Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/154

 "He left for Venice late last night."

"Uh-huh. What's your idea of him?"

"Moody, but very interesting." She was rather non-committal.

In Rome William was attacked upon three occasions, at night, always when he was alone. Each time he had struck one good blow; thereupon, much as he disliked doing it, he had taken to his heels. Italians were handy with their knives. In Florence he had two narrow escapes. After these visitations he did not go prowling across the Ponte Vecchio at night in the endeavor to reconstruct some of Benvenuto Cellini's lesser adventures. I might add that he no longer slept dreamlessly. He even went so far as to write Burns to learn if any of those Italians he had sent up the river were out. The affair began to get on his nerves, tough as they were. He was not particularly disturbed on his own account; but how was he to watch over Ruth, when a knife was hourly threatening his back? Of course, he said nothing to her about these mysterious contacts in the night. He set a smiling face for his school-teacher, and she suspected nothing.

Neither of them took note of a new fact. Their fellow-tourists were beginning to smile when they saw these two together, which was daily and everywhere. Romance! Humanity smiles indulgently upon the young male and female when they walk together, upon love or the suggestion of it. Heaven knows why they smile; the real thing is serious enough.