The sun was settling down behind the Acquian Hills, like a great hemisphere of fire. Our friends sat together on the balcony of the Grand Hotel, the Artist, Carlton, Mollie, and her parents. They were silent, for there was majesty in the scene. All Venice was silent, not a song was heard to float anywhere on the salt flood street. They sat on the balcony together where Desdemona had sat and listened to the wooing of the Moor, for lo! her palace is now an hotel. A thousand ships went to and fro and far away, slowly and silent, under the gold and glory of the dying sun. The full salt flood tide lapped and laughed in careless cadence around the marble steps of the ancient palace, as people went and came in and out of the dark canopies of the gondolas as if from caves of the sea.
Carlton was sitting close to the side of Mollie. The general was running his mind down the grooves of his gridiron of railroads, and Mrs. Wopsus was dreaming on in her negative and noncommittal way, intent only on protecting her hands and face from the insinuating blood bites of the mosquitos
The great white cockatoo that Murietta had purchased in Rome that it might absorb and receive to itself the wasted affections of Miss Mollie, was also on the balcony, that he might get a breath of fresh air with the rest of the family, but he hung and swung in his cage from his iron bar quite unnoticed now. The little brown poodle with its eyes quite hidden in a mass of tangled hair that came down over its face as if it had been a monk in a cowl, went butting and bumping its little head around against the marble banisters, marble walls, marble seats, and marble ottomans, as if it was quite neglected. What could all this mean? Had Mollie found something else to love?
"The people are getting in from the station," said Mrs. Wopsus, looking up the canal towards the depot and wiping her eyes.
This observation, which was neither very pathetic nor profound, though perhaps it embodied the length and breadth of the views of this simple lady of California, was at once confirmed by a number of gondolas — now open, for the sun was down — just then rounding a turn in the Great Canal and driving down upon the hotel.
Travellers are gregarious. Each season in each city, as a rule, finds its own favourite hotel, and when the happy proprietor finds the tide flowing to his doors he may sit down, as they too often do in Italy, and consider his fortune made.
The travelling world, for this season, had fallen upon the Grand Hotel, and of course all newcomers went directly to the old palace of Desdemona, for there they knew they would meet with fellow travellers, and even, perhaps, old neighbours from some obscure town of the Middle States.
As the open gondolas — with their great cargoes of Saratoga trunks piled high in the stern, and men and women, travel stained and worn, looking up with wonder at the mighty palaces-drew near, Mollie arose and, with a hand on the shoulder of Carlton, stood tiptoe and leaning and looking as if she was discovering a new world.
"The pink princess! the pink princess! Bet your life!" And Mollie clapped her little rosy hands together, stumbled over the little brown poodle, bumped her head against the hanging cage of the discarded cockatoo, and darted down the marble steps with outstretched hands and her warm little heart gushing with hearty welcome for the poor travel worn woman who was coming, as she supposed, to a strange house filled only with strangers.
There was a cast of care on the face of Murietta at this announcement. At almost any previous period of his life he, too, had rushed down even with the warm hearted Mollie, or at least followed her quietly as did Carlton and her parents, and stood on the marble landing to receive her and make her glad with cheering words of welcome.
But now he did not move to meet her. He was growing older and a little more wise in the ways of women. Perhaps he recalled the last painful day in Rome, and her singular behaviour when he last had seen her.
At all events, whatever may have been his thoughts, he only rose from his seat, walked out to the edge of the balcony, laid his hands on the marble banisters, and, leaning a little over, looked down into the approaching gondola.
There indeed was the pink countess, settled back against the high, black lifting: cushion, with her little left hand thrown out over the black arm of the seat into the sea, as if she was a great rose, withering, thirsting for the water. She did not lift her eyes. She was so languid, so weary, and she seemed so helpless. She looked and behaved like a little child that was being carried helplessly, it knew not where.
Rose and pink and the rustle of silk under the black mantle that fell and trailed loosely from her half bare shoulders. The same dress of perfect abandon and carelessness. The same effort not to be beautiful which only made her more beautiful than before.
As the gondola drove down the salt flood street towards the marble landing, Murietta held his breath with admiration. She seemed to him to be herself the whole barge. She looked like a great red rose wide blown and drifting away on the waves to the sea.
She seemed, soiled and worn as she was, as if she might have been some great red rose that had been worn in the breast of some god or Titan lover til withered in the sun and soiled, and then thrown carelessly in the tide to float away and go Grod knows where.
On the seat before her sat, or rather reclined, half doubled up, an old man with hair as white as wool Close behind this gondola came another. There was the little boy Sunshine, whom we have seen before, and beside him, with her arm about his waist, was the lady's maid. But over and above these, standing up as if he encompassed them and kept them for ever under his thumb, to the amazement and disgust of Murietta, stood Giuseppe. This assassin, this reformed or unreformed brigand, was acting the part of courier, and standing there was giving directions to the gondoliers of both craft where to land and where to leave the baggage, and bearing himself altogether in a manner which showed that he held things much in his own hand.
