. As the
music flowed out again in summer fullness, he put out his arm along the
back of the seat instinctively in answer to the girl's shy turning, the
natural movement of their common equity in the night's unrealized
wonder.

IX

"Peter! oh, Peter!"

It was dark in the room when Peter awoke, but he knew it was morning by
the salt smell which he thought came into the room from the cove beyond
Bloombury pastures, until he roused in his bed and knew it for the smell
of the lagoons. He looked out to see the beginning of rose light on the
world and understood that he was called. He did not hear the voice again
but out there in the shimmering space the call awaited him. It might be
the Princess.

He dressed and got down quietly into the shadowed city and waked a
frowsy gondolier asleep in his gondola. They spoke softly, both of them,
before the morning hush, as they swung out into the open water between
the towers of San Georgio fairily dim, and the pillars of the saints;
the city floated in a mist of blueness, the dome of the Saluti faintly
pearled.

"_Dove, Signore?_" The gondolier feathered his oar.

"_Un giro_"--Peter waved his arm seaward; the dip of the oar had a
stealthy sound in the deserted dawning. They passed the public gardens
and saw the sea widen and the morning quicken. Islands swam up out of
silver space, took form and colour, and there between the islands he saw
the girl. She had gotten another oar from Giuseppe and stood delighting
in the free motion; her sleeves were rolled up, her hat was off, her
hair blew out; alive and pliant she bent to the long sweep of it, and
her eyes were on the morning wonder. But when she caught sight of Peter
she looked only at him and he knew that her seeing him appearing thus on
the shining water was its chief and exquisite wonder, and that she did
not know what he saw. The gondolier steered straight for the girl
without advice; he had thought privately that the _Signore Americano_
was a little mad, but he knew now with what manner of madness.

They drew close and drifted alongside. Peter did not take his eyes from
the girl's eyes lest for her to look away ever so slightly from there
to his face would be to discover that he knew; and he did not know how
he stood with himself toward that knowledge.

"Oh," she said breathlessly, "I wanted you--I called you--and you came!
You did not know where I was and yet you came?"

"I heard you calling."

She left her