Chapter IV: Part II: I (1)

It is an April day, and Venice is lying under a brilliant sun, which brings out all the beryl sheen of its translucent waterways, the gleam of its marvelous domes, the Byzantine color that still clings to the front of its palaces, and all the life of its picturesque and varied humanity. It is the last which specially appeals to the interest of a man who has strolled from the Piazza San Marco into the Piazzetta, and watches the animated movement along the Riva de’ Schiavoni, that meeting-place of Italy and the Orient, with eyes that take in every variety of the types passing before him. And when they grow tired of water-carriers and gondoliers, of soldiers and sailors, of Italians, Greeks, Austrians, and Orientals, they have but to look beyond on the fairest scene in the world--the wide, green plain of shining water, as the Grand Canal opens into the lagoon, the isle of San Giorgio with its cluster of picturesque buildings, and far to seaward the Armenian Convent of San Lazare.

But the picture grows too dazzling after a while, and the observer, turning, walks toward the palace of the Doges, entered under the Saracenic arches into its great court, and ascending the Giant’s Stairway passed into those gorgeous saloons where the sumptuous life of old Venice still glows on the walls in that Venetian art which in glory of coloring excels every other school. The usual number of tourists, with open guide-books, were scattered through the apartments, filling even the dread chamber of the Council of Ten with their light chatter; but the newcomer avoided them, lingered only in comparatively empty rooms, and presently wandered into the Hall of the Great Council, whence he passed out of an empty window to a balcony, where he found himself on a level with the top of the column which bears the winged lion, and overlooking from this higher elevation the same wide, beautiful picture of sea and sky, of glittering domes and sun-tinted campanili, which he had lately seen from below.

On a seat conveniently placed in a corner of the balcony he sat down, and with his back against the stone wall of the Ducal Palace, with the famous lion smiling familiarly upon him, and with the scene of all the past glory and triumphs of Venice before his eyes, he fell easily into that waking dream which Venice above all places has power to produce. For where else is the setting of the past so perfectly preserved? From the gorgeous frescoes of Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, one steps forth to look on the unchanged scene--palaces, columns, quays, luminous sea, and dazzling sky--of the great events they represent, and to ask one’s self if the stately pageants will not soon come forth to meet the victorious galleys laden with the spoils of the East, or to accompany the Doge when he goes forth in state to wed the Adriatic?

Into some such dream this man had fallen, when his pleasant solitude suffered an interruption. Through the open window a figure suddenly stepped, and advancing to the balustrade stood before him outlined against the horizon of sea and sky. For a moment he was inclined to regard with impatience this new object, obtruded into the foreground of the picture he had been contemplating with so much satisfaction; then it dawned upon him that, so far from marring, it rather added a new and charming element to this picture. For it was the figure of a young girl, tall and graceful, with an indescribable beauty in the carriage of the small, shapely head and the lines of the neck and shoulders. Her attitude, too, was full of unconscious grace, as she stood gazing seaward; and since her back was turned toward him, he could admire this grace at his leisure, together with the picturesque drapery of her dress, which was made of some fabric as soft and clinging in quality as it was harmonious in color.

But presently she turned her face toward the great lion of St. Mark, and presented to his view what he instantly decided to be the loveliest profile he had ever seen--a profile as clearly cut as that of a head on an antique cameo, but with a peculiarly delicate grace of its own, and with coloring as exquisite as the tints of a flower. She was smiling as she looked at the lion--who stonily regarded her from his pedestal--and she made such a delightful picture in her youth and beauty, that the man behind her held his breath, fearing lest some chance movement should betray his presence and cause her to disappear.

But, instead of this, she was presently joined by another figure, that of a young man, who stepped through the window and walked up to her side with an air of easy familiarity.

“By Jove!” said the newcomer, “I don’t wonder that you come out here for relief from those miles of pictures! Their effect is positively stupefying.”

“To _you_, perhaps, it may be,” said the young lady, in a very sweet voice, with a slightly mocking accent. “But it was not because _I_ felt stupefied that I came out, but because the greater picture tempted me. When one has Venice before one’s eyes, one hardly cares to look at paintings.”

“That is exactly my opinion,” said the young man, “so let us go down and get into a gondola and float about. That is the principal thing to do, besides lounging in the piazza.”

“Then suppose you go and lounge in the piazza,” said the young lady. “I am very well satisfied where I am,” and as she spoke she turned again toward the railing, with the air of one who did not mean to stir.

“Oh, I am very well satisfied to stay here--with you,” said her companion, leaning beside her.

At this point it occurred to the unobserved listener behind that the time had come for him to retire. Solitude was charming, and charming also was the contemplation of a single graceful figure in the foreground of a noble picture; but a conventional pair of young people engaged in a conventional flirtation was more than he could endure. With a sense of disgust and vexation he rose, and entered again the Hall of Council.

Over this magnificent apartment various groups were scattered, some studying the frescoes of battles and triumphs, others following the frieze of Doges’ portraits, and pausing before the vacant panel across which is thrown a black curtain and on which is painted the name of Marino Faliero, and the short sentence, “_Decapitati pro criminibus_,” while others were occupied with Tintoretto’s vast _Paradiso_. Among the latter was a pretty, fashionably dressed young woman, who, seated on a chair before the immense picture, had transferred her attention from it to the costumes of a pair of English girls, whose dresses were as ill-fitting as their complexions were blooming, and who appeared to be studying the great composition in detail, unconscious of the critical glances of the animated fashion-plate behind them.

