; "he must have been way over
to the Giudecca this very morning to get them. I wonder if the _Urania_
has sailed yet."

"Nine o'clock was the hour, was it not?" Pauline asked, taking up one of
the roses and holding it to her face. "It must be after that."

"Yes, it's too late," said May, as she stepped out upon the balcony;
"she's half-way to the Public Gardens. But I'm going to wave, all the
same."

And so it chanced, by the perversity of fate, that if Kenwick had but
risked using his opera-glass, he would not have looked in vain.

May watched the yacht until it disappeared from sight,--for she had not
before seen the graceful craft in motion,--and then she returned to the
contemplation of her roses. As she lifted them, one by one, and arranged
them deftly in a broad-mouthed Chioggia jug, she was moved to exclaim:
"I do think that was really kind of him! Do you know, Pauline, I'm
afraid we didn't like him half enough."

It was but a passing compunction, however, and the roses themselves were
not destined to receive the attention which their beauty fairly entitled
them to. It did not seem quite feasible to take them to San Giorgio
degli Schiavoni, and even had they gone, they would soon have been
forgotten in the delights which that modest little sanctuary offers. The
sunshine of four hundred years ago that glows in mellow warmth upon
Carpaccio's canvases, the vigour and the piety and the fun of that
"wayward patchwork," are more vital and more absorbing than any mortal
roses.

And if, in the morning, Kenwick's interests had been subordinated to
Art, Nature proved no less exacting in the afternoon. For then it was
that the red banner and the blue pursued together yet unexplored paths
of the northern lagoon, returning whence, the city was seen in a new
perspective, the great _campanile_ in particular, taking up a position
so contrary to all precedent, that May was half inclined to believe that
it actually did "promenade," as Vittorio so picturesquely expressed it.

The evening again was a glorious one, and again the roses were left
behind. When the Colonel and his Pollys appeared at the steps of the
_Venezia_, Vittorio greeted them with a radiant "_bellissimo!_" The moon
was all but full and not a breath of air stirred the wide reaches of the
lagoon, visible beyond San Giorgio. One of the musicians' barges was
drawn up in front of the hotel; the first song was in progress, and
gondolas from the upper canal were a