They had two quiet days together in which it was evident, whatever Peter settled with himself as to his relation to the girl, it had taken on for Mrs.Merrithew the pointedness known in Bloombury as "attentions." She paid in to the possibilities of the situation the tribute of her absence for long sessions in which, so far as Peter could discover, the situation rather fell to the ground.

It began to appear that he had missed as he was doomed with women, the crucial instant, and was to come out of this as of other encounters, empty.

And then quite suddenly the girl put out a hand to him.
It was along about the end of the afternoon they had come out of the church of Saint George the Greater, which as being most accessible had been left to the latter end of their explorations.

Mrs.Merrithew had just sent Giuseppe back for a shawl which she had dropped in the cloister.

They sat rocking in the gondola looking toward the fairy arcade of the ducal palace and the pillars of the saints, and suddenly Miss Dassonville spoke to excuse her quietness.
"I must look all I can," she said; "we are leaving the day after to-morrow." If she had retired behind Mrs.Merrithew's comfortable breadth in order to deliver her shot the more effectively, she missed seeing how plumply it landed in the midst of Peter's defences and scattered them.
"Leaving Venice ?" he said.