This little scene attracted the notice of the idler from the balcony, and as he advanced, drawn rather by amusement than by any special interest on his own part in the _Paradiso_, the lady of the chair turned her eyeglass upon him. A moment later she had dropped it and risen to her feet, exclaiming:

“What, Lennox--Mr. Kyrle!”

Lennox Kyrle--for it was he--started and looked at her for an instant; then he held out his hand, saying, quietly:

“This is a very unexpected pleasure, Mrs. Meredith.”

Fanny Meredith turned from white to red, and red to white again. His composure seemed to rebuke her agitation and that slip of the tongue--“Lennox.” Moreover, she could not forget that this was the first time they had met since parting as lovers. But she recovered herself quickly, and, glancing up as she gave him her hand, said, a little reproachfully:

“I knew you at once, though you have changed, but you were not sure of me.”

“Yet you have _not_ changed,” said he, smiling and wondering--so quick is thought!--as he looked into her upturned face, where he had found the charm which once enslaved him. She had not changed, he was quite right about that; but where was there inspiration for any of the rapture and agony of passion in this blooming, piquant, commonplace countenance? As he held the hand which he had once so eagerly coveted, he thanked Heaven for that old disappointment, while he said, “But I could not expect to meet you here.”

“As easily as I could expect to meet you,” she answered, “though it is true I heard that you had gone to Egypt as a war correspondent. But the war has been over for some time.”

“For something like half a year,” he replied; “but I have been up the Nile, and, had it not been for a sudden summons calling me home, I might be emulating Stanley in equatorial Africa now.”

“I should think you would rather be here,” said Mrs. Meredith, with a little shudder. “We have lately come, and I am delighted with Venice.”

“Most people are,” said Lennox; “and by ‘we’ you mean, I presume, Mr. Meredith and yourself?”

“And the Joscelyns. We joined them in Paris. You know the Joscelyns? No? Well, at least”--with a sudden laugh and blush--“you remember Aimée?”

“Aimée!” he repeated, in a puzzled tone. Then suddenly there flashed upon him the memory of the old sea wall of St. Augustine, of the tide murmuring at his feet, of the stars shining overhead, and of a sweet, frightened voice saying, “I am sent to tell you that Fanny can not come.” The name, which he had forgotten, brought the scene back like a picture, and with it also another scene--an orange grove at sunset, its alleys filled with golden light, its glistening foliage meeting like an arcade above, and a pair of dark eyes gazing half-beseechingly, half-defiantly into his, while the same sweet voice said, “As for me, I will never speak!” Remember her! How could he ever forget the delicate, childlike creature, with her unbending loyalty? His eyes, which time had not rendered less brilliant and keen, gave a flash of recollection as he turned them on Mrs. Meredith, saying, “You mean the young cousin whom you sent--”

“Yes,” she interrupted, looking around with a quick glance. “Pray, be more cautious. If it were suspected, there would be trouble even yet. It is a great bore to have a jealous husband! And you know you are supposed to have been Aimée’s lover.”

Mr. Kyrle drew his brows together, and lifted a head which was not without natural haughtiness a little higher. He thought that the bad taste of this speech was only equaled by its impertinence.

“I am aware,” he said, stiffly, “of the deception which you induced your cousin to assist you in practicing at the time of which you speak; but I hardly thought it possible that even you could have allowed such an impression to remain until now.”

“You are as flattering as ever, I perceive,” said Fanny, coolly. “‘Even you’--that means, I suppose, that you consider me bad enough for anything, and yet are a little surprised that I have been bad enough for this! But, you see, if it was a matter of necessity at the time, it has been equally a matter of necessity ever since. And it did Aimée no harm; whereas to have told the truth, then or later, would have done _me_ great harm.”

“I remember that she described herself as of no importance,” said Kyrle, “and it seems that you fully shared the opinion.”

“Yes,” answered Fanny, calmly, “that was what we both thought, she and I, when I sent her on that unlucky errand. I shall never forgive Mr. Meredith for not going home and to bed like a Christian that night! But, as it turned out, she was really a person of much importance. She inherited a great South American fortune, and she is now an heiress and beauty of the first rank.”

“And yet,” cried Kyrle, with the old indignation rushing over him, “you have suffered her to rest under--”

“The aspersion of having been on the point of eloping with you,” said Fanny, with a subdued, wicked laugh. “Yes, it was a necessity of the situation, and I will say for Aimée that she is the most generous creature I ever knew. I really can not see why you should look so indignant. Pray, do you think it such a horrible thing to have been on the point of eloping with you?”

“I think,” he answered, haughtily, “that it is a shameful injustice to allow a young girl to rest under the imputation of having been about to elope with any one when she is altogether innocent of it.”

“We went over all that and settled it at the time,” said Mrs. Meredith, impatiently, “and it is much too late to unsettle it now. It is ancient history--dead, buried, forgotten. Besides, no one knows anything about it except Mr. Meredith; and there is surely not much to harm Aimée in one person’s knowledge. Percy Joscelyn suspects something--you may remember that he found you with Aimée on that awfully unlucky day--but he does not _know_ anything. He will, however, look upon you as having been her lover, and the whole Joscelyn clan will be thrown into consternation by your appearance. They watch the poor child, and every man who approaches her, like so many dragons. How amusing”--with another irrepressible laugh--“it is that you should have turned up just now!”

