hardly get to the end of it.
But we can see over it, and there will be the bright sails such as the
Signorina likes."

"How nice he is!" said May; "Now the other one would have said: 'No,
Signorina,' and that would have been the end of it."

Yet, even as she spoke, a quick compunction seized her. She had never
been able to rid her mind of a disquieting conviction that all was not
well with this grave, taciturn being, whose personality was not less
haunting than his bearing was unobtrusive. She did not remember that she
had ever before felt so much concern for an indifferent person, and,
being of an active temperament, she could not be content with a passive
solicitude. It seemed to her that something must be done about it, and
that it devolved upon her to solve the problem. Perhaps if she were to
offer to give the man a gondola he would admit that he was miserable in
that dreary hospital, and that he longed for the free life of the
lagoons. The project appealed, indeed, so strongly, both to her
imagination and to her judgment, that she had already made a mental
readjustment of her finances to that end. There was a certain white silk
trimmed with pale green _miroir_ velvet that she had once dreamed of,
which had somehow transformed itself in her mind into a slim black bark,
fitted out in the most approved style with cushions and sea-horses, and
tufted cords.

"I ought to be willing to dance in my tennis dress the rest of my days,"
she told herself; "for the sake of changing the whole course of a poor
man's life!"

"_Lungo!_"

The familiar call took her quite by surprise, and looking out from under
the awning, she espied the Daymond sea-horse on its blue ground, already
close upon them. Geof was at the oar and Kenwick was sitting beside Mrs.
Daymond.

"What do you say to our making an exchange of prisoners, Colonel
Steele?" asked Mrs. Daymond. "You shall have one of my young men if you
will give me one of your girls."

"Oh, may I come to you?" Pauline begged, mindful of her little
air-castle;--for the Colonel always managed, when he could, to get
Geoffry into his own boat, and the young man was already engaged in an
animated conversation with her sister.

"Do come," said Mrs. Daymond. "And Mr. Kenwick, I shall have to give you
up, for I can't spare an oar."

"Doesn't Mr. Kenwick row?" asked May, lifting a pair of satirical
eye-brows.

"Not for other people," Kenwick laughed. "I keep my strength for
paddling