n behind mine."

"If you look like that," she replied, with a contented little laugh,
"the whole world can see it." And so their talk drifted far away from
Doges, just as their souls were drifting far from the Golden Calf of
the Frank and Loyal Friendship which Sophie the Princess had set up.

How could they help it--and in Venice of all places in the world? If
she had determined on maintaining the friendship calm and austere, why
in Minerva's name had she bidden him hither? Sophie Zobraska passed for
a woman of sense. None knew better than she the perils of moonlit
canals and the sensuous splash of water against a gondola, and the sad
and dreamy beauty which sets the lonely heart aching for love. Why had
she done it? Some such questions must Mademoiselle de Cressy have
asked, for the Princess told him that Stephanie had lectured her
severely for going about so much in public alone with a beau jeune
homme.

"But we don't always want Stephanie with us," she argued, "and she is
not sympathetic in Venice. She likes restaurants and people. Besides,
she is always with her friends at Danielli's, so if it weren't for you
I should be doing nothing all by myself in the lonely palazzo.
Forcement we go about together."

Which was all sophistical and nonsensical; and she knew it, for there
was a mischievous little gleam in her eye as she spoke. But none the
less, shutting her ears to the unsympathetic Stephanie, did she
continue to show herself alone in public with the beautiful youth. She
had thrown her crown over the windmills for a few happy days; for a few
happy days she was feeding her starved nature, drinking in her fill of
beauty and colour and the joy of life. And the pair, thus forcibly
thrown together, drifted through the narrow canals beneath the old
crumbling palaces, side by side, and hand in hand while Giacomo and
Felipe, disregarded automata, bent to their oars.

One afternoon, one mellow and memorable afternoon, they were returning
from Murano. Not a breath of wind ruffled the lagoon. The islands in
their spring verdure slumbered peacefully. Far away the shipping in the
bacino lay still like enchanted craft. Only a steamer or two, and here
and there the black line of a gondola with its standing, solitary
rower, broke the immobility of things. And Venice, russet and rose and
grey, brooded in the sunset, a city of dreams. They murmured words of
wonder and regret. Instinctively they drew near and their shoulders