“At the cost of depriving you of some amusement,” he said, coldly, “I shall not renew my acquaintance with your cousin--if acquaintance it could be called. The last thing I am capable of is of annoying one who has already been the victim of such an injustice.”

“But why should you annoy her?” inquired Fanny--whom time had evidently not robbed of any of her volatile qualities--opening her eyes. “And you don’t know, really, what you will lose. She is charming! Every one admires her immensely.”

“I shall not have the opportunity of doing so,” replied Kyrle, more stiffly than ever, for he said to himself that this woman was insufferable. “I am leaving Venice almost immediately, and since I may not have the pleasure of seeing you again, I shall therefore bid you adieu--”

“Not just yet,” said Fanny, with a note of malicious triumph in her voice. “Here is an old friend to whom you must speak first.--Aimée, my dear, let me recall Mr. Kyrle to your recollection.”

II.

Kyrle turned, full of anger, which changed in a moment by some miraculous process into satisfaction, for who should stand before him, with wondering eyes and faintly flushing cheeks, but the lovely lady of the balcony!

And she was lovelier even than he had imagined, with a face in which all fine issues of thought and feeling seemed to meet. She looked surprised, yet the gentle, curving lips smiled as it were irresistibly, while she said, with the composure of a woman of the world, “I recollect Mr. Kyrle perfectly, though I should not have known him.”

“Nor I you,” Lennox answered, bowing deeply. “But I have never forgotten you.”

It did not occur to him until after the words were spoken what a lover-like sound they might have to any one under that false impression which he had just resented. But when he lifted his head it was to meet a pair of eyes which at once enlightened him with regard to the interpretation of which they were susceptible. These eyes belonged to the young man whom he had already seen on the balcony, and whom Mrs. Meredith now introduced as Mr. Joscelyn.

Percy Joscelyn had not forgotten the man whom he found with Aimée on the momentous occasion when he went to announce the great change in her fortunes, and he instantly identified this bronzed stranger as that man, even before hearing the name which he had taken care to remember. It was therefore natural enough that his eyes should express suspicion and dislike when Lennox met them.

But this immediate proof of Fanny’s assertion, that he would be regarded as “Aimée’s former lover,” did not irritate Kyrle as might have been expected. On the contrary, he was conscious of a sense of amusement which he would not have believed possible a moment earlier. It was the appearance of Joscelyn which wrought this change. A few minutes before he had, unconsciously to himself, envied this man; now _he_ was transformed into an object if not of envy, at least of apprehension to the latter. It was impossible not to feel that the situation had its elements of interest. He looked at the beautiful girl standing before him, a smile still on her lips, but her gentle, high-bred composure otherwise unchanged, and felt that, after all, the suspicion of having been her lover was one which he could cheerfully support.

Aimée, on her part, regarding him with the deep, soft eyes he remembered well, was thinking of the sea wall, the star-lighted tide, and the young lover who had taken his disappointment with such fiery disdain. There rose before her, too, a memory of the orange grove at sunset, and the generous anger which had burned there for her rather than for himself. She knew well that most men in his place would have given scant thought at such a time to any one so insignificant as she had been, and therefore, remembering his deep concern for the false position in which she was placed, she had held Lennox Kyrle in grateful remembrance during all the years since their one day of brief acquaintance.

Yet it was characteristic of the woman, as it had been characteristic of the girl, to forget herself for others; and so at this moment she was thinking less of herself and her own singular connection with that past story, than of the two before her, who had been lovers once and now were strangers. She was wondering how they felt on meeting again face to face, and how much or how little the memory of the past thrilled them. Fanny she knew too well to expect any depth of feeling from her; but how was it with Lennox Kyrle?

Meanwhile, amid all these memories, it was necessary that some one should sustain conversation with the usual commonplaces; and of this Mrs. Meredith was fortunately fully capable.

“I was never more surprised than when I looked up and saw Mr. Kyrle a few minutes ago,” she said to Aimée. “And yet there was really no reason to be surprised at all.”

“Not in these days, when everybody goes everywhere,” said Lennox, “and the acquaintance one parted with in Europe yesterday, one meets to-morrow in China. Especially a wanderer like myself may be met anywhere.”

“You are a wanderer, then?” said Aimée.

“Yes,” he answered. “I am a person with whom you are intimately acquainted--‘our special correspondent,’ and therefore my duties take me to many places.”

“They have brought you to a very delightful place now,” said she.

“My own inclination has brought me here,” he replied, and as he uttered the words he saw a quick flash of suspicion in Percy Joscelyn’s eyes again.

“Have you been here long?” asked Fanny. “_We_ came about a week ago; and we are doing our sight-seeing so leisurely that we have hardly as yet seen anything at all, except what can be perceived from a gondola.”

“I arrived only a day or two ago from Alexandria,” answered Kyrle, “but I am inclined to think that, for a time, what one perceives from a gondola--that is, Venice herself--may be best of all.”

