ll were far more clearly enunciated than ever
they are in the impartial splendour of daylight. Against the darkly
luminous, unfathomable sky, the outline of the domes showed clear-cut
and harmonious, and over yonder, above the great Palazzo, whose columns,
for that evening at least, were surely carved in ivory and wrought with
lace, a remote, half-grown moon looked wonderingly down.

"The moon is rather out of it, to-night," May observed, with the bright
crispness that gave everything she said a flavour of originality. She
had taken in the beauty of the scene with a completeness that would have
astonished her companion; not a detail had been lost upon her. Yet it
was clear that the total effect had not produced an overpowering
impression. Geof, for his part, had been really stirred by it, but he
had no intention of owning it.

"I don't think we need waste any sympathy on the moon," he replied.
"It's usually cock of the walk here in Venice."

Having thus satisfactorily disposed of that subject, the young people
turned their steps toward the clock-tower, Geof wondering resignedly why
May made no motion to rejoin her family.

"I don't think I agree with you about mysteries," she said, presently;
"I can't bear them. There's Nanni, now, the brother of our gondolier,"
she continued; and then, turning, and looking her companion full in the
face: "Can you make him out?"

"What is it about him that puzzles you?" Geof asked, returning her
glance with equal frankness.

"I don't know that I can explain it. He seems somehow--different. There
is something wrong about him. I don't think he is happy."

"And what if he is not?" said Geof tentatively. "There need be no
mystery about that. I don't suppose many men are really happy."

"You don't?" May exclaimed, in naive surprise.

Geof, to whom happiness had come to seem almost incredible, since he had
got a glimpse of what it might be, was himself rather taken aback at his
own utterance.

"I rather think," he said, laughing uneasily, "that I only meant that
not many people are superlatively happy. As for commonplace, every-day
happiness, I suppose that depends upon temperament. Perhaps the man is
of a melancholy temperament."

"Perhaps that is it," May answered, thoughtfully; and with one accord
they turned into the quiet paved space north of San Marco, where they
stood, a few moments, looking out into the brilliant Piazza.

"I suppose it was very silly of me," May went on,