Vansittart thought of bidding his new friends good night at the door of the theatre. Had Venice not been Venice, and had there been any vehicles in waiting, he would have put his fair companions into a coach, paid their fare, and bade them good night forever, without so much as inquiring where they lived. But Venice has a romantic unlikeness to every other city. There was no coach. To say good night and leave them to walk home unescorted was out of the question.
“In which direction is your house, Signora?” he asked the elder lady.
“Oh, we are not going home,” cried Fiordelisa. “We are going to the Piazza. This is the time when there will be most fun. You’ll take us, won’t you?” she asked, slipping her hand through his arm, and boldly taking possession of him. “Come, come, aunt, we are going to the Piazza.”
Her feet threaded the narrow ways so swiftly that Vansittart scarcely knew by which particular windings of the labyrinth they came to the Bocca di Piazza, and emerged from the shadow of the pillars upon the broad open square, all aflame with lamps and lanterns, and one roar of multitudinous voices, squeaking punchinellos, barking dogs, blaring trumpets, tinkling guitars. They pushed their way through the crowd, the two women masked, each hanging on to his arm, and making progress difficult.
The Piazza was a spectacle to remember, full of life and movement, a military band braying out brazen music, music of Offenbach, loud, martial, insistent, above the multifarious squeakings and shoutings, the laughter and the clamour of the crowd. In the long colonnades the throng pushed thickly; but Vansittart had been one of the strong men of the Varsity, a thrower of hammers, a jumper of long jumps, a man with a name that was famous at Lillie Bridge as well as at Oxford. He parted the throng as if it had been water, and would have made his way quickly to the brightest, largest, and gayest of the caffès, if it had not been for Lisa, who hung back to look at the lighted shop windows, windows that she could have seen any night of her life, but which had a particular attraction at Carnival time.
The touters were touting at the shop doors, with that smiling persistence which makes the Procuratie Vecchie odious, and recalls Cranbourne Alley in the dark ages. Lisa made a dead stop before a shop where gaudy wooden figures of Moorish slaves, garish with crude colour and much gilding, were grilling in the glare of the gas. It was a kind of bazaar, half Venetian, half Oriental, and one window was full of bead necklaces and barbaric jewels. At these Lisa looked with such childish longing eyes that Vansittart would have been hard as a stone if he had not suggested making a selection from that sparkling display of rainbow glass and enamel.
The spider at the door was entreating the flies to go into his web, a young Venetian with smiling black eyes and a Jewish nose—a lineal descendant of Jessica, perhaps—a very agreeable young spider, entreating the Signora and Signorina to go in and look about them. There would be no necessity for them to buy. “To look costs nothing.”
They all three went in. Fiordelisa fastened upon a tray of jewels, and lost herself in a bewilderment as to which of all those earrings, brooches, and necklaces she most desired. Vansittart was interested in the Moorish things—the bronze cups, the gold and scarlet slippers, the embroidered curtains, and, most of all, the daggers, of which there were many curious shapes, in purple-gleaming Damascus steel.
While Fiordelisa and her aunt were choosing brooches and necklaces—necklaces which by a double twist became bracelets—Vansittart was cheapening daggers, and, as a young man of ample means, ended by buying the dearest and perhaps the best, a really serviceable knife, in a red velvet sheath.
He paid for as many things as Lisa cared to choose; for a bead necklace and an enamel brooch; for a square of gold-striped gauze to twist about her head and shoulders; for a dainty little pair of Moorish shoes which might admit Lisa’s toes, but which would certainly leave the major part of her substantial foot out in the cold; for a gilded casket to hold her jewels—for a fan—for a gilt thimble—and for a little set of Algerian coffee-cups for her aunt.
All these things were to be sent next morning to the Signora’s lodgings near the Ponte di Rialto. Vansittart paid the bill, which disposed of a good many of his limp Italian notes, put his dagger in his breast-pocket, and left the shop, cutting short the compliments and thanks of the Venetian youth.
The Caffè Florian—of which tradition tells that it closeth not day or night, winter or summer—was filled with people and ablaze with light. Lisa pushed her way to a table, making good use of those fine shoulders and elbows of hers, and a little group of men who had finished their coffee got up and made way for the brilliant black eyes, and the red lips, which the little velvet mask did not hide. Those finely moulded lips looked all the lovelier for the fringe of lace that shadowed them, and the white teeth flashed as she smiled her thanks.
She talked loud, and laughed gaily while she sipped her chocolate. Vansittart himself was somewhat exhilarated by champagne, music, and two or three little glasses of cognac taken between the acts at the Rossini Theatre, and he was unashamed of his companion’s laughter and general exuberance, even although she was attracting the attention of everyone within earshot. Beauty and vivacity are not attributes to make a man ashamed of his companion, although she may be only a Burano lace-maker disguised in a tawdry velvet gown.
“Show me the dagger you chose after all your bargaining,” she said, leaning over towards him, with
