ould not have made any special impression upon him.
The scene itself, indeed, might have lingered in his mind as one of
those charming surprises that lurk in the enchanted atmosphere of the
lagoons. The striking beauty of Nanni's countenance is the possession of
many an honest gondolier, nor would the glow of feeling which animated
the face, have been anything unprecedented in a man of his class. Old
Pietro himself, slumbering at that moment on the floor of his gondola,
often exhibited a startling power of facial expression, which fairly
transfigured his weather-worn features. No, in a simple gondolier both
beauty of face and brilliancy and depth of expression are quite in the
natural order. And if it is not often that one sees these advantages
heightened by so admirable a foil as was provided on this occasion, it
is simply because such vivid grace of the contrasting type is rare.

Geoffry's first sensation then, as he caught sight of the two figures,
was one of gratification to his artistic sense; and even when May
extended her hand, and Nanni, after the custom of the gondolier, raised
it to his lips, it did not at once strike the young man as other than
natural and fitting. In an instant, however, he recalled the fact, which
he had learned of Pietro a month previous, that this was no mere
gondolier, but a man of education and consequence in the world; a
circumstance which, undeniably, put a different face upon the matter. It
accounted too, perhaps, for the curiously appealing impression of the
man's personality. There was undoubtedly something pathetic in this son
of a line of gondoliers, reaching back farther than many a titled
family, this man with an innate love for the craft, a genuine passion
for the lagoons, placed in the artificial environment of modern
society, constrained to deal with the hard-and-fast exactions of modern
science. No wonder that there was that about him that excited the
imagination. Geof had himself felt it; his mother had spoken of it. Who
could know how powerful the appeal might be to one who had not the key
to the puzzle?

When, therefore, Geof came upon the little drama being enacted among the
alders at Torcello, with a grace and fervour which was for an instant,
but only for an instant captivating, he experienced a feeling of vague
dissatisfaction, which was much accentuated by the sight of the young
girl's evident emotion, as she turned and faced him unexpectedly.

He did a good deal