Mrs. Wylde was in a peculiarly idle humour; she had dismissed her gondola, and was strolling along with a book under her arm. It was hot, even for Venice, although it was only the end of May, and she had been spending the early part of the afternoon in the Frari Church, admiring Bellini’s lovely Madonna. She went along twirling her white umbrella and wondering what to do next.

The sun was pouring fiercely down upon the coloured blinds and green shutters of the houses on either side, and Lena Wylde, in her white dress and shady hat, seemed the only cool object on the long stretch of asphalte. Not many people were walking there besides herself; and on the bridge, with its flight of steps, which crossed the little canal farther on, only two figures were moving. One was an old man selling iced water, who, with a bell and a cracked voice, was making a really dreadful noise; and the other was a rather short, sturdy young man in flannels, whom she at once knew to be an Englishman. He had a square face and a small dark moustache, and, as he drew near, she became certain that his figure was familiar.

“I have seen him somewhere,” she said to herself, “or else he’s remarkably like---- Why, good gracious! It’s Robert Blundell.”

The Englishman had evidently seen her.

“I was on my way to find you,” he said, as they shook hands very heartily.

“How did you know I was here?” asked Mrs. Wylde.

“I have just come from Verona and I met Nat. He told me to be sure to say that he felt better already.”

“That’s good,” said Lena, a flash of brightness in her face. “Venice never suits Nat. He was so knocked up by the heat that I packed him off to the Austrian Tyrol while I do a little more sightseeing. I hope he’s going on there soon; the hill air is what he wants.”

“He left this morning,” said Robert. “I saw him off before coming on here.”

“Well, I am very glad you have come,” said his companion; “I was just wondering what on earth I should do with myself till it’s cooler.”

“Come and have some iced coffee at Florian’s,” suggested the young man.

They sauntered to the Piazza and sat down in the shady arcade opposite Florian’s Café. The pigeons in the square were fluttering round a group of tourists who were throwing them handfuls of corn and Lena was watching the oft-recurring sight, when Blundell interrupted her.

“There’s a girl bowing to you over there,” he remarked.

A few yards away, at the other side of one of the arches, three people were sitting, a young man and two women, the younger of whom was looking towards them.

Lena turned and beckoned with a smile, pointing to a vacant chair at her side.

“That’s Rosamund Slade,” said she to Blundell. “You don’t know her, do you? I’m very fond of her.”

The girl threw a hesitating glance at her companions, then she got up and came towards Mrs. Wylde.

“Sit down for a moment, Rose,” said Lena. “This is Mr. Blundell, a great friend of mine; he has just come. It’s days since I have seen you, isn’t it? How hot it is! I am nearly boiled. How _can_ you wear that serge gown? I should be carried home on a shutter if I did it. Why one comes out at this hour I don’t know.”

“Anything is better than the house,” said Rosamund.

“Where are you going?” continued Lena. “What are you by way of doing? Come with me, and when we’ve finished our coffee we will go to the Lido--do, like a dear girl.”

“I am not sure if I can,” replied Rosamund; “but I should like to immensely. Shall I ask Cousin Julia?”

“Let me go and arrange it,” said Lena.

And she went off towards the two backs which Robert fancied were turned somewhat aggressively in their direction.

“Do you often come to Florian’s, Miss Slade?” he asked, by way of a beginning.

“No,” she replied--“not very. I think it is delightful, all the same. It is my birthday to-day, and that’s why we are here.”

The man was rather amused. It seemed a mild sort of entertainment for a special occasion.

“You see, my cousins don’t care for it. Mrs. Molesworth hates a crowd, and Heathcote generally goes out by himself in the afternoon; sometimes I come with Mrs. Wylde. I like that very much,” she added simply.

“I dare say,” replied Robert. “Most people would like going anywhere with Mrs. Wylde.”

“She’s very good to me,” said Rose, looking suddenly into his eyes.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “And isn’t everybody?” but he checked himself in time.

Robert did not know many girls, but it struck him that this one was not like the few he had met. He had never seen any one so direct, so almost curt in manner, and at the same time with such a pervading suggestion of timidity. He also never remembered seeing any one with such a pretty mouth; it was almost scarlet, it drooped at the corners, and the colour came and went in her face when she was spoken to. Her eyes were grey and rather long. It struck Robert--in quite an impersonal manner--that he would rather like to kiss her; then the vulgarity of his thought made him feel ill. “She’s pretty,” he said to himself; “but what a nervous-looking creature. I wonder what it is.”

