"James," she began, "Mr. Barnard says----"

But Milbanke's mind was elsewhere.

"My dear," he said hurriedly, "you must really excuse me. A man like Mr. Angelo Tombs is a personage of importance."

"Yes; but, James----"

She paused, disconcerted. Milbanke had left the table.

For quite a minute she sat silent, her cheeks burning with a sudden sense of mortification and neglect. To a reasoning and experienced mind, the incident would have carried no weight; at most it would have offered grounds for a pa.s.sing amus.e.m.e.nt. But with Clodagh the case was different. Circ.u.mstances had never demanded the cultivation of her reason, and experience was an a.s.set she was not possessed of. To her sensitive, youthful susceptibilities, the incident could only wear one complexion. Her husband had obviously and wittingly humiliated her in presence of his friend.

She sat with tightened lips, staring unseeingly at the table.

Then suddenly and softly some one crossed the room behind her, and paused beside her chair. Turning with a little start, she saw the pale, clean-cut features and searching dark eyes of Valentine Serracauld.

"Mrs. Milbanke," he said at once in his easy, ingratiating voice. "If you are not doing anything else this evening, may I place my uncle's gondola at your disposal? Both he and I would be considerably honoured if you and your husband----"

Clodagh looked up into his face with a quick glance of pleasure and relief.

"Oh, thank you!" she said. "Thank you so very much! I should love to come, only my husband is--is busy to-night."

She paused; and in the pause Barnard leaned close to her again, with his most friendly and rea.s.suring manner.

"After all, Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "do you think that need preclude you from the enjoyment? James is perfectly happy; Lord Deerehurst's gondola is quite the most comfortable in Venice; and I'm sure _I'm_ staid enough to play propriety! Suppose we make a party of four?"

Serracauld laughed delightedly.

"How splendid!" he said. "Mrs. Milbanke, may I find my uncle and bring him to be introduced?"

He bent forward quickly, leaning across Milbanke's empty chair.

For one second Clodagh sat irresolute; then she glanced swiftly from one interested, admiring face to the other, and again the blood rushed into her face in a wave of self-conscious pleasure.

"Yes," she said softly--"yes. Bring your uncle to be introduced."

CHAPTER IV

Serracauld smiled his acknowledgment of the granted permission, and departed in search of his uncle; while Barnard looked at Clodagh with amused interest.

"If you can waive your prejudices against the milk baths, Mrs.

Milbanke," he said, "you'll find old Deerehurst quite a delightful person. But, of course, when one is very young, prejudices are adhesive things."

He finished his coffee meditatively, stealing a glance at her from the corner of his eye.

She remained silent for a moment, tentatively fingering her cup.

"Do I seem so very young?" she asked at last, without raising her eyes.

At the words, he turned and looked at her fully.

"Do you know, Mrs. Milbanke," he said seriously, "I am literally devoured by a desire to ask you your age? When I saw you come downstairs to-night, I felt--pardon the rudeness!--like laughing in James's face when he introduced you as his wife. You scarcely looked eighteen. But a little while ago, when you spoke of your life at Florence, I suddenly felt out in my calculations. Your face, of course, seemed just as fascinatingly young; but from your expression I could have believed you to be twenty-four. And now again--Please _do_ be lenient to my impertinence!--now again, as you spoke to Serracauld, you looked like a child turning the first page in the book of life. Are you an enigma?"

During the first portion of his speech, Clodagh had looked grave; but at his last words she laughed with a touch of constraint.

"No," she answered. "I am nothing half so interesting--and it's four years since I was eighteen. But hadn't I better get my cloak before Mr.

Serracauld comes back?"

With another slightly embarra.s.sed laugh, she rose; and without waiting for Barnard's escort, walked out of the room.

Ten minutes later, she descended the stairs, wrapped in a light evening cloak. Her cheeks were still flushed with excitement, and her hazel eyes were dark with antic.i.p.ation. Yesterday--only yesterday--she had been a mere item in the secluded, unimportant life of the villa at Florence; now, to-night, three men--each one of whom must, in his time, have known superlatively interesting and beautiful women--awaited her pleasure!

As she stepped across the hall, Serracauld darted forward to meet her.

"This is very gracious of you!" he murmured. "I hear it is your first evening in Venice."

She glanced up at him, as they moved slowly forward across the hall.

"My very first evening," she said softly. "And I so want to enjoy it."

He paused deliberately, and looked at her.

"May I take that as permission to make it enjoyable--if I can?"

Her lashes drooped in instinctive, native coquetry.

"Aren't you going to introduce your uncle to me?" she said in a lowered voice.

He looked at her, mystified and attracted.

"If I knew you better, Mrs. Milbanke----" he began.

But without replying, Clodagh moved away from him across the hall and out on to the terrace. There, transfixed by a new impression, she paused involuntarily.

Venice is beautiful in the morning and exquisite in the twilight, but it is at night that the mystery of Venice--that most subtle of its many charms--enwraps and envelops it like a magic web. There is nothing in Europe to rival the literal, tangible romance of Venice at night: the faint, idle, infinitely suggestive lap of water against a thousand unseen steps; the secret darkness, revealed rather than dispersed by the furtive, uneven lights shed forth from windows or open doors; the throb of music that seems woven into the picture--an inseparable, integral part of the enchanted life. All is a wonder and a joy.

To Clodagh, with her inherent love of things mystic and beautiful, the scene was curiously impressive. In an ecstasy of appreciation, she stood drinking it in; then, suddenly touched with the warm desire of sharing her sensations, she turned to her companion.

"Isn't it--wonderful?" she said below her breath.

Serracauld looked at her for a moment in puzzled doubt; then he smiled indulgently.

"Yes!" he said vaguely. "Yes! It is rather great--the water and the gondolas and--and all that sort of thing----"

Her large, clear eyes rested on his face, then slowly returned to their scrutiny of the ca.n.a.l. A momentary sense of disappointment had a.s.sailed her--she was conscious of a momentary jar. But as she stood, silent and uncertain, a burst of low, throbbing music broke across the darkness, and at the same moment she became conscious of a large gondola gliding up to the hotel steps.