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.