“It is,” said Aimée. Upon which the young man beside her, speaking for the first time, observed:

“It might be, if Venice were better preserved; but one grows tired of looking at so much decay. In fact, in my opinion, we have been here quite long enough.”

“Then, my dear Percy,” said Mrs. Meredith, coolly, “I advise you to take your departure for any place that you like better, for we, who have come to Venice for a month, mean to stay.”

It was not a very amiable glance which Mr. Joscelyn bestowed upon the speaker, but he did not answer save by this glance. He turned instead to Aimée, and said:

“We seem to have lost the rest of our party. Shall we not go and look for them?”

Before Aimée could reply to this proposal, the entrance of a party of four made reply unnecessary, for it was at once apparent that these were the missing persons whom it was proposed to seek. Yet they had the appearance themselves of seeking, rather than of needing to be sought, for as they entered they all looked around, and perceiving the group before the _Paradiso_, eagerly advanced toward it.

The foremost of these newcomers was a tall, elaborately dressed young lady--young, at least by courtesy--whose commonplace prettiness was spoiled by an exceedingly artificial appearance and manner. With her were a faded, languid, elderly woman, possessing much natural elegance and traces of great beauty; a man of about sixty, carefully got up with padding and hair-dye to look not more than forty; and a rotund, florid, genial man of thirty-five or thereabouts. As these advanced the young lady spoke:

“I thought we should never find you! Where have you been hiding yourselves?”

“We have been hiding ourselves where you see us,” replied Mrs. Meredith. “When I lose people, I always make a rule of quietly sitting down and letting them find _me_, instead of running about trying to find _them_. So I have been sitting here for half an hour in a conspicuous position; and, as a reward, I have been found--not only by you, but by an old acquaintance who has most unexpectedly appeared.--Mrs. Joscelyn, let me present Mr. Kyrle.”

Mr. Kyrle bowed to the elderly lady, who at once put up her eyeglass to examine him, with an alacrity which indicated that his name was not unknown to her. He was then presented to Major Joscelyn, to Miss Joscelyn and to Mr. Meredith; and he was aware of being regarded with more or less active suspicion by all of them except Miss Joscelyn, who smiled as graciously as women of her order generally do upon an apparently eligible man.

“I--ah--hum--have heard of Mr. Kyrle,” observed Major Joscelyn, in a tone which intimated that he had heard no good of Mr. Kyrle. Then he fixed a pair of prominent eyes upon the young man and inquired if he had been long in Venice.

“Only a few days,” Lennox answered, carelessly.

“Ah--a few days! And you are leaving soon?”

“That depends altogether upon circumstances,” replied Kyrle, who in fact intended to leave in a day or two, but had no desire to gratify Major Joscelyn by telling him so; for already he felt an _animus_ of dislike against these people, not only because of their attitude toward himself (for that, being the result of misconception, only amused him), but from their appearance and manner. “They are self-seeking and insincere,” was his judgment, as his glance passed rapidly from face to face; and then, turning to the lovely, candid countenance of Aimée, he thought, “She is like a dove among hawks.”

Major Joscelyn giving no other reply to his last remark than a disapproving “Hem!” Miss Joscelyn took up the conversation, and remarked that Mr. Kyrle probably found Venice attractive.

“Very attractive--especially within the last half hour,” he replied, with deliberate malice.

The Joscelyns looked at each other, while Mr. Meredith glanced at his wife, and the latter said, quickly:

“Of course, it has become more attractive within the last half hour. What is pleasanter than meeting old friends unexpectedly? Mr. Kyrle is on his way to America from Egypt,” she added in general explanation, “and it is the merest chance that we should have met him.”

No one remarked that it was a fortunate chance. On the contrary, silence appeared to indicate an altogether different opinion. After a moment, Major Joscelyn observed that they had probably seen enough of the Palace of the Doges for one morning, and that it was time to think of returning to the hotel.

There was a general movement, and it is likely that Lennox would have taken a final farewell of the party there and then, had not Aimée turned to him with a smile sweet enough to atone for any degree of incivility on the part of the others, saying, “And have you, too, had enough of the Ducal Palace?”

“For the present,” he answered; and availing himself of what seemed a tacit permission, he walked by her side as the party passed from the great hall, along corridors and down staircases to the court below.

Those few minutes completed the impression which she had already made upon him; and an impression in which her beauty played a small part in comparison with the gracious simplicity of her manner and the charm of her voice and glance. There was much in this voice and glance to remind him of the girl who had carried Fanny Berrien’s message to him, who had so timidly offered him her sympathy and compassion, and who had sat by his side under the orange boughs. Yet, save in the dark sweetness of the eyes and the gentle cadence of the tones, there was surely little in common between that frightened child and this stately young lady.

If he had only known it, however, there was the great thing in common that she was offering him now, the same sympathy that she had offered then. She was too young, and of too limited experience, to have learned the power of change which lies in time, and it seemed to her that he must inevitably be deeply moved by such an unexpected meeting with the woman he had once loved; and her gentle kindness was the involuntary form in which she expressed this feeling. But naturally no one could be aware of this--not even Kyrle himself. He thought that she simply meant to atone for the incivility of her friends; the latter cast alarmed glances upon one another; and Fanny Meredith was no nearer the truth than any one else, in saying to herself: “Aimée is certainly the best creature in the world! She is throwing herself into the breach to prevent Tom from being jealous.”

