evening rendered tempting, and whence the sounds which penetrated to the listeners were, of course, yet more faint and intermittent. The stream of Mrs Mowbray's complaint, beginning after a time to run thin, Lady Frances proposed to follow them, and accordingly moved across the room for that purpose.
The balcony, like many in Venice, was partly covered in on one side, and a large red sofa had been placed at this end. It was rather dark, and the entrance to it narrow, so that the approach of the two ladies was at first unperceived by those without. The Colonel was luxuriously established nearly at full length upon the sofa, a cigarette between his lips, his magnificent auburn beard, barely touched with grey, spread out in wide luxuriance over his shirt-front, his face beaming with good-humour and amusement. Madame Facchino, perched upon the cushioned ledge of the balustrade, with a yellow scarf, twisted as a precautionary measure around her tousled locks, was singing a French song with a marvellous rattle and roulade of the words over her tongue, now and then bringing down her hands – thumbs, fingers, backs, fronts, it seemed indifferent which – and producing a wild not always perfectly harmonious twang out of the instrument, her white teeth gleaming, her small green eyes twinkling in emphatic appreciation of her own strains. There was another cigarette, also alight, laid in suggestive proximity to her left elbow.
Mrs John Mowbray stopped short upon the threshold and gazed at the scene before her, and then at her hostess with open-eyed dismay. She had heard of such doings before, her looks seemed to say, and had even read of them in books, but never, never, had she expected to have them brought under her own eyes! Her French was not of sufficiently modernised a type for her to follow the words of the song, fortunately perhaps; but the general import and drift was sufficiently evident, and she turned away, speechless, appalled.
"Upon Sunday, too! Oh, I fear, I fear that they have forgotten what the day is, Frances!" she said in a tone of shocked and awed hostility.
Lady Frances blushed as if she too had been accused of Sabbath-breaking. To tell the truth, she had partly forgotten herself what the day was, in spite of having been to church, which some people think is chiefly useful as a remembrance of that fact. As to the singing of secular songs, and the smoking of many cigarettes, those were Venetian institutions, which, puritanically inclined as she was herself, she had long learnt to look upon as so much a matter of course, Sundays or week-days, as the eating of one's dinner. She did, after a while, summon her brother, and set him to explain to Mrs Mowbray how she was to get to Trieste, and what particularly she was to see when she got there; but that matter settled, she allowed him to slip away again to his balcony, his cigarette, and his song. She had been used to act as breakwater between him and the bores of life for so long that it seemed only natural that she should continue to do so to the end of the chapter.
A few days later she called upon Mrs Markham at her hotel, according to her promise; but that lady was out, so that the visit only resulted in the leaving of cards. About a week after, however, the visit was returned, and on this occasion the two ladies met.
Lady Frances was sitting in her
