"The Ricci? Why do you want to know, madame?"
She made a contemptuous lip.
"I knew her first," said Cliffe, "some years ago in Milan. She was then at La Scala--walking on--paid for her good looks. Then somebody sent her to Paris to the Conservatoire, which she only left this spring. This is her first Italian engagement. Her people are shopkeepers here--in the Merceria--which helped her. She is as vain as a peac.o.c.k and as dangerous as a pet panther."
"Dangerous!" Kitty"s scorn had pa.s.sed into her voice.
"Well, Italy is still the country of the knife," said Cliffe, lightly--"and I could still hire a bravo or two--in Venice--if I wanted them."
"Does the Ricci hire them?"
Cliffe shrugged his shoulders.
"She"d do it without winking, if it suited her." Then, after a pause--"Do you still wonder why I should have chosen her society?"
"Oh no," said Kitty, hastily. "You told me."
"As much as a _friend_ cares to know?"
She nodded, flushing, and dropped the subject.
Cliffe"s mouth still smiled, but his eyes studied her with a veiled and sinister intensity.
"I have not seen the lady for a week," he resumed. "She pesters me with notes. I promised to go and see her in a new play to-morrow night, but--"
"Oh, go!" said Kitty--"by all means go!"
""Ruy Blas" in Italian? I think not. Ah! did you see that gleam on the Campanile?--marvellous!... Miladi, I have a question to ask you."
"_Dites!_" said Kitty.
"Did you put me into your book?"
"Certainly."
"What kind of things did you say?"
"The worst I could!"
"Ah! How shall I get a copy?" said Cliffe, musing.
She made no answer, but she was conscious of a sudden movement--was it of terror? At the bottom of her soul was she, indeed, afraid of the man beside her?
"By-the-way," he resumed, "you promised to tell me your news of this morning. But you haven"t told me a word!"
She turned away. She had gathered her furs around her, and her face was almost hidden by them.
"Nothing is settled," she said, in a cold, reluctant voice.
"Which means that you won"t tell me anything more?"
She was silent. Her lip had a proud line which piqued him.
"You think I am not worthy to know?"
Her eye gleamed.
"What does it matter to you?"
"Oh, nothing! I should have been glad to hear that all was well, and Ashe"s mind at rest about his prospects."
"His prospects!" she repeated, with a scorn which stung. "How _dare_ we mention his name here at all?"
Cliffe reddened.
"I dare," he said, calmly.
Kitty looked at him--a quivering defiance in face and frame; then bent forward.
"Would you like to know--who is the best--the n.o.blest--the handsomest--the most generous--the most delightful man I have ever met?"
Each word came out winged and charged with a strange intensity of pa.s.sion.
"Do I?" said Cliffe, raising his eyebrows--"do I want to know?"
Her look held him.
"My husband, William Ashe!"
And she fell back, flushed and breathless, like one who throws out a rebel and challenging flag.
Cliffe was silent a moment, observing her.
"Strange!" he said, at last. "It is only when you are miserable you are kind. I could wish you miserable again, _cherie_."
Tone and look broke into a sombre wildness before which she shrank. Her own violence pa.s.sed away. She leaned over the side of the boat, struggling with tears.
"Then you have your wish," was her m.u.f.fled answer.
The three bronzed Venetians, a father and two sons, who were working the _bragozzo_ glanced curiously at the pair. They were persuaded that these charterers of their boat were lovers flying from observation, and the unknown tongue did but stimulate guessing.
Cliffe raised himself impatiently.
They were nearing a point where the line of _murazzi_ they had been following--low breakwaters of great strength--swept away from them outward and eastward towards a distant opening. On the other side of the channel was a low line of sh.o.r.e, broadening into the Lido proper, with its scattered houses and churches, and soon lost in the mist as it stretched towards the south.
"Ecco!--il Porto del Lido!" said the older boatman, pointing far away to a line of deeper color beneath a dark and lowering sky.
Kitty bent over the side of the boat staring towards the dim spot he showed her--where was the mouth of the sea.