When they reached the Piazza there was a slight pause of the party, and Kyrle felt that he was expected to take leave. “Since I have been so fortunate this morning, I hope to be fortunate again,” he said to Aimée in clearly audible tones. “I shall trust to have the pleasure of meeting you again.”

“Oh, no doubt,” answered she, readily. “People who know each other can not possibly fail to meet in Venice. But will you not come to see us? We are at the Grand Hotel.--Fanny, surely you mean to ask Mr. Kyrle to come to see you?”

“Mr. Kyrle knows that I shall be delighted to see him,” replied Mrs. Meredith, “but really we are at home so seldom that it hardly seems worth while to ask him to come. As you have just observed, people _must_ meet when they are in Venice; and their best chance to meet is away from home, rather than at home. Nevertheless, I hope you will take the chance of finding us in,” said she, to Kyrle.

“I shall prefer to take the chance of finding you elsewhere, since you are more likely to be abroad,” replied he.

“And elsewhere is so much pleasanter than at home,” interposed Miss Joscelyn. “The Belle Arti, now--have you been to the Belle Arti, Mr. Kyrle?”

Mr. Kyrle replied that he had not. “I have not been sight-seeing since my arrival,” he said, “but only lounging.”

“Oh, but you must certainly see the Belle Arti,” said the young lady with animation. “You can have no idea of the Venetian school of art until you have studied it there.”

“I have no doubt Mr. Kyrle is aware of that, Lydia,” said Fanny Meredith, dryly; “but since we have exhaustively done the Belle Arti--at least I hope we are done with it--he is not likely to meet us there, and it was of meeting us that he was speaking.”

“It was certainly of meeting you that I was thinking,” said Lennox.

“Hum--ah!” said the major, addressing his party, “shall we move on?”

Kyrle watched them with a smile as they moved away across the sunshiny square. He was saying to himself that it would go hard with him if he did not see again the beautiful eyes he had been looking into, and hear the sweet voice which had just bidden him such a kindly adieu.

III.

It was no later than the evening of the same day before he met the party again. He was idly sauntering around the arcades of the Piazza, brilliant with lights and filled with the sound of many tongues, when he heard a voice say, “Oh, there is Mr. Kyrle!” and turning, he encountered Fanny Meredith’s bright glance. She was sitting at one of the tables near the door of a _café_, with Aimée, Mr. Meredith, and young Joscelyn, taking coffee and ices, and as Lennox paused she went on, gayly:

“Come and join us. You look lonely, and we are stupid. We know each other so well that each knows exactly what the other will say; so, like _Punch’s_ married lovers during the honeymoon, we are ready to welcome a friend, or even an enemy, so he prove entertaining.”

“But how if one should not prove entertaining?” asked Kyrle, who needed no second bidding to take a vacant chair by her side.

“Then you must have made very poor use of your opportunities,” said she, “and changed very much besides--must he not, Aimée?”

This was audacious, Kyrle thought; but glancing at Aimée, he was reassured by her smile.

“When I knew Mr. Kyrle, I was not very well able to judge of his powers of entertainment,” she said, “though I have no doubt they were great.”

“On the contrary, they have always been of a very limited order,” said Kyrle. “I am immensely flattered, however, by Mrs. Meredith’s kind recollection, and only regret my inability to justify it.”

“You have at least improved in modesty,” said Mrs. Meredith.

“A man who has been in the desert six months should be modest when he returns to civilization,” he answered. “Perhaps it is because I have been in the desert,” he added, looking around, “that it seems to me one hardly needs better entertainment than this scene.”

“It is very bright and interesting for a while,” said Mr. Meredith; “but fancy coming here every evening of your life, as these Venetians do! One would think that it would grow monotonous in time.”

“To a stranger it would certainly grow monotonous in a short time,” said Kyrle; “but those who have all their interests, social or otherwise, here, and who have a strong attachment to this which has been the frame of their life from its beginning, and the frame of the life of Venice through all her history, are not likely to grow weary of it.”

“I think,” said Aimée, “that even a stranger might require some time to grow weary of it--such a picture in such a frame!”

“That would depend entirely upon the stranger,” said Lennox, regarding her with a smile.

And indeed she was herself a picture worth regarding as she sat in the light of the brilliant lamps; her fair, delicate face shadowed by a large hat covered with curling plumes, and her liquid eyes full of pleasure as she looked over the gay life of the Piazza, or turned to the solemn front of the great cathedral lifting its domes and minarets against a sky of hyacinth blue.

“It is a very pretty scene,” said Percy Joscelyn, superciliously, “but I think it quite possible to grow tired of it. There is so much sameness. Now, the boulevards--”

“Percy is a very good American; his idea of heaven is a Paris boulevard,” said Fanny Meredith. “I am fond of the boulevards myself, but, for a change, I call this delightful.”

Lennox agreed with her. He did not ask himself why it was so delightful, but he felt a sense of thorough and complete satisfaction, as he sat, joining in the light, idle conversation, commenting on the motley throng which ebbed and flowed around them, and drinking a cup of black coffee as if it were nectar.

Presently Mr. Meredith suggested a return to their hotel, but this was at once negatived by his lively wife. “The moon is well up by this time,” she said. “Let us go out in a gondola. It will be charming to float about for an hour or so.”

