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They were quite on the shore and only a narrow stretch of beach separated them from the bay. "You said if you ever came away, you would go to Sorrento, and I knew you had a friend in the kitchen who lived near Naples. So I searched for her and the padrona, and, finding neither of them, set Giovanni a babbling, and learned that the woman Lisetta had left that morning for Sorrento.
You, do not know me." He smiled quietly, holding her hands clasped in his. "I do not know you, Signorina? You do not know me. Your face is the picture always before my eyes." "Yes, yes, forgive me," she fluttered, "I was startled, and indeed I am no Signorina now, but one of your own country peasants. I am with Lisetta. Why, where is Lisetta?" Where, indeed, was she?
I quote a Gradese song, which is also sung at Trieste, and must be of some antiquity, since it names the gondola, which is not now seen either at Grado or Trieste. Lisetta guarda, bella è la luna Argento piove sulla laguna, Non è una nuvola; quieto è il mar Lisetta, in gondola ti voi menar?
Then they began that wonderful ride along the coast. The horrors of the day before rolled away like a mist as the donkey jogged along that miraculous drive. Lisetta and Gaetano chattered together, and Mae sat very still, with her face to the sea, drinking in all the glory, as she had longed and planned.
Her vestal lamp had dropped for the moment, and she seemed to be gazing far away. A fold of her heavy veil fell over her brow quite down to her great dark eyes. They were unshaded, yet they too, seemed clouded for the moment. "Her name is Lillia," said Mae, reassuringly to herself. "Her name is Lillia. I am sure she is like her name." Bero smiled. Just then Lisetta appeared.
O, the officer. He just rode down this morning for a morning call. I never saw him before." A great weight, as large as the Piedmontese, fell from Norman's heart then, and he scattered money among the children recklessly and ordered up the donkey; and smiled on the amazed Lisetta all in the same breath, and went back to help Mae into the wagon with the lightest kind of a heart.
At home she had a long, earnest talk with Lisetta, after which Lisetta had a short, brisk talk with the padrona. "It means money," she said, "and I can play I did it for the Signorina's safety." Later, Mae wrote a brief, polite note to Norman Mann. She was ill, had gone to bed, and wouldn't be able to go to the Corso with him to-night.
They did not know anything about Lisetta, and she had promised not to tell even the padrona. That was what finally drove her away. How unlike him it did seem to speak of her in that way to Eric. She thought over his words, and as she did so she seemed to see her mistake, and grasp his meaning. She sprang up in the boat. "It was the other girl Miss Rae he was speaking of.
They spent the night with a friend of Lisetta, who rented apartments to English and Americans. Mae was fortunate, therefore, in securing an unlet bedroom that was comfortably furnished. She enjoyed listening to Lisetta's stories of Rome and the Carnival; and after a quiet night in a clean bed, awoke tolerably happy and very eager for her first sight of the bay.
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