The two strangely associated companions, having reached one extremity of the square, were now standing before the church of St. Mark.
The moonlight was bright enough to show the architecture of the grand cathedral in its wonderful variety of detail.
Even the pigeons of St. Mark were visible, in dark closely packed rows, roosting in the archways of the great entrance doors.
'I never saw the old church look so beautiful by moonlight,' the Countess said quietly; speaking, not to Francis, but to herself.
'Good-bye, St. Mark's by moonlight! I shall not see you again.'
She turned away from the church, and saw Francis listening to her with wondering looks. 'No,' she resumed, placidly picking up the lost thread of the conversation, 'I don't know why Miss Lockwood is coming here, I only know that we are to meet in Venice.'
'By previous appointment?'
'By Destiny,' she answered, with her head on her breast, and her eyes on the ground. Francis burst out laughing. 'Or, if you like it better,' she instantly resumed, 'by what fools call Chance.'
Francis answered easily, out of the depths of his strong common sense.
'Chance seems to be taking a queer way of bringing the meeting about,' he said. 'We have all arranged to meet at the Palace Hotel.
How is it that your name is not on the Visitors' List? Destiny ought to have brought you to the Palace Hotel too.'
She abruptly pulled down her veil. 'Destiny may do that yet!' she said.
'The Palace Hotel?' she repeated, speaking once more to herself.
'The old hell, transformed into the new purgatory. The place itself!
Jesu Maria! the place itself!' She paused and laid her hand on her companion's arm. 'Perhaps Miss Lockwood is not going there with the rest of you?' she burst out with sudden eagerness. 'Are you positively sure she will be at the hotel?'
'Positively! Haven't I told you that Miss Lockwood travels with Lord and Lady Montbarry? and don't you know that she is a member of the family?
You will have to move, Countess, to our hotel.'
She was perfectly impenetrable to the bantering tone in which he spoke.
'Yes,' she said faintly, 'I shall have to move to your hotel.'
Her hand was still on his arm--he could feel her shivering from head to foot while she spoke. Heartily as he disliked and distrusted her, the common instinct of humanity obliged him to ask if she felt cold.
'Yes,' she said. 'Cold and faint.'
'Cold and faint, Countess, on such a night as this?'
'The night has nothing to do with it, Mr. Westwick. How do you suppose the criminal feels on the scaffold, while the hangman is putting the rope around his neck? Cold and faint, too, I should think.
Excuse my grim fancy. You see, Destiny has got the rope round my neck--and I feel it.'
She looked about her. They were at that moment close to the famous cafe known as 'Florian's.' 'Take me in there,' she said;'I must have something to revive me. You had better not hesitate.
You are interested in reviving me. I have not said what I wanted to say to you yet. It's business, and it's connected with your theatre.'
Wondering inwardly what she could possibly want with his theatre, Francis reluctantly yielded to the necessities of the situation, and took her into the cafe. He found a quiet corner in which they could take their places without attracting notice. 'What will you have?' he inquired resignedly. She gave her own orders to the waiter, without troubling him to speak for her.
'Maraschino. And a pot of tea.'
The waiter stared; Francis stared. The tea was a novelty (in connection with maraschino) to both of them. Careless whether she surprised them or not, she instructed the waiter, when her directions had been complied with, to pour a large wine-glass-full of the liqueur into a tumbler, and to fill it up from the teapot.
'I can't do it for myself,' she remarked, 'my hand trembles so.'
She drank the strange mixture eagerly, hot as it was. 'Maraschino punch--will you taste some of it?' she said. 'I inherit the discovery of this drink. When your English Queen Caroline was on the Continent, my mother was attached to her Court. That much injured Royal Person invented, in her happier hours, maraschino punch.
Fondly attached to her gracious mistress, my mother shared her tastes.
And I, in my turn, learnt from my mother. Now, Mr. Westwick, suppose I tell you what my business is. You are manager of a theatre.
Do you want a new play?'
'I always want a new play--provided it's a good one.'
'And you pay, if it's a good one?'
'I pay liberally--in my own interests.'
'If I write the play, will you read it?'
Francis hesitated. 'What has put writing a play into your head?' he asked.