“Good Heaven!” said the husband, “have you not been floating about enough during the course of the day? It seems to me that we hardly exist out of a gondola, unless we are in a church or a picture gallery.”

“Well, then, you need not come,” said she, laughing; “but I know Aimée would like to go--would you not, Aimée?”

“I am always ready for a gondola,” was the smiling reply.

“Percy will go. He is always ready for a gondola too,” pursued Fanny. Then she turned to Kyrle. “Will you join us?” she asked.

“I shall be delighted,” he replied, trying not to make the commonplace words too eager.

“Then we are a nice _partie carrée_, and we will go at once,” said she, rising and taking a shawl from the back of her chair.

No one inquired how far Mr. Meredith approved of the arrangement. He was left smoking a cigar in front of the _café_, while the _partie carrée_ proceeded to the Riva in search of a gondola.

As was to be expected, Percy took possession of Aimée, while Lennox found himself walking by the side of his old love. Neither of them spoke for a minute or two; then Fanny turned and glanced at him with a mischievous smile.

“Time has its recompenses as well as its revenges occasionally,” she said. “Are you meditating on that?”

He looked at her and was forced to return her smile. “You are as full of _diablerie_ as ever,” he said, “but if you have no sense of compassion, have you not any compunction?”

“Compassion!--compunction! What fine, large words! But why should I have either?” she asked. “You do not need compassion, I am sure; and as for compunction--you could not expect me to be sorry _now_?”

“Certainly not,” he answered, with alacrity. “Regret for what has resulted so well would be entirely out of place--for you, that is. For me, however--”

“Are you trying to insinuate that you have any regret?” said she, with a laugh. “Ah, that pretense is shallow! I have had such long experience that I can tell, the moment that I look into a man’s eyes, whether he feels the smallest bit of sentiment; and you--as far as I am concerned--you have not enough to put on the point of a pin! Do you think it strange of me to talk in this way?”--He did think so, and his face no doubt betrayed as much. “But I have a reason. I want you to understand that I am not under any foolish delusion about you, as some women would be. I am anxious that you should trust me, and let me be your friend.”

“Pray believe that I trust you entirely,” said Lennox--who did not trust her at all.

“But a friend--I am much honored; yet I do not know that I have special need of a friend at present.”

“You will never have greater need,” said she, emphatically, “for you have fallen in love with Aimée, and, unless I am your friend, the Joscelyns will not suffer you even to speak to her.”

“I can well believe that,” said he, involuntarily. Then he paused and laughed. “But have I fallen in love with the young lady whose name is so suggestive of that emotion?” he asked.

“You are the person to answer the question,” replied Fanny; “but I should say there was no doubt of it. I have been watching you for the last hour, and the entire scheme has matured beautifully in my mind.”

He looked at her again--curious, interested, uncertain what to make of her. The pretty, piquant face he had once known so well, was full of animation and amusement as she turned it toward him, meeting his puzzled glance.

“You are ungrateful,” she said; “you do not trust me; and yet I am anxious to do you a great service.”

“Granting that I need a service,” said he, “forgive me if I ask--why should _you_ wish to do it?”

“Now, that is more than ungrateful,” said she. “It is giving me credit for no fine feeling at all. Though I jest, do you think I do not remember how badly I treated you once? It is all over now--and no doubt you are grateful enough that it is so. But still the fact remains. I did treat you badly, and I should like to be able to feel that I had made some amend for it. So much for you. Now for Aimée”--her voice changed slightly. “Well, I owe a great deal to Aimée, and I would do a great deal for her. When it was a question of serving me, she did not think of herself at all; and, though I may be frivolous and shallow, I do not forget this.”

“She certainly did not think of herself at all,” Kyrle agreed--looking at the graceful figure moving in front of them, and remembering the sea wall of St. Augustine.

“I always said I would repay her if I could,” Fanny went on, “and I do not think I can repay her better than by rescuing her from the hands that have possession of her now, and saving her from marrying Percy Joscelyn.”

The last shot struck home. Kyrle was himself astonished at the sense of consternation with which he started. “Is that thought of?” he asked.

“_They_ think of it,” Fanny replied. “They are ready to move heaven and earth to accomplish it; but”--the tone of gleeful malice which he had heard before came into her voice--“I think we may defeat them, you and I, if you will say the word.”

“What word is it that you wish me to say?” he asked.

She looked up into his face again with bright eyes. “What word can it be,” she replied, “except the simple assertion that you wish to marry Aimée?”

Fortunately for Kyrle, he had no opportunity to answer at the moment. They had by this time reached the Riva, and Joscelyn, turning, said, “Here is a gondola.”

A few minutes later they were afloat on the broad expanse of moonlight-flooded water, with Venice--marvelous, mystical, beautiful--lying around them. The cabin had been removed from the gondola, and the ladies took the two cushioned seats, while the young men threw themselves down at their feet. And so they glided out into the silver night.

