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in passing. They have an invalid daughter. I felt sorry for her.”
    Cousin Marion’s gimlet eyes bored into her. But she read nothing in Lavinia’s face, for she said disappointedly, “I can’t admire this freedom you have with complete strangers. Your own nature is your worst enemy. Do, pray, try not to give Mr. and Mrs. Monk any nasty shocks, or I shall be held responsible.”
    “I’ll never see them again,” Lavinia murmured.
    “Who? The Monks? That’s not the point. You should try to be remembered pleasantly.”
    Did that matter? She supposed it did. For it was surprisingly painful to think how she had hurt and disillusioned Flora. She hoped the child wasn’t really ill.
    At last the day was over. Cousin Marion was in bed, her light out; Gianetta had retired; and Lavinia was expected to have done the same.
    But the moon was shining on the lagoon. The air was balmy. By leaning far out of her window she could just see the domes of the Basilica gleaming silver. To complete the magic, someone far out on the lagoon was singing an aria from La Traviata. It was unbearably beautiful, unbearably sentimental and sad. And Lavinia had an overpowering compulsion to stand on the side of the canal just once more, letting the moonlight and the calm wash all the bitter realities out of her mind.
    She put a shawl over her head, covering the fair hair that betrayed her Englishness, and took the precaution of going down the backstairs. Wandering alone in Venice at night would be what Cousin Marion would term her final folly.
    “Gondola, lady?” the smiling gondolier, his eyes gleaming in the flaring quayside light, asked.
    She shook her head reluctantly. Besides, she doubted if she had the fare. Cousin Marion was not exactly generous with money.
    Someone took her arm. A deep, familiar voice said, “Yes, gondolier, please. Take us as far as the Rialto. Step in, Miss Hurst”
    She was caught off balance. That was her only possible reason for obeying. She had started so violently that if she hadn’t stepped into the gondola she believed she would have tumbled into the canal.
    “Whatever do you think you’re doing?” she asked Daniel Meryon.
    “Fulfilling your wishes, I believe. You were longing for a gondola ride by moonlight, weren’t you? And why not? It’s very romantic. One should never leave Venice without having done it”
    “Mr. Meryon, of all the presumption! Are you trying to kidnap me?”
    He laughed pleasantly. “You do have a tendency toward drama. If that were my intention, I would have instructed the gondolier to take us down the small back canals. Have you seen them? They’re very narrow and dark and quite sinister. There one can feel Venice’s cruel past very distinctly. Have you noticed it? The romance of all this, the moonlight, the decorative palaces, is only a veneer.”
    Lavinia impatiently dismissed his conversational discourse.
    “What about your wife? Flora?”
    “My wife has retired with a headache. Flora, I hope, is asleep. The doctor gave her a sedative.”
    “Why did she need it?” Lavinia asked in a hostile voice.
    The gondolier had swung his boat round and out into the open stream. It rocked a little, and Daniel supported her as she inadvertently swayed against him.
    “Let me answer that with another question. Why do you need to be persuaded to come back to Winterwood with us?”
    “Persuaded! Whatever do you mean?”
    “Because you do want to come, don’t you? I really can’t think why you feel it necessary to stand on your dignity like this.”
    “Mr. Meryon—I simply don’t understand what you are talking about.”
    “You were very kind to Flora.” He didn’t seem to have noticed her indignation. “I don’t think you did that casually. You may think her spoiled and unlikable, but you recognize her tragedy and her courage. She is a very lonely little girl. You noticed that. That’s why I think this isn’t just a matter of indulging her whims, but of you being the best