Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/178

 for one by one his theories went overboard. We all have our Ponte del Sospiri, our Bridge of Sighs, and William was crossing his.

At two o'clock that afternoon they took the steamboat for the Lido. William was deeply puzzled, for there was no sign of recent tears. She was gay. He had yet to learn that woman with mortal hurt can laugh. She led him to the bench on the starboard bow, thus placing the Giudecca at their backs. Two birds with one stone was his comment; for this bench was the choicest. From it one saw the rainbow city sink back into the soft veils of the September mists, and a little later, when they were half-way across the lagoon, the lordly snow-crests of the Dolomites came into view.

Throughout the afternoon he found himself being led. In vain he waited for some word regarding the episode of the morning. It seemed incredible that this butterfly creature was the woman he had seen in tears.

She plumped down into the fine white sand and built castles, commented upon the variegated costumes of the bathers and the equally variegated physiques. She recounted amusing incidents among her scholars. His bewilderment continued to grow until it served to render him monosyllabic. There wasn't a crack in this astonishing armor of hers. And he had started out with the idea of making her forget her troubles! But as they sat down in the pavilion for tea and cakes, later, he heard her gasp painfully.