Surely it was an hour worth living for! The brilliant lights from the quays streamed over the water and were reflected in the still depths below, like an enchanted city; but this illumination paled before the splendor of the moonlight that reigned supreme, making all things visible, yet veiling every defect of time, for other defects in Venice there are none. Under this magic light the “glorious city of the sea” has all her ancient glory still; one sees no longer the decay which has fallen over her palaces, but only the loveliness which made her the wonder of the world. Past islands, palaces, and domed churches they glided with that smooth, noiseless movement which is half the charm of a gondola, and were soon on the broad lagoon, where the booming of the Adriatic surf upon the Lido came to their ears like distant thunder--the only sound which broke the silence around them.

The others talked, but Aimée said little. She leaned back on the broad, easy seat, and the white radiance falling over her seemed to intensify all that was spiritual in her beauty, until she looked rather like a fair dream of a woman than a creature of flesh and blood. Lennox pulled his hat low over his eyes in order that he might watch her unobserved. His blood was still bounding from that suggestion of Fanny Meredith’s before they entered the boat. It had taken away his breath, yet he felt as if in some intangible way it had drawn him nearer to this exquisite creature. It seemed to make that a possibility of which he had not ventured to dream; and as he watched the lovely face he was ready to utter with emphasis the word desired. Here on the shining water, with the moon beloved of lovers in all ages looking down, he felt his youth reawakening with a sense of power and resolve. He did not think of difficulties or doubts; he only yielded himself to the strange, sweet enchantment which had so unexpectedly overwhelmed him.

Presently Fanny looked at him curiously, “Why have you grown so silent?” she asked. “You and Aimée are not the most lively companions one might choose.”

“Lively!” repeated Lennox. “If you wanted liveliness, you should have remained on the Piazza. This is not the place for it.”

“It seems to me that all places are the better for it,” said she; “but perhaps that is because I am a Philistine. However, since you don’t think this a place for liveliness, suppose you sing something. It is certainly a place for music, and we have left all the musicians behind.”

They had indeed left those gondolas full of singers, which haunt the Grand Canal and hover around the hotels of Venice, far behind, and were floating in the silence of the lustrous night near San Lazare. Lennox hesitated and looked at Aimée, who turned her glance on him.

“Do you sing?” she asked.

“Sing?” repeated Fanny. “He used to sing divinely! I suppose he has not forgotten that in the desert.”

“Oh, no,” said Lennox, with a laugh. “I have floated on the Nile and sung to myself many a night.”

“Sing to us now, then, will you not?” said Aimée.

There was no insistence in her tone, only a courteous request; but he complied immediately, as he would no doubt have complied had she asked him to take a plunge into the sea. Nor did he require more than an instant to decide what he would sing. As he watched her uplifted face with the moonbeams falling on it, he had been thinking of a song of Heine’s, and the music--Schumann’s music--was in his throat, as it were; so he began at once:

“The lotus flower feareth
The splendor of the sun;
Bowing her head and dreaming,
She waits till the day is done.

“The moon he is her lover;
He wakes her with silvery light;
To him unveils she, smiling,
Her flower-face pure and white.

“She gazeth on high in silence,
Doth bloom and gleam and glow,
Exhaling and weeping and trembling
For love and love’s deep woe.”

He sang “divinely,” as Fanny had said, for Nature had given him a voice of the finest order--a pure, melodious tenor--and, though it had never received much training, there was something in it to-night which took the place of training and made it unnecessary--a thrill of emotion, a depth of expression, which art can never teach. When the full, soft notes sank over the last cadence, Fanny cried out with admiration, and even Mr. Joscelyn condescended to say, “Bravo!”

But Aimée did not speak at once, and it was only when Lennox looked into her “flower-face pure and white,” that she said, “You have a great gift, Mr. Kyrle, and a great power to bestow pleasure.”

The words were kind, but what was there in the voice that seemed to Kyrle’s ear like a touch of frost? The exaltation of his mood sank under it, and he suddenly seemed in his own eyes to wear very much the aspect of a fool. What had he been doing? Singing out his heart to unsympathetic ears, led away by the magic of the night and the fairness of a face which, after all, was the face of a stranger, or, worse yet, of one who knew him only as the lover of Fanny Meredith. What had possessed him to take leave of his senses in this manner? Was this what was likely to happen to a man when he came out of the desert and found himself in unaccustomed contact with civilization again? Did the first lovely face on which he looked lead his senses astray?

But even as he scornfully asked the question he knew that it was not so; that the spell of this face had its root deep in the past, in that golden evening when he sat under the orange trees and tried in vain to shake the grateful loyalty of a child. He knew now that he had never forgotten that child, and the deep impression which her absolute unselfishness had made on him, an impression deeper because it had been contrasted with such utter selfishness on the part of another. He had seemed to come very near to that little maiden of the past in the hour when her nature and her heart had been, as it were, laid bare before him; and so it was to no stranger that he had so quickly surrendered his own heart, which had long been swept and garnished and empty of any occupant.

Meanwhile Mrs. Meredith was clamoring for another song. “You are surely not going to stop with one!” she cried. “We want another, and yet another--don’t we, Aimée?”

“Just as many as Mr. Kyrle will give us,” responded Aimée, smiling.

It was easier to sing than to talk; so Kyrle again lifted his voice, this time in a Spanish serenade as full of the spirit of passionate romance as a Spanish night. But something had gone from the singer’s voice, and, charming as was the song, no one was moved and thrilled as by the first.

IV.

