Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/161

 was not some way of steadying that shaft of alabaster. He was only human himself, and his thoughts would go in a human and not in a celestial direction.

His school-teacher, with her springing step, day in and day out, as regular as the clock; his school-teacher who knew what all these things meant, who could dig his soul out of him when she played the piano. …

"Signore!"

William looked up. They had returned to the marble steps of the hotel. The porter was putting out the carpeted landing-plank.

"No, no; I don't want to go in yet," said William. "Say, porter, tell the man to row me over to that white yacht there, the one next to the torpedo-boat. Ye-ah. Tell him to row around it slow and close."

"Yes, sir." The porter volleyed a few phrases at the gondolier, who returned them with interest, gesticulating wildly.

William grinned in spite of the ache in his heart. He never would get the hang of these Latin voices and elbows. Dozens of times he had stopped (shall I say hopefully?) to see the fight, only to learn that there wasn't going to be any, that what looked like the beginning of hostilities was in truth nothing more serious than an exchange of amenities.

The yacht Elsa was dark except for the ports of the dining-saloon. In Venetian waters the voice carries remarkably far. As the gondola was edging