is own
devices. She supposed she understood her sister too well to have any
anxiety on her account. The ready interest of May's manner was precisely
of the same sort as that with which she had listened to Nanni's
instructions in rowing, or to Vittorio's lessons in the Italian tongue.
Pauline remembered how, only the other day, Vittorio had made mention of
a _piccola bestia_ with whose name they were not familiar, and she
smiled, as she recalled May's triumph when, at last, after a laboured
description of its leading characteristics, it had dawned upon her that
the small beast with a smooth coat, a pointed nose, a long tail,
and--yes, that told the story!--_four legs_, was a mouse!

Nevertheless, though her conscience was easy with regard to her sister,
Pauline told herself, severely, that Geof was being very hardly used,
and that she, by her supineness, was as much to blame as Kenwick for
the artist's unwarrantable behaviour. To be sure, Geof betrayed no
dissatisfaction with the existing arrangement; he was far too well-bred
for that,--and really, how fine he was, in this as in everything! One
would have thought that he was deeply interested in telling her about
the great sea-wall in which nature and man have gone into partnership,
and upon the preservation of which depends the very existence of Venice.
There it stretched for miles, the long, narrow strip of sand and
masonry, and as the steamer plied the waters of the lagoon, hour after
hour, in the bright June morning, they could hear the tread of the
breakers on the beach outside, and realise something of the mighty
forces that must be resisted in time of winter storms.

"That thing almost made an engineer of me," Geof observed.

"I don't wonder," said Pauline, with ready comprehension; "it appeals to
one immensely," and Geof knew that she was in sympathy with him, that
not a word he had said, not a word he had left unsaid, had been lost
upon her.

"When I am particularly out of conceit with myself," he continued,--and
he liked to remember that there was no one else to whom he would have
talked in this strain,--"I get to thinking that perhaps it was a mistake
not to stick to that first notion. It's a fine thing to work for
defence."

"Yes," said Pauline, after the little pause he knew so well, and which
he had learned not to break in upon,--"but,--isn't it better still to
build for shelter?"

The thoughtful words, fraught with so much delicate meaning, touched