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There were flower-boxes in the balcony, and other signs of habitation, and the Colonel, quite as if he were rousing from a reverie, and casting about for something to say, turned half-way toward the gondolier and asked: "The Signora Daymond, is she here this season?" "Si, Signore; and her Signor son is also in Venice."
But I didn't like it. It felt so horribly big, and made us seem so little." "And you were perfectly right, Polly," said Uncle Dan, placing his hand upon the small, gloveless one that lay on his arm. "The sea is no place for a gondola. I am sure Mrs. Daymond agrees with us."
He need have had no misgivings, however, for Kenwick was so happily constituted as to consider a slight to himself quite inconceivable. "It was very sweet of you to come to us," said Mrs. Daymond, as the gondolas glided away from each other. "We particularly wanted you this afternoon."
May declared that no person of a practical turn would ever take naturally to so unpractical an arrangement as that short-lipped makeshift, designed to eject an oar at the first stroke. Geoffry Daymond agreed with her in this, as in most of her opinions.
"Yes; we had a talk about Nanni the evening of the illumination. Pauline," May exclaimed, with a sudden change of tone, "what a waste it is that that nice fellow hasn't any sisters!" "Who? Mr. Daymond?" "Yes; he would make such a perfect brother. He is so dear, and good, and unromantic!"
The passing of that breath of feeling was still troubling the waters of her consciousness when, a moment later, they were met by the other three. Mrs. Daymond came forward and took both Pauline's hands, and, straightway it seemed to Pauline as if a bountiful beneficent power had encompassed her round about.
Geoffry Daymond, pausing at the top of the short flight of steps a few minutes later, face to face with Pauline, fancied that he discovered a subtle kinship between her countenance and the pictured one; and then, as he turned to compare them, he unhesitatingly gave his preference to the girl of the nineteenth century, with the rare, sylvan face and the uplifted look.
As it drew nearer, the throng of boats in its path thinned a little, and broken reflections of the gleaming lights danced between the gondolas, and sparkled in the oar-drops. "What do you think of the architecture of it?" May asked, in her fresh young voice, that seemed to dissipate illusion, like a ray of plain daylight let in upon a stage scene. Daymond laughed. "I don't perceive any," he said.
I only wish you had another son for the other one!" "I'm afraid she won't take Geof for my sake," Mrs. Daymond said, smiling, half sadly. "Oh, yes, she will; I'm sure she will!" cried the Colonel. "But what I don't understand is Geof. To be taken with a child like Polly, when, " He turned sharp about, and looked into her face, and there was no mistaking his meaning.
The actual rise and fall of the water was so slight that it was scarcely apparent to the eye; yet it had the reach and significance of an elemental force, and the gondola rose and sank with a certain tremor, foreign to its usual graceful motion. "Perhaps we had better turn back, Geof," said Mrs. Daymond. "Very well; but not until Miss Beverly has seen the sails outside."
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