Part 14 (2/2)

”It's evidence,” she smiled, ”and that's what women require most.”

”Well, I hope Mrs. Merrithew will accept it as evidence that I am a suitable person to take you out in a gondola this evening. You haven't seen Venice by night?”

”Only as we came from the station. I'm sure she would like you to call, and I hope she will like the gondola.”

”Oh, she will like it,” Peter a.s.sured Miss Da.s.sonville as he helped her out in front of the Casa Frolli; ”it will remind her of a rocking chair.”

Mrs. Merrithew did like the gondola; she liked everything:--the s.p.a.cious dark, the scudding forms like frightened swans, the sound of singing on the water, the soft bulks of foliage that overhung them in the narrow _calle_, the soundless hatchet-faced prows that rounded on them from behind dim palaces; and she liked the gondola so much that she asked Peter ”right out” what it cost him.

”We would have taken one ourselves,” she explained without waiting, ”only we didn't feel able to afford it. Fifty francs a week they wanted to charge us, but maybe that was because we were Americans; they think Americans can do everything over here. But I suppose you get yours cheap at the hotel?”

”Oh, much cheaper.”

”How much?”

”Forty francs,” hazarded Peter. ”I'm sure I could get you one for that.

Unless ... if you don't mind....” He made what he hadn't done yet under any circ.u.mstances, a case out of his broken health to explain how by not getting up very early and by taking some prescribed exercise, Giuseppe and the gondola had to lie unused half the mornings, which was very bad for them.... ”So,” he persuaded them, ”if you would be satisfied with it for half a day, I would be very much obliged to you if you would take it ... share and share alike.” There was as much hesitation in Peter's speech as if it had really been the favour he seemed to make it, though in fact it grew out of his attempt to fas.h.i.+on his offer by what he saw in the dusk of Miss Da.s.sonville's face. ”In the evenings,” he finished, ”we could take it turn about. There are a great many evenings when I don't go out at all.”

”Me, too,” consented Mrs. Merrithew cheerfully. ”I get tired easy, but you and Savilla could go.” The proposal appealed to her as neighbourly, and it was quite in keeping with the character of a successful business man, as he was projected on the understanding of Bloombury, to wish not to keep paying for a thing of which he had no use. ”I think we might as well close with it at once, don't you, Savilla?”

”If you are sure it's only forty francs----” Miss Da.s.sonville was doubtful.

”Quite sure,” Peter was very prompt. ”You see they keep them so constantly employed at the hotel”--which seemed satisfactorily to make way for the arrangement that the gondola was to call for the two ladies the next morning.

”Giuseppe,” Weatheral demanded as he stepped out of the gondola at the hotel landing, ”how much do I pay you?”

”Sixty francs, _Signore_.”

Peter had no doubt the extra ten was divided between his own man and the gondolier, but he was not thinking of that.

”I have a very short memory,” he said, ”and I have told the _Signora_ and the _Signorina_ forty francs. If they ask you, you are to tell them forty francs; and listen, Beppe, every franc over that you tell them, I shall deduct from your _pourboire_ when I leave, do you understand?”

”_Si, Signore_.”

VIII

A morning or two after the arrangement about the gondola Peter was leaning over the bridge of San Moise watching the sun on the copper vessels the women brought to the fountain, when his man came to him.

This Luigi he had picked up at Naples for the chief excellence of his English and a certain seraphic bearing that led Peter to say to him that he would cheerfully pay a much larger wage if he could only be certain Luigi would not cheat him.

”Oh _Signore!_ In Italy? _Impossible!_”

”In that case,” said Peter, ”if you can't be honest with me, be as honest as you can”--but he had to accept the lifted shoulders and the Raphael smile as his only security. However, Luigi had made him comfortable and as he approached him now it was without any misgiving.

”I have just seen Giuseppe and the gondola,” he announced. ”They are at the Palazza Rezzonico, and after that they go to San Georgio degli Sclavoni. There are pictures there.”

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