e, first about Vittorio and his
escapades and then about Loretta and her coquetry, which Luigi
strangled with a look, and which he did not discuss or repeat to me,
except to remark--"They have started in to bite, Signore," the meaning
of which I could but guess at. At another time he and his associates
concocted a scheme by which Vittorio's foot was to slip as he was
leaving Loretta at the door, and he be fished out of the canal with his
pretty clothes begrimed with mud;--a scheme which was checked when they
began to examine the young gondolier the closer, and which was entirely
abandoned when they learned that his father was often employed about
the palace of the king. In these projected attacks, strange to say, the
girl's mother took part. Her hope in keeping her home was in Loretta's
marrying Francesco.

Then, dog as he was, he tried the other plan--all this I got from
Luigi, he sitting beside me, sharpening charcoal points, handing me a
fresh brush, squeezing out a tube of color on my palette: nothing like
a romance to a staid old painter; and then, were not both of us in the
conspiracy as abettors, and up to our eyes in the plot?

This other plan was to traduce the girl. So the gondoliers on the
traghetto began to talk,--behind their hands, at first: She had lived
in Francesco's house; she had had a dozen young fishermen trapesing
after her; her mother, too, was none too good. Then again, you could
never trust these Neapolitans,--the kitten might be like the cat, etc.,
etc.

Still the lovers floated up and down the Riva, their feet on clouds,
their heads in the heavens. Never a day did he miss, and always with a
wave of her hand to me as they passed: down to Malamocco on Sundays
with another girl as chaperon, or over to Mestre by boat for the festa,
coming home in the moonlight, the tip of his cigarette alone lighting
her face.

One morning--the lovers had only been waiting for their month's
pay--Luigi came sailing down the canal to my lodgings, his gondola in
gala attire,--bunches of flowers tied at each corner of the tenda; a
mass of blossoms in the lamp socket; he himself in his best white suit,
a new red sash around his waist--his own colors--and off we went to San
Rosario up the Giudecca. And the Borodinis turned out in great force,
and so did all the other 'inis, and 'olas, and 'ninos--dozens of
them--and in came Loretta, so beautiful that everybody held his breath;
and we all gathered about the altar, a