retorted in his indignation for her. “Did you offer to pay for his passage?”
“Yes,” she owned, “I did,” and again the vice-consul could say nothing. “If I went, it wouldn't make any difference whether it took it all or not. I should have plenty to get home from New York with.”