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Party feeling had been stormy, like crossing tides, between those who held Baldassare for a gull and those who resented Vanna's unruffled brows. But now there was but one party. It was very well to hoodwink an old skinflint; but, by the Mass, not honest to flaunt your methods in the world's face.
The joke caught fire; he saw the sun-gleam on a dozen perfect sets of teeth. Vanna's head was up with the rest, sooner up and the sooner down. Even from that height the little twinkling beacons from the bridge shot her through. He saw her colour deepen, head droop; she was busy long before the others had wrung their joke dry.
These he lifted towards Vanna's with an air so timid and so penetrating, so delicate and hardy at once, that when he was gone it was to leave her with the falter of a verse in her mouth, two hot cheeks, and a quicker heart.
I made friends with Billy, as I had done with Vanna's homely room-mate ... who thought I was becoming interested in her because I often spoke in Vanna's dispraise, to throw her off the track, and to encourage her to speak at greater length of the woman I loved and worshipped from a-far. Now I sought through Billy Conway a nearer opportunity for her favour.
So, for one, whispered La Testolina, dipping a head full of confidence and mystery close to Vanna's as the girl sat working out the summer twilight. The Via Stella was narrow and gloomy. The tall houses nearly met in that close way. Looking up you saw the two jagged edges of the eaves, like great tattered wings spread towards each other.
Still further to entertain us a great rarity was brought out and laid at Vanna's feet as something we might like to watch a curious bird in a cage, with brightly barred wings and a singular cry. She fed it with fruit, and it fluttered to her hand.
Vanna's cabin I made my sleeping room, and it is the simple truth that the first night I slept in the place that was a Temple of Peace in my thoughts, I had a dream of wordless bliss, and starting awake for sheer joy I saw her face in the night, human and dear, looking down upon me with that poignant sweetness which would seem to be the utmost revelation of love and pity.
Dim images passed through my mind. Orpheus No, this was no Greek. Pan-yet again, No. Where were the pipes, the goat hoofs? The young Dionysos No, there were strange jewels instead of his vines. And then Vanna's voice said as if from a great distance; "Krishna the Beloved." And I said aloud, "I see!"
Baldassare's own were black as old channel-posts in the Lagoon, but in tongue-work he gave as sharp as he got. Then a wicked wind blew Vanna's hair like a whip across her throat, fit to strangle her. She had to face the day. Baldassare pondered her straight young back. "When Vanna's a nun she'll have no more trouble with her hair," quoth La Testolina, matchmaker by race.
Half shyly she stopped, holding up the baby for him to see: it was not for her to make advances, you must understand; but it needed no magic to make one believe that what a man's wife should be to a man that was young Monna Vanna to her rag-picker. Baldassare blinked and tried to look harassed; the next minute he had pinched Vanna's cheek.
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