battled the ground over and over again, nothing comforted him save the
thought that, bad as it was to have spoken to Miss Vervain, it must
have been infinitely worse to speak to her mother.




VIII.


It was late before Ferris forgot his chagrin in sleep, and when he woke
the next morning, the sun was making the solid green blinds at his
window odorous of their native pine woods with its heat, and thrusting
a golden spear at the heart of Don Ippolito's effigy where he had left
it on the easel.

Marina brought a letter with his coffee. The letter was from Mrs.
Vervain, and it entreated him to come to lunch at twelve, and then join
them on an excursion, of which they had all often talked, up the Canal
of the Brenta. "Don Ippolito has got his permission--think of his not
being able to go to the mainland without the Patriarch's leave! and can
go with us to-day. So I try to make this hasty arrangement. You
_must_ come--it all depends upon you."

"Yes, so it seems," groaned the painter, and went.

In the garden he found Don Ippolito and Florida, at the fountain where
he had himself parted with her the evening before; and he observed with
a guilty relief that Don Ippolito was talking to her in the happy
unconsciousness habitual with him.