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 room. She felt that she had relaxed her hold upon herself. What was it she was yielding to? Something imperative and masterful in him, or something still more masterful and imperative in her own soul? She did not know, she did not consider. She walked with him down the stairs, and out into the outer world, and she knew that she would have walked with him across the very waters of the Canal with the unquestioning faith of the pious little princess whom legend carries over dry-shod to her prayers.

Pauline spoke only once, and that was when her eyes fell upon the gondola coming to meet them.

"The felze!" she exclaimed, under her breath. If Geof heard her, he was too wise to admit that he did.

"To the Madonna of the Palazzo Rezzonico," he commanded, quite as if Vittorio had been his own gondolier. It crossed his mind that he ought to apologize for his presumption, but he was not in the mood for apologies.