A Venetian June Part 23

"But I was going to walk home," Pauline demurred, quite sensible of her own futility.

"You can't. It's really very wet. Do come and take a look at the Madonna."

She turned, with neither protest nor a.s.sent, and walked with him down the room. She felt that she had relaxed her hold upon herself. What was it she was yielding to? Something imperative and masterful in him, or something still more masterful and imperative in her own soul? She did not know, she did not consider. She walked with him down the stairs, and out into the outer world, and she knew that she would have walked with him across the very waters of the Ca.n.a.l with the unquestioning faith of the pious little princess whom legend carries over dry-shod to her prayers.

Pauline spoke only once, and that was when her eyes fell upon the gondola coming to meet them.

"The _felze_!'" she exclaimed, under her breath. If Geof heard her, he was too wise to admit that he did.

"To the Madonna of the Palazzo Rezzonico," he commanded, quite as if Vittorio had been his own gondolier. It crossed his mind that he ought to apologise for his presumption, but he was not in the mood for apologies.

The _felze_ was arranged for three, the little box-seats taken out, and the chair in place of them; Geof took the chair. And Vittorio rowed them swiftly with the tide, up the Ca.n.a.l, past the tiny striped church of San Vio, to which the pious little princess crosses, in the pretty legend, and on, to the stern and ma.s.sive Palazzo Rezzonico. The gondola turned down the narrow _rio_ that flows beneath the poet's memorial tablet, and a few strokes of the oar brought them to the feet of the Madonna.

Geoffry and Pauline stepped out of the _felze_ and stood looking up at the lovely figure in its flowing garments, with hands clasped upon the breast, and head bowed beneath its floating aureole of stars. Vittorio, too, stood with his eyes fixed upon the benignant face, and perhaps an _ave_ in his heart if not on his lips.

Presently Pauline said, softly: "You were right."

"I was sure you would think so. It's only once in a while that one knows exactly what is good for one; but then,--_one knows!_"

"Did you ever notice the inscription on the pedestal?" he asked, after a moment. "Hardly anybody ever does."

"Yes; _Decus et praesidium_," Pauline read.

"For grace and protection," Geoffry translated. "Isn't that pretty?"

They went inside the _felze_ again, without giving any directions to the gondolier, and Vittorio, delightedly equal to the occasion, rowed on, through intricate, winding ways, with many a challenging _sta-i!_ and _premi-o!_ and out across the Giudecca Ca.n.a.l. Neither Geoffry nor Pauline was disposed to talk, yet neither of them felt the silence oppressive. After a while they found themselves floating far out on the lagoon beyond San Giorgio. The steady pulse of the oar went on, and the light grew in sky and water.

"See how clear the Euganean hills are," Pauline said, looking out through the little window to those deep-blue pyramids, rising beyond the wide, opaline waters.

Geof, who was again sitting in the little chair, came down on one knee, to bring his eyes on a level with the window, and, steadying himself with his hand on the tufted cord, looked forth and saw the first ray of sunlight break through the clouds and gild the waiting waters. And then he turned from that glistening light and looked into Pauline's face.

The gathering brightness of the world outside seemed only to deepen the shadow and the sheltering privacy of the low, arching roof above their heads; the rhythmic throb of the oar seemed to grow stronger and more imperative; the onward impulse of it seized and mastered him. He had meant to say so many things, to urge so many reasons, to make such humble entreaties. But, looking into that tender, gracious face, one thought alone possessed him, and he only said: "Pauline, I love you!"

Then a wonderful light came into the face he loved, and she answered, as simply as a little child: "I know it, Geoffry!"

"It seems as if the lagoons belonged to them, this evening, eh, Polly?"

Uncle Dan and May were standing in the balcony, watching the receding gondola. The stars were s.h.i.+ning clear and high,--the lagoon would be strewn with them. Far away on the horizon, May could see a revolving light, coming and going, coming and going. She longed to be out.

"There's the Grand Ca.n.a.l," she suggested modestly.

"Yes; there's the Grand Ca.n.a.l. But, Polly, what do you say to making a call on the Signora?"

May turned her bright eyes to those of the old soldier, that gleamed questioningly, almost entreatingly, under the grizzly eye-brows.

"That would be very nice," she said, suppressing a little sigh of resignation.

"Good girl!" cried the Colonel. "And, look here, Polly, perhaps it's you who are to be the support of my old age, after all. Who knows?" and he cast a glance, half humorous, half reproachful, in the direction in which the gondola had disappeared. He was not yet quite reconciled to the trick fate had played him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It seems as if the lagoons belonged to them this evening"]

Then May slipped her hand inside his arm, in her own confiding way, and, looking affectionately into the seamed and seared old face, she said, with roguish sweetness: "I tell you what, Uncle Dan! We shall have to grow old together, you and I!"

THE END.

_By Anna Fuller_

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