“But don’t you think many of the little alleys delightful? And the
squares, and the palaces, and the carved windows and balconies, and
the bridges, and the shine of green below them, and the pictures, and
everything?”
Henrietta shook her head sadly.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been around any, except just about here. I’m
afraid. I don’t know why. I’ve never felt that way before. But the
little alleys are so treacherous-like, and the people look so horrid,
and it has rained all the time, and--oh dear, I just wish I’d never
come!”
For a moment I thought that the dikes were down and we were lost. But
even as my knees began to knock, Henrietta pulled herself together,
dried her eyes for the last time, and said:
“Now I feel a lot better--now that I’ve told you all about it.
Supposing you go ahead and tell me all about things. I’m going to make
this trip pay for itself, if it doesn’t pay me.”
Could Henrietta have read my heart at that moment she might have
made a Bantling out of me before I knew what she was up to. The idea
of this poor girl so realising the dream of her childhood--of her
stumbling blind into the loveliest city in the world, and falling
among thieves, and miraculously escaping everything that there was of
enchantment--moved me idiotically. And not only did the pathos of
Henrietta move me. I was jealous for the honour of my chosen city,
whose peerless charms I have been ready ever to maintain against any
champion and all.
“My dear Miss Stackpole,” I cried, “you have been unlucky! But you
must let me help you to put things right. I shall be your guide, if
you don’t mind. And first of all you must change your hotel. I know of
one which is just the place. Nobody will rob you there, and everybody
speaks English, and you will meet any number of Americans, and your
windows will open into the Grand Canal.”
“What is that?” inquired Henrietta, grasping her pencil.
“_Madre di Dio!_” I gasped. “Why, that is Venice!” This was a banality
justified by my companion’s predicament. “Haven’t you been in a gondola
yet? A gondóla?,” I emended hastily, detecting a cloud in Henrietta’s
eye. “One of those boats?”
“No,” she answered. “They looked so queer; and then I didn’t know as
I’d ever get back.”
“My dear lady!” I groaned. “This is too much! Come out with me this
instant to row in a gondola. You haven’t seen the fingernail of Venice
yet!”
Henrietta looked at me.
“You’re very kind,” she said slowly. “I don’t know but what I will,
later on. Just now, though, I want you to tell me about things. I do
want to get those letters done. They are, pretty near.” I suppose my
face must have betrayed something, for she went on: “Perhaps you think
it’s funny for me to write letters before I’ve seen much. But I’m made
that way, you know. I really don’t need to see a place to tell about
it. When I go into it, it sort of comes over me what sort of a place it
is, and I just sit down and write it up as if I’d been all over. You
might not think so to hear me talk. I’m not much on talking, same as
business men who keep stenographers aren’t much on writing. But I can
write two articles about the same thing, and you’d never guess they
were by the same person till you came to the name at the end.”