At this moment Lena returned, followed by Rosamund’s relations.

“So that’s Cousin Julia,” thought Blundell, as he rose. “I don’t like her.”

“Mrs. Wylde has asked me to allow you to go out to the Lido with her,” began Mrs. Molesworth stiffly, “and she will send you home in time for dinner. Please do not be late. I am going in now, so I will leave you with her. Don’t you think”--turning to Lena--“that my son had better meet her and bring her home?”

“No, no; I shall be passing your very door. Mr. Molesworth needn’t trouble to fetch her.”

Mr. Molesworth, who had all this time been looking into a tobacconist’s window, strolled listlessly up.

Heathcote Molesworth was a young man who, from his appearance, might have been either nineteen or thirty; as a matter of fact he was four-and-twenty. He had a heavy face which would have been handsome had he possessed more chin and a pleasanter expression. At the present moment he was bored and cross, and he looked both.

“Dreadful slow place, Venice,” said Heathcote to Blundell, taking the top of his stick out of his mouth.

“Do you think so?” said Robert. “I rather like it myself.”

“I can’t see what a fellow’s to do in it. I hate these everlasting pictures and things. And they do give one such stuff to eat at our hotel; I wish I was back in England instead of fooling about here.”

Blundell looked at him with an expression which might have been amusement or curiosity, and would have continued the conversation if Mrs. Molesworth had not made a movement of departure.

“Then, good-bye,” she said. “I hope you will be sure that Rosamund is not late. Come, Heathcote.”

And she sailed off, he following slowly behind her.

“Now, Rose,” said Lena, “we’ll be off to the Lido. Robert, go down to the water for a boat--a nice one. Get Number 26--Sebastiano; he always rows me. We’ll wait for you in the church.”

As he went the two women strolled across the Piazza to where the great church lifts its gorgeous mass against the sky. The sun struck hot on the bronze horses which stand above the door, and the mosaics glittered with a thousand hues, toned down and mellowed to richness by centuries of exposure to the air of the surrounding sea.

“I don’t think Mrs. Molesworth seemed anxious for you to come with me this afternoon,” said Lena. “Was there anything else she wanted you to do?”

“Nothing that I know of,” said Rosamund.

“She doesn’t like me,” said Lena, with her usual directness.

“No, I don’t think she does; she thinks I am fonder of going about with you than of going with her and Heathcote--and so I am, certainly. Heathcote is always grumbling, and I do find it very dull.”

“It’s a great pity,” answered Mrs. Wylde, looking contemplatively over the girl’s shoulder as she stood before her.

“She is annoyed with me,” continued Rose, tapping the pavement with the point of her shoe. “Do you know why?”

“I think I do. Is it because of Heathcote?”

Rosamund nodded.

“I _can’t_ like him! Besides, he doesn’t care a scrap for me; it is all Cousin Julia. But really, really,” she went on, with a tremble in her voice, “there are times when I almost think it would be better to give in than to go on like this. It wears me out.”

“My dear child!” exclaimed Lena, looking into the tearful eyes, “don’t think of such an awful thing. Wait a bit--only wait--and things may right themselves. But don’t be rash, Rosamund, whatever you do, for you’d only be twenty times more miserable after.”

Rosamund’s lips moved, and she gave Lena’s hand a little squeeze, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Now I won’t talk any more about it,” she said, “for here comes Mr. Blundell.”

At the edge of the canal the barques and gondolas were clustered round the green-painted shrine of the Virgin which stands on a pole in the water; swaying about with the lapping and gurgling from the wash of passing craft. The gondolier stood on the steps with his large hat in his hand. They got in, and Robert sat down in the bottom of the boat facing the two women. Number 26 stood erect, waiting his orders.

“To the Lido, Sebastiano,” said Lena.

Sebastiano’s oar gave a twirl in the green water, and the steel prow of the long, black gondola swung slowly round; then she shot out from the floating mass of moored-up boats, leaving the noise of the Riva and the sounds of human voices at the water’s edge far behind.

“I rather think I shall go home by sea, when I do go,” said Robert, as they went gliding under the bows of the P. & O. steamer lying anchored a few hundred yards out.

