When we had pored over Baedeker in Queen Anne's Gate, we had planned a score of excursions to neighbouring places--to Verona and Treviso, even to Bergamo; but Venice was too much for us. We had no such energy. Life was too sweet for sight-seeing, and we said, "If we make an expedition, let it be to-morrow and not to-day," and loafed and loafed. One afternoon we had a very unexpected meeting. Naomi and I were in the last room in the Accademia, where Bellini's Madonna of the Two Trees hangs; and who should be already there studying the little gay series of allegories but Mr. Dabney of _The Balance_? He looked up with a face radiant with pleasure--not a trace for the moment of his usual critical discontent. "At last!" he said. "Then you have been expecting to find us?" I asked. "I have been to all the hotels," he replied, "and no one had ever heard of you. I found I could snatch a fortnight, and I came right out at once." From that time Mr. Dabney was constantly near us or with us, and was good company in the mass, but I found him no particular addition on such rambles as Naomi and I had been accustomed to take together. He had, however, not been in Venice before, and we, with our brief familiarity with it, being in the very agreeable position of comparatively oldest inhabitants, found a certain pleasure in showing him the sights. In France he would have been, I think, a sad bore, for there he would have discovered so many points of superiority to the English: but not even so keen a censor of his own country and countrymen as Mr. Dabney could find aught in Venice, except such forgivable and inimitable advantages as crumbling and picturesque architecture and clear skies, to hold up as a model for home adoption. And so, although a few walks with Naomi were ruined, I did not think hardly of Mr. Dabney or suspect danger, until one evening, after he had returned to the city in the last steamer, Drusilla remarked that he was evidently hard hit. "What do you mean?" I asked. "By Naomi," she answered; and straightway the soft languorous moon left the sky and the delicate stars were blotted out.... Of course.... Why had I been so blind? Returning to the hotel, I said good-night to the others, and again walked out. I sat on the quay and looked over towards the mainland, and realised, as one can realise only on very beautiful nights, how empty life is if it holds not one's desire. What was my desire? Did I want Naomi? I had never put the question to myself in so many words; I hardly put it now. But I knew, as I had known when Miss Gold made that remark about Trist and Naomi just before we came away, that I did not want any one else to want her. Eternal dog in the eternal manger, that will not claim for itself, and equally dislikes others to claim!