Ruth and Lucilla had been dining at the Lido, at the new hotel there,
I forget its name, the only decent hotel, in a sandy garden near the
Stabilimento. They had dined in the air, of course, on the terrace,
whence they could watch the sunset burn and die over Venice, and the
moon come up out of the Adriatic. Balzatore had been dining with Bertram
at a neighbouring table.
But now, her eyes intently lifted, as in prayer, Lucilla began to adjust
her veil.
“We can't stop here nibbling figs forever,” she premised, with the
drawl, whimsically plaintive, that she is apt to assume in her regretful
moods. “I think it's time to return to our mosquitoes.”
So they paid their bill, and set off, through the warm night and the
moonlight and the silence, down the wide avenue of plane-trees that
leads from the sea to the lagoon. In the moonlight and the silence, they
were themselves silent at first, walking slowly, feeling the pleasant
solemnity of things. Then, all at once, Lucilla softly sighed.
“Poor Byron,” she said, as from the depths of a pious reverie.
“Byron?” wondered Ruth, called perhaps from reveries of her own. “Why?”
“He used to come here to ride,” explained Lucilla, in a breaking voice.
I'm afraid Ruth tittered. Afterwards they were silent again, the silence
of the night reasserting itself, and holding them like music, till, by
and by, their progress ended at the landing-stage where they had left
their gondola.
“But what has become of the wretched thing?” asked Lucilla, looking
blankly this way and that. For the solitary gondola tied up there
wasn't theirs. She turned vaguely to the men in charge of it, meditating
enquiries: when one of them, with the intuition and the aplomb of his
race, took the words out of her mouth.
“Pardon, Lordessa,” he said, touching his hat. “If you are seeking the
boatmen who brought you here, they went back as soon as they had put you
ashore.”
Lucilla eyed him coldly, distrustfully.
“Went back?” she doubted. “But I told them to wait.”
The man shrugged, a shrug of sympathy, of fatalism. “Ech!” he said.
“They could not have understood.”
Lucilla frowned, weighing credibilities; then her brow cleared, as in
sudden illumination.
“But I did not pay them,” she remembered, and cited the circumstance as
conclusive.
The man, however, made light of it. “Ech!” he said, with genial
confidence. “They belong to your hotel. You will pay them to-morrow.”
“And, anyhow, my dear,” suggested Ruth, intervening, “as they're nowhere
in mortal sight...”
“Don't you see that this is a trick?” Lucilla stopped her, in a heated
whisper. “What you call collusion. They're lurking somewhere round a
corner, so that we shall have to engage these creatures, and be let in
for two fares.”
“Dear me,” murmured Ruth, admiring. “Who would have thought them so
imaginative?”
Lucilla sniffed. “Oh, they're Italians,” she scornfully pointed out.
“Ah, well, the gods love a cheerful victim. You will do,” she said to
the man. “Take us to the Britannia.” And she motioned to Ruth to place
herself under the tent.
But the man, touching his hat again, stood, very deferentially, with
bent back, so as to bar the way.
“Pardon, Lordessa,” he said, “so many excuses--we are private;”
while his glance, not devoid of vainglory, embracing himself and his
colleague, invited attention to the spruce nautical liveries they were
wearing, and to the silver badges on their arms.
For a moment Lucilla Dor stared stonily at him. “Bother!” she
pronounced, with fervour, under her breath. Then her blue eyes gazed,
wide and wistful, at the moonlit waters, beyond which the lamps along
the Riva twinkled pallid derision. “How are we to get to Venice?” she
demanded helplessly of the universe.
“We must go back for the night to the hotel here,” said Ruth.
“With no luggage? Two women alone? Never heard of such a thing,” scoffed
Lucilla.
“Well then,” Ruth submitted, “I believe the lagoon is nowhere very deep.
We might try to ford it.”
“Oh, if you think it's a laughing matter!” Lucilla, with an ominous
lilt, threw out.
Meanwhile the two gondoliers had been conferring together; they
conducted their conference with so much vehemence, one might have
fancied they were quarelling, but that was only the gondolier of it; and
now, he who had heretofore remained in the background, stepped forward,
and in a tone, all Italian, of respectfully benevolent protection,
addressed Lucilla.
“Scusi, Madama, we will ask our Signore to let you come with us. There
is plenty of room. Only, we must wait till he arrives.”
“Ah,” sighed she, with relief. But in a minute, “Who is your Signore?”
caution prompted her to ask.
“He is a signorino,” the man replied, and I'm sure he thought the reply
enlightening. “He is very good-natured. He will let you come.”
And it happened just at this point, while they stood there hesitating,
that Balzatore found his opportunity.