"Stop! Hi! Come back!" But it was too late. My impetuous visitor was down the staircase and away before I had descended a single flight in pursuit, and all I could do was to return to my room and register a vow within my own heart that I would have nothing to do with this preposterous scheme. Looking back upon what followed across the interval of fifteen years, I find that I can really give no satisfactory reason for my having failed to adhere to this wise resolution. I had no particular feeling of friendship for Von Rosenau; I did not care two straws about the Signorina Bianca, whom I had never seen; and certainly I am not, nor ever was, the sort of person who loves romantic adventures for their own sake. Perhaps it was good-nature, perhaps it was only an indolent shrinking from disobliging anybody, that influenced me--it does not much matter now. Whatever the cause of my yielding may have been, I did yield. I prefer to pass over in silence the doubts and hesitations which beset me for the remainder of the day; the arrival, toward evening, of the piteous note from Von Rosenau, which finally overcame my weak resistance to his will; and the series of circumstantial false statements (I blush when I think of them) by means of which I accounted to my sister for my proposed sudden departure. Suffice it to say that, very early on the following morning, there might have been seen, pacing up and down the shore on the seaward side of the Lido, and peering anxiously about him through an eyeglass, as if in search of somebody or something, the figure of a tall, spare Englishman, clad in a complete suit of shepherd's tartan, with a wide-awake on his head, a leather bag slung by a strap across his shoulder, and a light coat over his arm. Myself, in point of act, in the travelling-costume of the epoch. I was kept waiting a long time--longer than I liked; for, as may be supposed, I was most anxious to be well away from Venice before the rest of the world was up and about; but at length there appeared, round the corner of a long white wall which skirted the beach, a little lady, thickly veiled, who, on catching sight of me, whisked round, and incontinently vanished. This was so evidently the fair Bianca that I followed her without hesitation, and almost ran into her arms as I swung round the angle of the wall behind which she had retreated. She gave a great start, stared at me, for an instant, like a startled fawn, and then took to her heels and fled. It was rather ridiculous; but there was nothing for me to do but to give chase. My legs are long, and I had soon headed her round.
"I presume that I have the honour of addressing the Signorina Marinelli?" I panted, in French, as I faced her, hat in hand. She answered me by a piercing shriek, which left no room for doubt as to her identity.
"For the love of Heaven, don't do that!" I entreated, in an agony.
"You will alarm the whole neighbourhood and ruin us both. Believe me, I am only here as your friend, and very much against my own wishes. I have come on the part of Count Albrecht von Rosenau, who is unable to come himself, because--"
Here she opened her mouth with so manifest an intention of raising another resounding screech that I became desperate, and seized her by the wrists in my anxiety. "/Sgridi ancora una volta/," says I, in the purest /lingua Toscana/, "/e la lascero qui/--to get out of this mess as best you can--/cosi sicuro che il mio nome e Jenkinsono/!" To my great relief she began to laugh. Immediately afterward, however, she sat down on the shingle and began to cry. It was too vexatious: what on earth was I to do?
"Do you understand English?" I asked, despairingly. She shook her head, but sobbed out that she spoke French; so I proceeded to address her in that language.
"Signorina, if you do not get up and control your emotion, I will not be answerable for the consequences. We are surrounded by dangers of the most--compromising description; and every moment of delay must add to them. I know that the officers often come out here to bathe in the morning; so do many of the English people from Danielli's. If we are discovered together there will be such a scandal as never was, and you will most assuredly not become Countess von Rosenau. Think of that, and it will brace your nerves. What you have to do is to come directly with me to the boat which is all ready to take us to Mestre. Allow me to carry your hand-bag." Not a bit of it! The signorina refused to stir.
"What is it? Where is Alberto? What has happened?" she cried. "You have told me nothing."
