n behind a thousand
questions, like the sky or England. The judgments and understandings
that had worked when she was, so to speak, miles away from my life,
had now to be altogether revised. Trifling things began to matter
enormously, that she had a weak and easily fatigued back, for example,
or that when she knitted her brows and stammered a little in talking,
it didn't really mean that an exquisite significance struggled for
utterance.

We visited pictures in the mornings chiefly. In the afternoon, unless we
were making a day-long excursion in a gondola, Margaret would rest for
an hour while I prowled about in search of English newspapers, and then
we would go to tea in the Piazza San Marco and watch the drift of people
feeding the pigeons and going into the little doors beneath the sunlit
arches and domes of Saint Mark's. Then perhaps we would stroll on the
Piazzetta, or go out into the sunset in a gondola. Margaret became very
interested in the shops that abound under the colonnades and decided at
last to make an extensive purchase of table glass. "These things," she
said, "are quite beautiful, and far cheaper than anything but the most
ordinary looking English ware." I was interested in her idea, and a good
deal charmed by the delightful qualities of tinted shape, slender handle
and twisted stem. I suggested we should get not simply tumblers
and wineglasses but bedroom waterbottles, fruit- and sweet-dishes,
water-jugs, and in the end we made quite a business-like afternoon of
it.

I was beginning now to long quite definitely for events. Energy was
accumulating in me, and worrying me for an outlet. I found the TIMES and
the DAILY TELEGRAPH and the other papers I managed to get hold of, more
and more stimulating. I nearly wrote to the former paper one day in
answer to a letter by Lord Grimthorpe--I forget now upon what point.
I chafed secretly against this life of tranquil appreciations more and
more. I found my attitudes of restrained and delicate affection for
Margaret increasingly difficult to sustain. I surprised myself and her
by little gusts of irritability, gusts like the catspaws before a gale.
I was alarmed at these symptoms.

One night when Margaret had gone up to her room, I put on a light
overcoat, went out into the night and prowled for a long time through
the narrow streets, smoking and thinking. I returned and went and sat on
the edge of her bed to talk to her.

"Look here, Margaret," I said; "thi