He spent the greater part of the afternoon at that business without, however, getting satisfaction. "Marriage in Italy," the consul told him, "is a sort of world-without-end affair. Even if you cable for the necessary papers it will be a matter of a month or six weeks before the ceremony could be accomplished. You'll do better to go to Switzerland with the young lady." For the present he went back to her with a list of the required certificates, and another item which he brought out later as a corrective for the disappointment for the first. "My birth and baptismal certificates? I haven't any," said Miss Dassonville, "and I don't believe you have either; and I don't want to go to Switzerland." "No," said Peter, "even that takes three weeks." "Why can't he marry us himself--the consul, I mean? I thought wherever the flag went up was territory of the United States." "If you will come along with me in the morning we can ask him," Peter suggested, and on the way there he loosed for her benefit the second item of his yesterday's discovery. They slid past the facade of a certain palace and she kissed the tip of her finger to it lightly. "It's as if we had a secret between us," she explained, "the secret of the garden. Besides, I shall always love it because it was there I first suspected that you--cared. When did you begin to care, Peter?" "Since before I can remember. Would you like to live in it?" "In this palace? Here in Venice?" "It's for rent," he told her; "the consul has it." "But could we afford it?" "Well," said Peter, "if you like it so much, at the rate things are here, we can pull it up by the roots and take it back to Bloombury." They lost themselves in absurd speculations as to the probable effect on the villagers of that, and so failed to take note as their gondola nosed into the green shadow under the consulate, of the _Merrythought's_ launch athwart the landing, until the captain himself hailed them. "This port," he declared, "is under embargo. I have been waiting here since half tide and there's nothing doing. Somebody's in there chewing red tape, but I don't calculate to let anybody else have a turn at it until I get my bit wound up an' tied in a knot. Now don't tell me you've got business in there?" "We want to find out something." "Well, when ye find it, it won't be what ye want," asserted the captain gloomily. "It never is in these Dago countries." He motioned his own boat aside from the landing. "If ye want to go inside and set on a chair," he suggested, "I'll not hender ye. I like the water best myself. I hope your business will stand waiting." "To everybody but ourselves," said Peter. "You see," he caught the permission lightly from Miss Dassonville's eyes, "we want to get married."