"Oh--six o’clock, perhaps." "Then I shall be awfully sleepy. I never wake up till eight o’clock and even then it’s not properly waking up." "Well, then, you’ll put your head on my shoulder and you’ll go to sleep. It’s a wonderful place to sleep in, is a gondola. We’ll go away down towards Lido and you can go to sleep." "But the gondolier?" "Oh"--he laughed gently. "The hood’s up--he stands behind the hood. He can’t see. And if he can, what does that matter? He understands. A gondolier is not a London cabby. He plies that oar of his mechanically. He’s probably dreaming, too, miles away from us. There are some places in the world where it is natural for a man to love a woman, where it isn’t a spectacle, as it is here, exciting sordid curiosity, and Venice is one of them. Well, then, you’ll go to sleep, with your head on my shoulder. And when we’re coming back again, I shall wake you up--how shall I wake you?" He leant over her. Her eyes were in Venice already. Her head was on his shoulder. She was asleep. How should he wake her? He bent still lower, till his face touched hers. "I shall kiss you," he whispered--"I shall kiss your eyes, and they’ll open." And he kissed her eyes--and they closed. "We’ll go back to breakfast, then," he went on, scarcely noticing how subtly the tense had changed since he had begun. "What do you think you’d like for breakfast?" "Oh--anything--it doesn’t matter much what one eats, does it?" "Then we’ll eat anything," he smiled--"whatever they give us. But we shall be hungry, you know. We shall be awfully hungry." "Well," said Jill under her breath--"I’m sure they’ll give us enough. And what do we do then?" "After breakfast?" "Yes." "Well--I finish just one moment before you do, and then I get up, pretending that I’m going to the window." She looked up surprised. "Pretending? What for?" "Because I want to get behind your chair." "But why?" "Because I want to put my arms round your neck and kiss you again." He showed her how. He showed her what he meant. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes once more. "When, without complaint, you take whatever is given you, that’s the only grace for such a meal as that. Well--when we’ve said grace--then out we go again." "In the garden?" "Yes--to the Palazzo Capello in the Rio Marin." "That’s where your people live?" "Yes. Well, perhaps, we take them out, or we go and sit in the garden. I expect father will want us to go and sit in the garden and see the things he’s planted; and mother of course’ll consent, though she’ll be longing to go out to the Piazza San Marco and look at the lace in the shops under the Arcade." "Well, then, I’ll go out with her----" said Jill. "If you go, I go," said John. She laughed, and forced him to a compromise. He would stay in the garden for half an hour; it need not be more.