“Don’t talk of going home now,” said Lena; “we have nothing to do with that at present.”

“No, indeed,” exclaimed Rosamund, her eyes on a far distant island that seemed to hang like a grey feather in the quivering heat, somewhere between sky and sea; “don’t let us think of it. We must enjoy this afternoon and forget everything horrid.” And she trailed her bare hand in the water.

Robert looked up at her and then on behind her to where Sebastiano stood, tall against the background of the retreating city. The water stretched clear and smooth in their wake till it met the shore, and the domes and towers of Venice seemed lying asleep in the grey veil of the heat; only here and there a wet oar from some distant gondola sent a silver flash flying across the mouth of the canal, or the bark of a dog in one of the sailing-boats moored by the Public Garden broke the stillness of sight and sound. The two columns supporting the Lion of St. Mark and the figure of St. Theodore and his Crocodile seemed to single themselves out from the distant mass, and to stand like sentinels watching over the drowsy city.

It was a lazy afternoon. Blundell tipped his straw hat over his eyes and began to wonder why he had not come oftener to Venice. For the last year he had been wandering about Europe doing nothing in particular except chasing the picturesque; he liked that sort of existence, and, though all his relations urged him to ‘settle down,’ he was not attracted by the idea. He had lost his mother when quite a small boy, and his father some seven years since; his sisters were both married, and now, at thirty-two, he had nothing to keep him at home; and he had been roaming about from country to country and town to town, staying where he liked, and moving on when he pleased.

He liked companionship, and, although he was by no means a man without resources, it rather bored him to be alone at home. His father, who had come unexpectedly into the property in possession of which he died, had been a poor man until that event; and Robert, though an only son, had had to work hard. Notwithstanding his hatred of office life he had thrown himself into harness, knowing he had no other chance of making his way in the world; so, when his father’s death had made him master of a good income and a very nice estate, he rather missed his former occupation, distasteful as it had been. It was a few years since he had first met Nat Wylde and his wife. They were thoroughly congenial friends to him, and he could not think of any woman in the world he liked as much as he liked Lena.

They left their gondola at the landing-stage of the Lido and started for the sea-shore by the road crossing the island, past the little church with its red tower and surrounding elder-bushes. The acacias cast deep blue shadows on the hot road, and all the air was full of the scent of its white blossoms that hung like strings of pearls from the boughs. When they reached the sea-shore, the Adriatic lay spread out before them.

They sat down to rest on a bank at a safe distance from the row of wooden bathing-places, and Lena told her companions to amuse themselves in their own way, for she was too hot to move another step. Rosamund looked wistfully at the little curling line of wave that bordered the shore, and Robert saw the look and held out his hand. She took it, and they ran down the slippery bank together.

It was the first time in all Rose’s life that she had been undividedly answerable for the entertainment of any young man but Heathcote, it having been no part of Mrs. Molesworth’s policy to throw her with any male person not a generation removed from her. The few men with whom she was acquainted came to see her cousin, not herself, and she had never desired the tedious importance of their society. When Lena’s umbrella had begun to look like a distant mushroom, she realised that she was embarked upon a responsible job, and, having grasped the idea, her heart was turned to water. As they went along the wet sand, with the pleasant noise of the little waves in their ears, and as silence fell upon them, a great consciousness of her own inadequacy came over the girl. She was disposed to like her companion, but she felt that, between his world and the limitations of her own, a great gulf was fixed--so great as to preclude all approach. It almost made the tears come into her eyes to think how unlike other people she was; it was stupidity, of course, nothing else, she told herself.

It did not fail to strike Robert that something was troubling his companion, and the impression he had had as they sat at Florian’s Café came back. Girls were made to enjoy themselves, he supposed--at least, the few he knew generally seemed to be doing so--but this one was different. He had disliked the look of her relations, and he guessed that something had gone wrong: probably they had been bullying her, he thought. It filled his protective soul with kindness, and he wondered how he could amuse her. He would try to, and he did. So the afternoon wore on.

It was some time later when she suggested that they should be returning.

“Perhaps we ought,” he answered, as he looked at his watch; “but we might sit down for a few minutes on that bank and rest.”

