ay evening! Lord Deerehurst has asked me to dine with him and
Serracauld at the 'Abbati.' Let's form an even party! The old man will
be absolutely charmed; and you have never dined at a restaurant. Say I
may arrange it!"

For a moment longer Clodagh studied the ground; then very quickly she
raised her eyes, and in their depths Barnard read a new expression.

"After all," she said tentatively, "why shouldn't we take what comes
our way?"

He extended his hands.

"Why, indeed? Let me spread the good news?"

Again she let her lashes droop.

"Very well!" she said--"very well! Say that I want to enjoy myself."

The dignified and placid serenity of Venice had been intruded upon that
season by the establishment of a fashionable dining-place, which, under
the name of the Abbati Restaurant, had taken up its position in a
beautiful old house on one of the narrower waterways.

Its distance from Clodagh's hotel was short; and the journey
thither--taken in Lord Deerehurst's gondola, in company with the old
peer, Serracauld, and Barnard--occupied but a few minutes. Clodagh's
first impression, on gliding up the still, dark waterway and stepping
out upon the time-worn garden steps, was one of delight. And as she
stood for a moment in the shadow of the ancient wall, above which the
tree-tops rose, casting black reflections into the water that ran
beneath them, she was conscious of the subtle touch of the warm night
wind upon her face; of the subtle poetry in the scent of unseen
flowers; of the subtle invitation conveyed by the long row of lighted
windows, seen through a screen of magnolias.

She had momentarily forgotten her companions, when Deerehurst--the last
to leave the gondola--stepped softly to her side.

"This appeals to you?" he said.

She started slightly at his unexpected nearness; then, with a quick
impetuosity, she responded to his question.

"I think it is exquisite," she said. "The light through the trees
suggests such wonderful, mysterious things."

He smiled under cover of the darkness.

"It suggests an enchanted banquet. Let us find the presiding genius!"

He laid his fingers lightly on her arm and guided her up the long, dim
garden.

Followed by Serracauld and Barnard, they traversed the shadowy pathways
and emerged upon an open space of lawn that fronted the house.

Three or four of the private rooms were already occupied; and with the
faint streams of light that poured from their open windows,