e her. It had been a strange wooing, in
which song had played a greater part than words; and as for anything
else, he had kissed her twice on that night when he had climbed into the
loggia, and not again till now. Had he loved her less, he would have
laughed at himself for the innocence of such a love-making; but it was
all unlike anything that had ever happened to him before, and, moreover,
he had no time for such reflections at the present moment, since every
hour of delay might mean the nearer approach of danger, not to him only,
but to Ortensia herself.

'We are not far enough from Venice,' he said, when he spoke at last. 'I
would give the world to have you safe in Florence!'

'My uncle will not even try to catch us,' Ortensia said calmly. 'You do
not know him. When he finds out that we are gone together he will fear a
scandal, and he fears ridicule still more. He will tell his friends that
he has sent me to the country, or to a convent, and by and by he will
tell them that I am dead. He dreads nothing in the world so much as
being laughed at!'

She was so sure that she laughed herself as she thought of him, and
almost wished that he might hear her, though he was certainly the very
last person she wished to see just then. But Stradella thought
otherwise.

'No one would laugh at him if he had you assassinated,' he said.

'I am not afraid of that!' Ortensia smiled at the mere idea of such a
thing. 'Why are you standing? Come, bring that chair and sit down beside
me, for we are alone at last!'

He was well used to women's ways, but the ways of grown women of the
world are not those of innocent maidens of seventeen; her perfect
simplicity and fearlessness were quite new to him, and had a wonderful
charm of their own. He drew a chair to the window and sat down close to
her, and afterwards he was glad that he had done as she wished.

It was all very strange, he thought even then. As yet, a love-affair had
mostly meant for him a round of more or less dangerous adventures by
night, such as climbing of balconies, unlocking of forbidden doors with
stolen keys, imprisonment in dark closets and wardrobes, and sometimes
flight in break-neck haste. That had usually been the material side,
whereas now, reckoning up his risks, he had only climbed once to a
loggia at night, and once he had been taken for a thief and chased, and
that was all, excepting the actual escape from Venice, which had been
without danger until now. On