He could think things of that sort of her now with a queer lightness as of ease after strain, and yet not think it a merit of Miss Dassonville's so to ease him.

They walked through the rooms full of the morning coolness, and let the pictures say what they would to them.
"It is strange to me," said the girl, "the reality of pictures; as if they had reached a point under the artist's hand where they became suddenly independent of him and went about saying a great deal more than he meant and perhaps more than he could understand.

I am sure they must have a world of their own of picture rock and tree and stone, where they go when they are not being looked at on their canvases." "Oh, haven't you found them, then ?" "In dreams you mean?
Not in Bloombury; they don't get so far from home.
One of these little islands I suspect, that lie so low and look so blue and airy." "Will you go with me in the gondola to discover it ?" "To-night ?" "To-morrow." He was full of a plan to take her and Mrs.Merrithew to the Lido that same evening to have dinner, and to come home after moonrise, to discover Venice.

She agreed to that, subject to Mrs.Merrithew's consent, and they went out to find that lady at a bead shop where she spent a great many hours in a state of delightful indecision.
Mrs.Merrithew proving quite in the mood for it, they went to the Lido with an extra gondolier--Miss Dassonville had stipulated for one who could sing--and came home in time to see Venice all a-flower, with the continual slither of the gondolas about it like some slim sort of moth.
They explored Saint George of the Sea Weed after that, took tea in the public gardens and had a day at Torcello.

On such occasions when Peter and Mrs.Merrithew talked apart, the good lady who got on excellently with the rich Mr.Weatheral grew more than communicative on the subject of Savilla Dassonville.