It was a continuation of the same bank on which Lena was encamped, and it stretched for a considerable way upon the shore; a footpath ran along the top of it. As they sat talking, the sun at their backs threw long shadows over the sand at their feet. A stout, elderly, unmistakably German lady, who had been taking a solitary walk on the island, and was now on her homeward way along the footpath, gave them an expressive glance as she hurried by. “It’s a shame to disturb them,” she said to herself, as she redoubled her pace.

Blundell looked up, hearing footsteps, and noticed her expression.

“She actually takes us for lovers!” he thought, with contemptuous pity; “isn’t that like a German?”

“We’ll go to the Hôtel d’Angleterre, Sebastiano,” said Lena, as they were embarking for home.

Rosamund sat silent during most of the way back, with her hands in her lap. She had been in a new world, a new world and a very pleasant one--a world where people thought and talked about things she liked to think of, and longed to do and see. It was so different from anything to which she had been accustomed, that the thought of returning to her daily society was like preparing to take a cold plunge.

Now, as she sat in the gondola, drinking in the beauties of sky and water and the flashing of sun upon towers and red sails, recalling again the things she had heard from Blundell, she thought how delightful it would be if only Heathcote had travelled the world as Blundell had travelled it, was interested in the things in which Blundell was interested, and could talk about them as Blundell talked.

Just before seven o’clock the boat stopped by the steps near the Hôtel d’Angleterre.

“Good-bye!” said Rose, as she landed--“and oh! thank you so much. I _have_ enjoyed myself, and had a delightful birthday.”

“And, now, what are you going to do?” inquired Robert, when Rosamund’s figure had disappeared in the doorway of the Angleterre.

“I’m going home,” said Lena.

“Well, then, if I may come so far with you, I’ll take Sebastiano on.”

“Do.”

Blundell seated himself in the vacant place beside Mrs. Wylde and they started off again.

“Smoke, if you want to,” she said.

He lit a cigarette.

“Tell me something about that girl,” he said, when they had gone a few yards.

“What do you think of her?” asked Lena.

“I like her. But she has an expression in her face when she’s silent that sometimes goes away when she talks. There’s something rather unhappy in it.”

“Did she talk much to you?”

“Yes, she did, and she’s nice to talk to. She quite lost that nervousness, or reserve, or whatever it is, and looked as bright as possible. She’s really pretty when that happens.”

“It does her good to get away from those people. They’d be _my_ death in a week. You’re quite right about her, Robert.”

“But what is it?” asked Blundell.

“To begin with, she’s cursed with a good deal of money----”

“I shouldn’t have thought that a thing to be miserable about,” broke in Blundell.

“Don’t interrupt me,” said Lena. “She must be--let me see--about twenty, I suppose. Rather more than a year ago she went to live with Mrs. Molesworth. She has no parents, and after her father died she lived with a great-aunt. But, of course, she saw nothing of the world in the little corner of Kent where the old lady lived, and it was thought better for her to be with some one who could take her out. So her guardian, Sir George Dawson, settled that she should go to Mrs. Molesworth in London. I’ve known Mrs. Molesworth slightly, just meeting her about as one does; and I think--in fact, I _know_--that she is trying her best to marry Rose to her son Heathcote.”

“Marry her to that booby!” exclaimed Robert, opening his eyes very wide.

“It’s the money, you see,” continued Lena. “It would be a grand thing for him.”

“But she can’t like the fellow. I never saw such an oaf in my life.”

“Bless me, she doesn’t like him--naturally not! and I don’t see that he cares particularly for her. But I really sometimes think that woman will succeed if she goes on long enough. Poor little Rose seems at times almost ready to give in for the sake of a quiet life. It’s a horrid situation.”

“I should think so!” said Blundell emphatically; “it’s simply iniquitous. It ought to be prevented somehow.”

His companion looked at him for a moment as if she had never seen him before, and then turned away her head and stared so hard at an old gentleman in a passing gondola that he made a nervous clutch at his hat. But Lena never noticed it.

A little later she stood on the balcony of her apartment, looking at Blundell and Sebastiano disappearing up the Grand Canal.

“What a splendid idea!” she said to herself, as she watched the swaying of the gondolier’s figure as he rose and bent at his work, and the smoke of Blundell’s cigarette curling upwards. “I really think Providence must have sent him.”

And she went in and shut the window.