GERTRUDE [Retracing a step or two.] Shall I see you--? Oh!
AGNES. [Shaking her head.] Ah!
GERTRUDE. [Going to her, constrainedly.] When Amos and I have talked
this over, perhaps--perhaps--
AGNES. No, I fear not. Come, my dear friend--[with a smile]--give me
a shake of the hand.
GERTRUDE. [Taking her hand.] What you've told me is dreadful. [Looking
into AGNES' face.] And yet you're not a wicked woman! [Kissing AGNES.]
In case we don't meet again. [The women separate quickly, looking
towards the door, as LUCAS enters.]
LUCAS. [Shaking hands with GERTRUDE.] How do you do, Mrs Thorpe? I've
just had a wave of the hand from your brother.
GERTRUDE. Where is he?
LUCAS. On his back in a gondola, a pipe in his mouth as usual, gazing
skywards. [Going on to the balcony.] He's within hail. [GERTRUDE goes
quickly to the door, followed by AGNES.] There! By the Palazzo Sforza.
[He re-enters the room; GERTRUDE has disappeared. He is going towards
the door.] Let me get hold of him, Mrs. Thorpe.
AGNES. [Standing before LUCAS, quietly] She knows, Lucas, dear.
LUCAS. Does she?
AGNES. She overheard some gossip at the Caffe Quadri yesterday, and
began questioning me; so I told her.
LUCAS. [Taking off his coat.] Adieu to them, then--eh?
AGNES. [Assisting him.] Adieu.
LUCAS. I intended to write to the brother directly they had left
Venice, to explain.
AGNES. Your describing me as "Mrs. Cleeve" at the hotel in Florence
helped to lead us into this; after we move from here I must always be,
frankly, "Mrs. Ebbsmith."
LUCAS. These were decent people. You and she had formed quite an
attachment?
AGNES. Yes.
[She places his coat, &c. on a chair, then fetches her work-basket from
the cabinet.]
LUCAS. There's something of the man in your nature, Agnes.
AGNES. I've anathematised my womanhood often enough. [She sits at the
table, taking out her work composedly.]
LUCAS. Not that every man possesses the power you have acquired--the
power of going through life with compressed lips.
AGNES. [Looking up, smiling.] A propos?
LUCAS. These people--this woman you've been so fond of. You see them
shrink away with the utmost composure.
AGNES. [Threading a needle.] You forget, dear, that you and I have
prepared ourselves for a good deal of this sort of thing.