y pale or melancholy this evening. It seemed in high
good humour as we caught a glimpse of it on our way over here."

"Mr. Kenwick's penetration is too subtle for a plain man's
comprehension," Uncle Dan observed. The persistency with which the
Colonel be-mistered Kenwick was an unmistakable sign of disapproval.

"Colonel Steele, I am guiltless of subtlety," Kenwick declared in his
most humorous manner; "I, too, am a plain man. But, if you will pardon
the platitude, we all know that there is one beauty of the sun, and
another beauty of the moon, and it would be pure affectation to ignore
the fact."

"Apropos of the heavenly bodies,--when is the _Urania_ to sail?" Pauline
asked. She feared that Kenwick might go in pursuit of Geof and May, who
had disappeared round the corner into the Piazzetta, and knowing that he
liked to talk of his millionaire friends and their steam-yacht, she
proceeded to draw him out upon the subject.

May and Geof, meanwhile, secure from interruption, thanks to Pauline's
little strategy, were strolling in the Piazzetta, now facing the
moon-lit, wind-swept lagoon, glittering beyond the pillars in a thousand
broken reflections; now studying the figures of the four porphyry
conspirators, engaged in their eternal task of mystification at the
corner of San Marco. That all attempts should have failed to settle the
character and social standing of those red-complexioned, rather
dull-witted gentlemen, who clasped one another in such undecipherable
opacity, was almost more than May could bear.

"Don't you think the archaeologists are rather stupid to have given up
the riddle?" she asked, as she and her escort turned away and stepped
out again into the Piazza.

"I dare say they are," Geof laughed, "but I'm sure that those flat-nosed
fellows are much more entertaining than they would be if they had been
labelled. Jove! What a sight that is!"

He had suddenly turned and looked up at the front of San Marco, gleaming
in the brilliant illumination, like a shrine studded with precious
stones. In the concentrated light of hundreds of gas-jets, each
exquisite detail, each shining gold mosaic and lavish carving stood out
with marvellous distinctness. The golden-winged angels that mount a
mystic stairway above the great central arch, the bronze horses prancing
so harmlessly over the main portal, even the quaint bas-relief of St.
George, sitting, with such unimpeachable dignity, upon his
camp-stool,--each and a