married woman, and would die sooner than prove myself disloyal to them."
We had now arrived at Santa Margherita. She clasped my hand with one of
the loveliest hands a woman ever had. I wished to lift it to my lips.
She drew it back, and even deigned to bend as though to kiss my own.
That I could not permit; but leapt from the gondola, a simpleton
besotted and befooled by passion. Then she proceeded on her way to the
house she meant to visit.

This heroine of seventeen summers, beautiful as an angel, had inflamed
my Quixotic heart. It would be a crime, I reflected, not to give myself
up to a Lucretia like her, so thoroughly in harmony with my own
sentiments regarding love. "Yes, surely, surely I have found the
phoenix I was yearning for!"

A few days afterwards the pebble was once more flung into my chamber.
The paper wrapped around it spoke of _ponte storto_, gondola, a visit to
a cousin in childbed. I flew to the assignation. Nor can I describe the
exultation, the vivacity, the grace, with which I was welcomed. Our
conversation was both lively and tender; an interchange of sentiments
diversified by sallies of wit. Our caresses were confined to clasped
hands and gentle pressure of the fingers at some mot which caught our
fancy. She never let fall an equivocal word, or gave the slightest hint
of impropriety. We were a pair of sweethearts madly in love with one
another, yet respectful, and apparently contented with the ecstasies of
mutual affection. The pebble and the scroll, the _ponte storto_, and the
gondola were often put in requisition. I cannot say what pretexts she
discovered to explain her conduct to her husband. The truth was that her
visits for the most part consisted in our rowing together to the
Giudecca or to Murano, where we entered a garden of some lonely cottage,
and ate a dish of salad with a slice of ham, always laughing, always
swearing that we loved each other dearly, always well-behaved, and
always melting into sighs at parting. I noticed that in all this
innocent but stolen traffic she changed her gondola and gondolier each
time. This did credit to her caution. We had reached the perfection of a
guiltless friendship--to all appearances, I mean--the inner workings of
imagination and desires are uncontrollable. _You_ had become _thou_, and
yet our love delights consisted merely in each other's company,
exchanging thoughts, clasping hands, and listening now and then to
hearts which beat like hammers.