He was silent for a few seconds; then he said:

"I _am_ the only man you've got ... really, ain't I, mother?"

Sophy's heart stabbed. She put her other arm about him.

"Yes, Bobby--yes, darling," she said, holding him to her.

"I like awfully being your only man," he murmured. "I ... I like the 'sponsibility."

"Dear heart!..." she murmured back, her lips on his curls.

He gave another of his snuggling wriggles of content, and was silent again. She thought he was dozing off, when he said suddenly in a by-the-way tone:

"I say, mother--is Marchese Amaldi married?"

Sophy's heart stabbed again. Why did the boy ask this?

"Yes, dear. Why?" she said.

"Oh ... nothing in particlar," replied Bobby, his voice more off-hand than ever. "I just wondered...." Then he remarked, still in that casual way:

"You haven't told me yet what kept you so late, mother."

Sophy told him, and as she spoke she kept thinking: "He has been worrying about Amaldi. He has been thinking of me and him together." And this idea was full of bitter pain to her--the idea that her little son might have been troubling over the possibility of her marriage with yet another man!

And, in fact, this thought had hara.s.sed Bobby for the last two days. It had embittered even the joy of his first lesson in rowing a gondola that afternoon. When Sophy had not returned by six o'clock, as she had said that she would, dreadful surmises had taken hold of him. Perhaps she was so late because she had decided suddenly to be married to the Marchese.

Perhaps she would come back with him and say: "Bobby, this is your new father." The mere idea had filled him with a blackness of resentment and jealousy. Not until Sophy had replied that Amaldi was already married had this feeling subsided, though his joy in having his mother again with him, safe and sound, all his own for the time being, had made him put it aside for the first few moments. But boyhood is terribly reserved in some things. The rack could scarcely have brought Bobby to confess his apprehensions to his mother.

Too excited to sleep, and wishing to get away from the subject of Amaldi, he began to tell her all about the projected trip to Murano.

"Do you think you'll feel well enough to come, too, mother?" he wound up.

"I'm afraid I'll be too tired, dear. But well see...."

"Of course, I wouldn't _have_ you come if you felt tired; but it won't be half so jolly without you."

"We'll see, sweetheart," Sophy repeated. "I'll surely come with you if I'm able to...."

He rushed off into an eager description of Venetian gla.s.s-blowing.

"And they make _every_ sort of thing, mother.... They even make stuff for dresses.... Oh, mother.... I'd love to buy you a spun-gla.s.s gown!

'Twould be like a sort of foggy rainbow--don't you s'pose so? I wonder if I could get gla.s.s slippers to go with it?... Wouldn't you like a gla.s.s gown, mother? You'd look just like a princess in the Arabian nights! You _must_ have one!..."

He chattered like this for some time. Then just as she thought he was falling asleep, he roused.

"I say, mother dear.... Don't let Harold Grey know I got in your bed to wait for you.... He's an awfully set chap ... he'd think me so beastly soft. You see, _his_ mother's always had his father to look after her.... So he couldn't understand how I feel about you ... being your only male relative, and all that...."

Sophy promised, kissing the red curls again for good night.

He was quiet for about five minutes; then once more he roused.

"I've just had such a stunning idea, mother," he announced. "I want us to write a book together ... when I know a bit more rhetoric, of course.

But we might both be thinking up a subject. Wouldn't it be jolly to have our names printed together like that on the first page?...

'What-you-may-call-it ... by Sophy Chesney and her son Robert Cecil Chesney....'"

"That's a beautiful idea, darling; but I'm afraid your name would have to be signed Wychcote...."

"No.... I _choose_ to have it Chesney for our book. I am a Chesney, too, ain't I?"

"Yes, dear; but...."

"Just for our book, mother," he pleaded. "There they'd be--our two names--close together--long after we'd gone.... Isn't life a rummy thing, when you come to think of it, mother?"

"Yes, dear. But try to go to sleep now...."

"All right-o...."

He snuggled closer, settling himself with a deep breath of determination. But suddenly he exclaimed:

"Just _one_ thing more.... What do you think of 'Spun Gla.s.s' for the t.i.tle of our book, mother?"

"Well, darling--that would depend on what the book is to be about...."

"Oh ... about life in general!..." said Bobby largely. Then with the quick drowsiness of healthy childhood he fell fast asleep before she could answer.

But Sophy lay long awake. It seemed to her that life clung about her like a strong, dark web, meshing every natural movement of her heart.

The idea of thrusting another man into her son's life--another "father"--became more and more painful to her. The idea of giving up Amaldi was unendurable. The idea of his giving up his country for her sake revealed itself suddenly as a sacrifice too terrible for her to accept.

The more she struggled for some egress from the clogging meshes, the tighter they closed about her. At dawn she was still wide awake, but when Bobby and his grandmother set out for Murano at eight o'clock she was sleeping like one drugged.

LIII

She did not wake until eleven, and by the time that she was dressed it was after twelve. Recalling what Lady Wychcote had said about lunching with Bobby at Murano, she thought for a moment of going there and trying to find them in time for luncheon. Then she recoiled from the idea of being with her mother-in-law for several hours. But she was too restless to read or go out in the gondola. Rosa told her that Lady Wychcote had gone to Murano by steamer.

She decided finally that she would take a long walk among the little by-streets of Venice and have luncheon at some small _ristorante_, all alone. She went out into the soft brilliance of the September day, and the very radiance of the sunshine had a curious melancholy for her mood.

It was a relief to her, after crossing the ugly iron bridge over the Grand Ca.n.a.l, to find herself in the shadowed by-ways. Now and then, through a gate in some wall, a plot of flowers laughed out at her, or she saw the flicker of sunlit green high above. But the shadowed water ran darkly, and the smell of the cool, dank streets was like the breath of sleeping centuries. She came to the portico of an old church, and went in. The fumes of incense brought back that day in London, so many years ago, when she had gone to see Father Raphael of the Poor. She bent her head, standing all alone in the dark, quiet church, and her heart hung leaden in her breast. Even Father Raphael could not have helped her now, she thought ... for there seemed to her no clear way of right and wrong here. All was subtle, inextricably tangled--a maze of approximations, instincts, conflicting duties, inclinations.

She roused, glanced listlessly at the paintings over the High Altar, then went out again. She stood a moment in the street before the church, considering her next move. She was now not far from the Piazza San Marco. She recalled a little place in the next Rio where she could get a simple meal, and had taken a step forward when a burst of laughter made her look round. Her heart was jumping fast--that laughter was so painfully familiar--like the whinny of a young mare in springtime. Then she saw. Three people--a man and two women--had just turned the corner, about twenty yards away, and were coming towards her. The girl who walked a yard or so in advance had burnished, ruddy hair. She swung her white _beret_ in her hand as she walked, and her blowing white serge gown moulded her handsome legs and vigorous young bust. The man's gait was rather sullen, the elder woman's frankly protesting.

"For goodness' sake, have some consideration for _me_, at least, Belinda!" she called fretfully. But in reply the girl only laughed her careless, whinnying laugh again.

Sophy had just time to spring back behind the dark columns of the porch before they could recognise her. She had been as if paralysed just at first. She squeezed in among the columns, with a feeling of sick faintness. Now they were at the church door ... they paused.

"Now here's where I balk!" rang out Belinda's voice. "No more rotten old churches in mine to-day, thank you. Come along, Morry."