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"To-night?" "To-morrow." He was full of a plan to take her and Mrs. Merrithew to the Lido that same evening to have dinner, and to come home after moonrise, to discover Venice. She agreed to that, subject to Mrs. Merrithew's consent, and they went out to find that lady at a bead shop where she spent a great many hours in a state of delightful indecision. Mrs.
"But I thought you understood," he protested, "that I wanted you to stay ... to stay with me...." He leaned across Mrs. Merrithew's broad lap in a great fear of not being sufficiently plain. "Make her understand," he said, "that I want her to stay always." "I guess," said Mrs.
Merrithew's comfortable breadth in order to deliver her shot the more effectively, she missed seeing how plumply it landed in the midst of Peter's defences and scattered them. "Leaving Venice?" he said. "Leaving me?" It took a moment for that fact, dropping the depth of his indecision, to show him where he stood.
One of the saloon dead-lights had crashed out, the thick glass rattling down the steel hull to the sea. There was another crash and a yellow glow flared into a bright blaze, illuminating the hull of the shrouded vessel. "Now they've done it!" cried Oddington. "They have soaked a table-cloth with kerosene; it's all off now! So much for Captain Merrithew's scheme. I " A voice rang from the bridge.
Merrithew's of a cousin's wife's sister who had married one of the Applegates who was a Dunham on the mother's side quite the aspect of a family party. It came in the end to the four of them going off at Peter's invitation to have lunch together in a café overhanging the calle.
"It does look a sort of 'After the Battle," Peter admitted. "But I should like to see the other one," and he fell in very readily with Mrs. Merrithew's suggestion that he should come in the gondola with them and drop into the Academy on the way home. They found the Saint George with very little trouble and sat down on one of the red velvet divans, looking a long time at the fleeing lady.
"You see," said the girl, pointing to a dinner card bearing Merrithew's name, "I am going to place him between you and me. Will you won't you arrange things so he'll take you in. No; never mind! I'll arrange that you're always such a dear about such things, and you won't mind, will you?" "Certainly not," smiled her aunt, "I shall ask him to tow me in." They both laughed.
Miss Howland had met young army and navy officers who had aroused in her similar impressions; she had, in fact, no difficulty in defining Merrithew's type.
It was very early in the morning when the wedding party which had been reinforced by the consul, the mistress of Casa Frolli, and the minister, who had turned out to be exactly of Mrs. Merrithew's persuasion, went aboard the Merrythought, blooming out amazingly in bunting and roses for the occasion.
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