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He had been counting upon smoking it out before arriving at the Palazzo Darino, though he had scented danger from the moment his eye fell upon Vittorio's gondola. A gondolier, however, is early schooled to study any whim rather than his own, and presently Pietro observed, rather than inquired: "To San Giorgio, Signore?" "Sicuro!"
But, Uncle Dan, I've thought of something much better than roses. I'm going to sing for her!" "Will that meet the case?" asked the Colonel, doubtfully. He too had been wondering what could be done for the niece by marriage of Vittorio's grandmother's what did he say she was? "Yes; for you see I shall be a novelty, and I sing better than she does, and we shall take a lot of money."
The Signorinas were by this time on terms of intimacy with Vittorio's family, their chief pet among the children being the smallest boy, always spoken of by his adoring parents as the piccolo Giovanni.
Even here when he ought to rest, he goes again and again to the Scuola di San Marco, the great hospital, to see the sick people and talk with the doctors. Signore," and Vittorio's voice sank to a stage whisper: "Nanni is writing a book. It is about the sanitation of the houses."
It was doubtless due to this general rousing of the imagination, to which she perhaps owed her unalterable conviction that Vittorio's brother had, in some mysterious way, been singled out by misfortune, that the thought of him had come to play so large a part in her consciousness.
That this was the case was made manifest by the fact that he did not adhere so far to established precedent as to wait until after they had passed under the iron bridge before looking quite round into Vittorio's face and asking: "All is well at the little red house? The wife and the children?" "All well, Signore; only the mother died last winter." "Your wife's mother, I think it was?"
The sarcophagi with their winged genii, their garlands and bucranes, and porphyry tazzas, the fragments of Roman mosaic and Pompeian fresco-painting, roused Odo's curiosity as if they had been the scattered letters of a new alphabet; and he saw with astonishment his friend Vittorio's indifference to these wonders. Count Benedetto, it was clear, was resigned to his nephew's lack of interest.
Yet, as the two men stepped into Vittorio's gondola, it was he of the shabby apparel who seemed to give character to the group, while Oliver Kenwick would have made very little impression, if he had chosen to refrain from conversation. This he rarely did, however, and he lost no time in engaging May's attention. "It's a pity we haven't time this morning to row out to St.
The ready interest of May's manner was precisely of the same sort as that with which she had listened to Nanni's instructions in rowing, or to Vittorio's lessons in the Italian tongue.
They had been carried somewhat farther along the canal than the others, but Pietro managed to turn his long bark about so that his padroni should face the bridge, which brought Vittorio's gondola also in their line of vision, and there were friendly wavings of hats and parasols between the two.
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