第73章 THE THIRD(3)

Then perhaps we would stroll on the Piazzetta, or go out into the sunset in a gondola.Margaret became very interested in the shops that abound under the colonnades and decided at last to make an extensive purchase of table glass."These things," she said, are quite beautiful, and far cheaper than anything but the most ordinary looking English ware." I was interested in her idea, and a good deal charmed by the delightful qualities of tinted shape, slender handle and twisted stem.I suggested we should get not simply tumblers and wineglasses but bedroom waterbottles, fruit- and sweet-dishes, water-jugs, and in the end we made quite a business-like afternoon of it.

I was beginning now to long quite definitely for events.Energy was accumulating in me, and worrying me for an outlet.I found the TIMES and the DAILY TELEGRAPH and the other papers I managed to get hold of, more and more stimulating.I nearly wrote to the former paper one day in answer to a letter by Lord Grimthorpe--I forget now upon what point.I chafed secretly against this life of tranquil appreciations more and more.I found my attitudes of restrained and delicate affection for Margaret increasingly difficult to sustain.

I surprised myself and her by little gusts of irritability, gusts like the catspaws before a gale.I was alarmed at these symptoms.

One night when Margaret had gone up to her room, I put on a light overcoat, went out into the night and prowled for a long time through the narrow streets, smoking and thinking.I returned and went and sat on the edge of her bed to talk to her.

"Look here, Margaret," I said; "this is all very well, but I'm restless.""Restless! " she said with a faint surprise in her voice.

"Yes.I think I want exercise.I've got a sort of feeling--I've never had it before--as though I was getting fat.""My dear!" she cried.

"I want to do things;--ride horses, climb mountains, take the devil out of myself."She watched me thoughtfully.

"Couldn't we DO something?" she said.

Do what?

"I don't know.Couldn't we perhaps go away from here soon--and walk in the mountains--on our way home."I thought."There seems to be no exercise at all in this place.""Isn't there some walk?"

"I wonder," I answered."We might walk to Chioggia perhaps, along the Lido." And we tried that, but the long stretch of beach fatigued Margaret's back, and gave her blisters, and we never got beyond Malamocco....

A day or so after we went out to those pleasant black-robed, bearded Armenians in their monastery at Saint Lazzaro, and returned towards sundown.We fell into silence."PIU LENTO," said Margaret to the gondolier, and released my accumulated resolution.

"Let us go back to London," I said abruptly.

Margaret looked at me with surprised blue eyes.

"This is beautiful beyond measure, you know," I said, sticking to my point, "but I have work to do."She was silent for some seconds."I had forgotten," she said.

"So had I," I sympathised, and took her hand."Suddenly I have remembered."She remained quite still."There is so much to be done," I said, almost apologetically.

She looked long away from me across the lagoon and at last sighed, like one who has drunk deeply, and turned to me.

"I suppose one ought not to be so happy," she said."Everything has been so beautiful and so simple and splendid.And clean.It has been just With You--the time of my life.It's a pity such things must end.But the world is calling you, dear....I ought not to have forgotten it.I thought you were resting--and thinking.But if you are rested.--Would you like us to start to-morrow?"She looked at once so fragile and so devoted that on the spur of the moment I relented, and we stayed in Venice four more days.