Ought Mr. Ashe to have left her,
and left her apparently in anger? No doubt he thought her much better.
But Margaret remembered the worst days of her illness, the anxious looks
of the doctors, and the anguish that Kitty had suffered in the first
weeks after her child's death. She seemed now, indeed, to have forgotten
little Harry, so far as outward expression went; but who could tell what
was passing in her strange, unstable mind? And it often seemed to
Margaret that the signs of the past summer were stamped on her
indelibly, for those who had eyes to see.
Was it the perception of this pity beside her that drove Kitty to
solitude and flight? At any rate, she said after luncheon that she would
go to Madame d'Estrees, and did not ask Miss French to accompany her.
She set out accordingly with the two gondoliers. But she had hardly
passed the Accademia before she bid her men take a cross-cut to the
Giudecca. On these wide waters, with their fresher air and fuller
sunshine, a certain physical comfort seemed to breathe upon her.
"Piero, it is not rough! Can we go to the Lido?" she asked the gondolier
behind her.
Piero, who was all smiles and complaisance, as well he might be with a
lady who scattered
lire as freely as Kitty did, turned the boat at
once for that channel "Del Orfano" where the bones of the vanquished
dead lie deep amid the ooze.
Pages:
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581