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just in time to catch sight of a female head, which was thrust out through the open window for an instant, and then withdrawn with great celerity.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.