"Fortunate indeed is it for you," I said, "that your confidence in the kind countenance of my sister Anne did not carry you quite to the point of divulging this precious scheme to her. I, who know her pretty well, can tell you exactly the course she would have pursued if you had. Without one moment's hesitation, she would have found out the address of the young lady's father, hurried off thither, and told him all about it. Anne is a thoroughly good creature; but she has little sympathy with love-making, still less with surreptitious love-making, and she would as soon think of accepting the part you are so good as to assign to her as of forging a check." He sighed, and said he supposed, then, that they must continue to meet as they had been in the habit of doing, but that it was rather unsatisfactory.
"It says something for your ingenuity that you contrive to meet at all," I remarked.
"Well, yes, there are considerable difficulties, because the old man's movements are so uncertain; and there is some risk too, for, as you heard the other day, we have been seen together. Moreover, I have been obliged to tell everything to my servant Johann, who waylays the marchese's housekeeper at market in the mornings, and finds out from her when and where I can have an opportunity of meeting Bianca. I would rather not have trusted him; but I could think of no other plan."
"At any rate, I should have thought you might have selected some more retired rendezvous than the most frequented church in Venice." He shrugged his shoulders. "I wish you would suggest one within reach," he said. "There are no retired places in this accursed town. But, in fact, we see each other very seldom. Often for days together the only way in which I can get a glimpse of her is by loitering about in my boat in front of her father's house, and watching till she shows herself at the window. We are in her neighborhood now, and it is close upon the hour at which I can generally calculate upon her appearing. Would you mind my making a short detour that way before I set you down at your hotel?" We had entered the Grand Canal while Von Rosenau had been relating his love-tale, and some minutes before he had lowered his sail and taken to the oars. He now slewed the boat's head round abruptly, and we shot into a dark and narrow waterway, and so, after sundry twistings and turnings, arrived before a grim, time-worn structure, so hemmed in by the surrounding buildings that it seemed as if no ray of sunshine could ever penetrate within its walls.
"That is the Palazzo Marinelli," said my companion. "The greater part of it is let to different tenants. The family has long been much too poor to inhabit the whole of it, and now the old man only reserves himself four rooms on the third floor. Those are the windows, in the far corner; and there--no!--yes!--there is Bianca." I brought my eyeglass to bear upon the point indicated just in time to catch sight of a female head, which was thrust out through the open window for an instant, and then withdrawn with great celerity.
"Ah," sighed the count, "it is you who have driven her away. I ought to have remembered that she would be frightened at seeing a stranger. And now she will not show herself again, I fear. Come; I will take you home. Confess now--is she not more beautiful than you expected?"
"My dear sir, I had hardly time to see whether she was a man or a woman; but I am quite willing to take your word for it that there never was anybody like her."
"If you would like to wait a little longer--half an hour or so--she /might/ put her head out again," said the young man, wistfully.
"Thank you very much; but my sister will be wondering why I do not come to take her down to the /table d'hote/. And besides, I am not in love myself, I may perhaps be excused for saying that I want my dinner."
"As you please," answered the count, looking the least bit in the world affronted; and so he pulled back in silence to the steps of the hotel, where we parted. I don't know whether Von Rosenau felt aggrieved by my rather unsympathetic reception of his confidence, or whether he thought it useless to discuss his projects further with one who could not or would not assist him in carrying them out; but although we continued to meet daily, as before, he did not recur to the interesting subject, and it was not for me to take the initiative in doing so. Curiosity, I confess, led me to direct my gondolier more than once to the narrow canal over which the Palazzo Martinelli towered; and on each occasion I was rewarded by descrying, from the depths of the miniature mourning-coach which concealed me, the faithful count, seated in his boat and waiting in patient faith, like another Ritter Toggenburg, with his eyes fixed upon the corner window; but of the lady I could see no sign. I was rather disappointed at first, as day after day went by and my young friend showed no disposition to break the silence in which he had chosen to wrap himself; for I had nothing to do in Venice, and I thought it would have been rather amusing to watch the progress of this incipient romance. By degrees, however, I ceased to trouble myself about it; and at the end of a fortnight I had other things to think of, in the shape of plans for the summer, my sister Anne having by that time satisfied herself that, all things considered, Titian's "Assumption" was a little too much for her. It was Captain Janovicz who informed me casually one evening that Von Rosenau was going away in a few days on leave, and that he would probably be absent for a considerable time.
"For my own part," remarked my informant, "I shall be surprised if we see him back in the regiment at all. He was only sent to us as a sort of punishment for having been a naughty boy, and I suppose now he will be forgiven, and restored to the hussars."
