“How it dwarfs us!” said Lord Magellan, looking at his companion.  “One feels the merest pygmy!  From the age of decadence indeed!” He glanced at the guide-book in his hand.  “Good Heavens!—­if this was their decay, what was their bloom?”

“Yes—­it’s big—­and jolly.  I like it,” said Kitty, absently.  Then she recollected herself.  “This is your way out.  Federigo!” she called to an old man, the custode of the palace, who appeared at the magnificent door leading to the grand staircase.

“Commanda, eccellenza!” The old man, bent and feeble, approached.  He carried a watering-pot wherewith he was about to minister to some straggling flowers in the windows fronting the Grand Canal.  A thin cat rubbed itself against his legs.  As he stood in his shabbiness under the high, carved door, the only permanent denizen of the building, he seemed an embodiment of the old shrunken Venetian life, still haunting a city it was no longer strong enough to use.

“Will you show this signor the way out?” said Kitty, in tourists’ Italian.  “Are you soon shutting up?”

For the main palazzo, which during the day was often shown to sightseers, was locked at half-past five, only the two entresols—­one tenanted by Donna Laura, the other by the custode—­remaining accessible.

The old man murmured something which Kitty did not understand, pointing at the same time to a door leading to the interior of the piano nobile.  Kitty thought that he asked her to be quick, if she wished still to go round the palace.  She tried to explain that he might lock up if he pleased; her way of retreat to the mezzanino, down the small staircase, was always open.  Federigo looked puzzled, again said something in unintelligible Venetian, and led the way to the grand staircase followed by Lord Magellan.

* * * * *

A heavy door clanged below.  Kitty was alone.  She looked round her, at the stretches of marble floor, and the streaks of pale sunshine that lay upon its black and white, at the lofty walls painted with a dim superb architecture, at the crowded ceiling, the gorgeous candelabra.  With its costly decoration, the great room suggested a rich and festal life; thronging groups below answering to the Tiepolo groups above; beauties patched and masked; gallants in brocaded coats; splendid senators, robed like William at the fancy ball.

Suddenly she caught sight of herself in one of the high and narrow mirrors that filled the spaces between the windows.  In her mourning dress, with the light behind her, she made a tiny spectre in the immense hall.  The image of her present self—­frail, black-robed—­recalled the two figures in the glass of her Hill Street room—­the sparkling white of her goddess dress, and William’s smiling face above hers, his arm round her waist.

How happy she had been that night!  Even her wild fury with Mary Lyster seemed to her now a kind of happiness.  How gladly would she have exchanged for it either of the two terrors that now possessed her!