‘I throw the book down,’ he said.

She objected.  ‘No; continue:  I like it.’

Both of them divined that the book was there to do duty for Roland.

He closed it, keeping a finger among the leaves; a kind of anchorage in case of indiscretion.

’Permit me to tell you, M. Nevil, you are inclined to play truant to-day.’

‘I am.’

’Now is the very time to read; for my poor Roland is at sea when we discuss our questions, and the book has driven him away.’

‘But we have plenty of time to read.  We miss the scenes.’

’The scenes are green shutters, wet steps, barcaroli, brown women, striped posts, a scarlet night-cap, a sick fig-tree, an old shawl, faded spots of colour, peeling walls.  They might be figured by a trodden melon.  They all resemble one another, and so do the days here.’

’That’s the charm.  I wish I could look on you and think the same.  You, as you are, for ever.’

‘Would you not let me live my life?’

‘I would not have you alter.’

‘Please to be pathetic on that subject after I am wrinkled, monsieur.’

‘You want commanding, mademoiselle.’

Renee nestled her chin, and gazed forward through her eyelashes.

’Venice is like a melancholy face of a former beauty who has ceased to rouge, or wipe away traces of her old arts,’ she said, straining for common talk, and showing the strain.

‘Wait; now we are rounding,’ said he; ’now you have three of what you call your theatre-bridges in sight.  The people mount and drop, mount and drop; I see them laugh.  They are full of fun and good-temper.  Look on living Venice!

’Provided that my papa is not crossing when we go under!

‘Would he not trust you to me?’

‘Yes.’

‘He would?  And you?’

‘I do believe they are improvizing an operetta on the second bridge.’

‘You trust yourself willingly?’

’As to my second brother.  You hear them?  How delightfully quick and spontaneous they are!  Ah, silly creatures! they have stopped.  They might have held it on for us while we were passing.’

‘Where would the naturalness have been then?’

’Perhaps, M. Nevil, I do want commanding.  I am wilful.  Half my days will be spent in fits of remorse, I begin to think.’

‘Come to me to be forgiven.’

‘Shall I?  I should be forgiven too readily.’

‘I am not so sure of that.’

’Can you be harsh?  No, not even with enemies.  Least of all with . . . with us.’

Oh for the black gondola!—­the little gliding dusky chamber for two; instead of this open, flaunting, gold and crimson cotton-work, which exacted discretion on his part and that of the mannerly gondoliers, and exposed him to window, balcony, bridge, and borderway.

They slipped on beneath a red balcony where a girl leaned on her folded arms, and eyed them coming and going by with Egyptian gravity.