It was with the greatest effort that the old man, by leaning on the arm of the general and holding the hand of Mollie, could make the ascent of the steps. He was dying indeed. The long delay and the anxiety at Rome had done its worst.
Then, when the countess — whose face lighted up with its old sad beauty, as she lifted her great brown eyes and saw the faces of her friends — attempted to land, she almost fainted and nearly fell into the water from weakness and exhaustion.
And these two helpless people were in charge of this brigand, this coward, and this tool of an association that was organized to prey upon foreigners!
Murietta was ashamed that he had stood aloof. He was disgusted with himself; and when the party had disappeared under the balcony and entered the hotel, he paced up and down wondering why at this particular time, when she so much needed a kind word and the encouragement of familiar faces, that he of all the party should have stood aloof and frowned from his high place of safety because she too had come to Venice.
"I have been with her often, perhaps too often, and now that she comes here, a timid woman and a stranger, and in the hands of a bad man, and helpless, I, I am the man, and the only man, to stand back on my high balcony and refuse to reach her a hand from the land to where she floats in the troubled sea. I am an ass! a consistent ass, and a coward!" Thus the man reflected to himself as he paced the balcony in the twilight alone, and saw the stars come out and fall through the great profound into the sea.
Then, as if to make amends and to appease his conscience, he resolved to never again withhold his hand and his help from any woman, come what might; but to go on through life to the end as he had lived — in the teeth of the world.
Mollie and Carlton came on the balcony together soon, and the impulsive Murietta, rushing up to the former, entreated her not to leave the countess a moment, but to remain with her, watch over her, take care of her as if she were her sister.
Mollie promised to do everything that could be done or that was necessary, and then turned to the cage and pretended to be talking to the loud and garrulous cockatoo with its lifted crest and yellow curve of gold, while in reality she was talking to Carlton.
Murietta was in a mood again and half disgusted with himself He went down, took a gondola, entered the black little cabin, and taking out a roll of cigarettes, drifted away with the retiring tide and dreamed of Annette and of his near departure for Como, and prophesied and planned till the morning star rose up from the Adriatic Sea and pointed like a finger into the teeth of the lion of Saint Mark.
He slept late next day, as indeed did all of his party, as well as the new arrivals, and, in fact, as did and does all Venice at this season of the year.
The countess did not appear at dinner, but when the artist, with a cigarette in his fingers, found his way, as was his custom, rather late on the balcony, she rose to meet him, and came forward in the old careless way, which in her was such perfect grace, and gave her two hands and greeted him as if nothing had ever happened, as if that parting in the palace had never been, and as if they had been the best of friends for all the years of their lives.
Her father was there, too, and Sunshine; and they were all going, when the sun was down, in a little fleet of gondolas down to the sea.
Murietta led the lady to her seat again, bade her welcome to Venice, wished her pleasure in the proposed twilight excursion, and then shaking hands with her father, sauntered over to the other side of the balcony, and, lighting his cigarette, began to fire a double-barrelled volley of smoke across the canal at the colossal figure of Fortune which tops the Dogana and holds its great golden scroll to the winds, and turns with every passing breath like a true courtier of the changeful time.
There was a rustle of rosy silk, and a small baby hand in pearl and pink fluttered down to where his rested on the balcony, as if it had been a weary and a lonesome little dove of Saint Mark seeking out its mate.
The artist turned his face to her, for he was not displeased with her, but with himself.
"You will go with us," she said in her soft, dreamy way. "Father will have a gondola by himself, for he prefers to lie down and be alone, and the courier will be in the boat to take care of him, though I shall keep all the time in reach, for I do not more than half like this Giuseppe; and then Mollie and Carlton will have a gondola; and then the general and Mrs. W. will have another, and so you see it will be roomy and pleasant enough. Come, you will rest on the water and be refreshed." .
"I will go with you, countess," he said thoughtfully, turning to her, "you see it is my disposition to be at your side when you are fresh and free of care, but to draw back and stand aloof when you come to my house, as it were, weary and worn, and in need of a kind word."
"No, no, not so! 'I would not have thine enemy say so.' Pardon the poor quotation, but it is the truth; besides, this is the palace of Desdemona."
"You forgive me then?"
"With all my heart— all forgot. There!"
The little dove that had fluttered down on the balcony by his hand fluttered up and lit on his extended palm, and pressing it gently he led her down the steps to where the sea foam floated about the marble steps at the landing, for the party had already gone down and taken their places, and were quietly pushing off and out toward the open sea.
Start reading Chapter 49 ofThe One Fair Lady