Mrs. Merrithew did like the gondola; she liked everything:--the spacious dark, the scudding forms like frightened swans, the sound of singing on the water, the soft bulks of foliage that overhung them in the narrow _calle_, the soundless hatchet-faced prows that rounded on them from behind dim palaces; and she liked the gondola so much that she asked Peter "right out" what it cost him. "We would have taken one ourselves," she explained without waiting, "only we didn't feel able to afford it. Fifty francs a week they wanted to charge us, but maybe that was because we were Americans; they think Americans can do everything over here. But I suppose you get yours cheap at the hotel?" "Oh, much cheaper." "How much?" "Forty francs," hazarded Peter. "I'm sure I could get you one for that. Unless ... if you don't mind...." He made what he hadn't done yet under any circumstances, a case out of his broken health to explain how by not getting up very early and by taking some prescribed exercise, Giuseppe and the gondola had to lie unused half the mornings, which was very bad for them.... "So," he persuaded them, "if you would be satisfied with it for half a day, I would be very much obliged to you if you would take it ... share and share alike." There was as much hesitation in Peter's speech as if it had really been the favour he seemed to make it, though in fact it grew out of his attempt to fashion his offer by what he saw in the dusk of Miss Dassonville's face. "In the evenings," he finished, "we could take it turn about. There are a great many evenings when I don't go out at all." "Me, too," consented Mrs. Merrithew cheerfully. "I get tired easy, but you and Savilla could go." The proposal appealed to her as neighbourly, and it was quite in keeping with the character of a successful business man, as he was projected on the understanding of Bloombury, to wish not to keep paying for a thing of which he had no use. "I think we might as well close with it at once, don't you, Savilla?" "If you are sure it's only forty francs----" Miss Dassonville was doubtful. "Quite sure," Peter was very prompt. "You see they keep them so constantly employed at the hotel"--which seemed satisfactorily to make way for the arrangement that the gondola was to call for the two ladies the next morning. "Giuseppe," Weatheral demanded as he stepped out of the gondola at the hotel landing, "how much do I pay you?" "Sixty francs, _Signore_." Peter had no doubt the extra ten was divided between his own man and the gondolier, but he was not thinking of that. "I have a very short memory," he said, "and I have told the _Signora_ and the _Signorina_ forty francs. If they ask you, you are to tell them forty francs; and listen, Beppe, every franc over that you tell them, I shall deduct from your _pourboire_ when I leave, do you understand?" "_Si, Signore_." VIII