Fanny Meredith was right in saying that the Joscelyns watched Aimée and every man who approached her like dragons. And from their point of view, this was natural enough. Had not Aimée’s fortune lifted them out of poverty and the embarrassments resulting therefrom, to a condition of affluence where all things became easy and agreeable? And could they be expected to surrender the advantages of this fortune without a struggle? It was true that they had enjoyed these advantages for five or six years, in which time Major Joscelyn, through whose hands the income passed, had made not a few excellent investments on his own account; and that Aimée, as soon as she attained her majority, had settled an independence on her mother. Yet these things did not make them one whit more inclined to surrender any part of the heritage which they had grown to consider their own. Since it was, however, undeniable that Aimée, although the most gentle and yielding of human beings, had certain rights in her own property which the law would secure to her, and which a husband, should she marry, might be brutal enough to claim in her behalf, it became necessary that she should marry some one who could be trusted to consider the Joscelyn interest of primary importance; and this could only be one of the Joscelyns themselves. It was therefore early decreed in the family councils that Percy Joscelyn should in time marry the young heiress. There had been considerable consternation when he returned with her from St. Augustine and reported a mysterious lover already on the horizon; especially since inquiries drew no information concerning this person from Aimée. “He was a gentleman whom I knew,” she said, and not even her mother could obtain from her anything more.

Then Major Joscelyn solemnly announced that any such thing as a probable or possible love affair must be promptly nipped in the bud, and that the quickest and most complete way to accomplish this was to take the girl abroad. Her education, which up to this time had been of the most desultory order, furnished a good plea, and the entire Joscelyn family conveyed themselves at once to foreign fields. They had never returned to America. Nothing would have been easier than to place Aimée in a French or German school, where she would not have required the attention of her entire family; but that would not have given an excuse for a residence in Paris, which they all found very agreeable. So a handsome establishment was mounted, and after its expenses were paid, besides the investments on the major’s account already mentioned, there was not a great deal to spare for Aimée’s education. Expensive masters, therefore, she never had; but very good though not fashionable teachers can be obtained in Paris for low prices, and it was not in Aimée’s nature to make any demands for herself. She took eager advantage of the scant opportunities allowed her, and accomplished an education for which she had little to thank her guardians.

There was some uneasiness in the family mind when the time of her majority approached; but it passed quietly, and, whether through indifference, or ignorance of the full extent of her power, she made no attempt to take the control of her income from Major Joscelyn’s hands. So things had gone on as usual, and the family were hoping that before very long Percy might come into possession of the much-coveted fortune, when who should appear on the scene but Fanny Meredith! At once the Joscelyns felt that the time had come when they would have to fight for Aimée. They no longer had legal control of her movements; and although she still yielded submission to the wishes of her mother (which meant the wishes of Major Joscelyn), they instinctively felt that it would not do to try this submissiveness too far. So, when Mrs. Meredith proposed that Aimée should join her husband and herself in a tour through Italy, the Joscelyns held a council of war, and decided that, while it was impossible to allow her to go, it was equally unadvisable to strain obedience too far. The brilliant mind of Major Joscelyn again found the remedy. “We will _all_ go,” he said. “It is not--ahem!--what one would desire, to wander about Italian cities for several months; but Aimée can not be trusted with this flighty woman, who would not only introduce all manner of--hum--dangerous acquaintances to her, but who would delight to undermine our influence. Neither will it do to positively refuse to let her go; so we must sacrifice ourselves and accompany her.”

The sacrifice, therefore, to Fanny Meredith’s great disgust, was made. The family picked themselves up, and in solid phalanx accompanied their heiress to Italy, keeping vigilant watch and ward over her and over every possible dangerous acquaintance whom she made. But they were little prepared for the unkind stroke of Fate which brought Lennox Kyrle across their path. That his appearance in Venice was an accident they did not believe for an instant. They strongly suspected that Fanny Meredith had, together with him, planned this appearance to take place when Aimée should have been removed from her family environment. They congratulated themselves that so much, at least, had been frustrated by their foreseeing vigilance, but they had not the least doubt that Kyrle had come with the determination to secure her hand and fortune, if that desirable end could be attained by unholy arts and incredible audacity. What was to be done to frustrate and check this audacity? Such was the question the family met in solemn conclave to consider on the day after the undesirable intruder had appeared.

“He is not to be shaken off easily,” said Percy Joscelyn, “for Mrs. Meredith encourages him in every way. Last night she not only invited him to join us as we sat outside Florian’s, but she proposed going out in a gondola, took him along, and made him sing. He sings uncommonly well--confound him!--and almost made love to Aimée before my eyes.”

“The fellow’s impudence seems to be equal to anything!” said the major. “And how did Aimée receive his--ah--advances?”

“You can never tell much about Aimée,” his son answered. “She is quiet, and she’s deep. She didn’t seem responsive, but that signifies nothing. Under ordinary circumstances I might think that he had made no impression on her; but these are not ordinary circumstances, and the trouble is that we don’t know what the extent of their first acquaintance was. Although Mrs. Berrien denied it, I shall always believe that there had been some love-making going on between them in St. Augustine.”

“And yet Aimée was certainly not very attractive at that time,” observed Miss Joscelyn.

“There’s no accounting for tastes,” said her brother, curtly, “and facts are facts. I _saw_ him give her a locket--something which, you know, she always declined to explain.”