"That's San Clemente," he observed, indicating an island half-a-mile
away, composed, apparently, of red brick and window-glass.

"How lovely!" May exclaimed; and the indiscriminating response betrayed
inattention.

"What are you?" she asked again.

"I do not live in Venice, Signorina; my home is in Milan."

"In Milan? What do you do there?"

"I am attached to a hospital."

There was something peculiarly provocative of curiosity in the laconic
replies of the man. May wondered whether his reticence was due to
modesty or to moroseness. Perhaps she could find out.

"What do you do at the hospital?" she asked.

For the first time his eyes met hers directly, as he said, with
something almost like a challenge in his voice: "I am one of its servants,
Signorina."

Yes, May thought, it was moroseness; he was unhappy, and no wonder.

"What a pity!" she cried, with very genuine compassion in her voice. "It
can't be half so nice as being a gondolier."

But Nanni was again intent upon his work, rowing with long, steady
strokes, his eyes fixed upon the course of the gondola.

"Do you like it as well?" she asked, with a quite inexplicable sense of
temerity. She felt herself on the verge of being overawed by the stately
reticence of this hospital servant.

"It is my work," said Nanni, in a gentler tone. "A man's work is his
life."

"But if you had a good gondola and a place at a _traghetto_, wouldn't
you rather come back to Venice?"

"No, Signorina; I love my work."

"Polly, you ought to have been a lawyer," Uncle Dan remarked, highly
amused at the insuccess of her catechising, which he by this time
perceived to be harmless.

They had turned in to one of the canals of the Giudecca, that great
crescent island whose curve follows the southern line of the city, as
the outer arc of a rainbow follows the inner. Not a breath stirred the
water of the canal, upon which theirs was the only moving craft. Moored
close to the low, brick coping of the quay, which bordered one side of
the _rio_, were two or three fishing-boats, their broad hulls black,
their rudder arms rudely carved and gaily decorated. Here, a gorgeous
red sail hung loose in the still air; there, a voluminous brown net,
bordered with rings and bobbers, was stretched between two stout masts,
drying in the sun. Curious great bulging baskets, dingy brown in colour
and shaped like giant sea-urchins, depended from the gunwales, half
immersed in water, the mortal