"Oh, thank you," replied Irma, wishing she felt free to tell Katie what she had heard about Marion's offer. "Thank you," she repeated. "It would break my little sister's heart to give him up, and I should feel very badly myself."
At this moment they reached a bridge where they went single file. When they were on the level road again, Irma found herself beside Aunt Caroline, and she had no chance to discuss Nap either with Katie or Marion.
"Our last evening together!" exclaimed Richard, as they reached the hotel. "There's a faint moon, and if so young a thing as that can sit up late, why not we?" and before Aunt Caroline and Mrs. Sanford had time to protest, four young people were seated around the little table on the balcony overlooking the Canal, and Richard had sent the waiter for what he called "a last lemonade."
Marion had not joined the others. He stood with his hand on the railing. The water was lapping the steps just below him.
"Don't fall in," cried Richard, from his seat at the table. "You look as if you were meditating a bath. But it's late, and in spite of the moon the water is cold."
As Richard spoke the girls turned their heads in Marion's direction, and there, under their very eyes, Marion was hurling his coat from him. With his hand on the railing a moment later he had sprung into the Grand Canal.
The others jumped to their feet; Katie screamed, and in an instant Richard might have plunged after Marion, had he not seen a reason for Marion's act. Some one had fallen into the water, and Marion had made his wild leap to rescue him. It all happened very quickly, and when, a few minutes later, rescuer and rescued stood on the balcony some distance from where Marion had gone in, the latter was seen to be a boy of about ten. He was evidently more frightened than hurt, and he whimpered a little as the crowd gathered around him.
"I don't see how it could have happened," cried Katie. "No one _ever_ falls from a gondola," and her tone implied that this particular boy could not possibly have been in need of rescuing.
"But he _did_ fall in; you can see that for yourself; a small boy can always get into impossible mischief."
There was certainly no doubt that this particular small boy had managed to elude both his mother and the gondolier. Sitting on the prow, he had been screened for the moment by the cabin. Then a sudden impulse had led him to creep to the very end, where he raised himself to shake his hand in defiance at the gondolier. At this moment a passing steamboat gave a new motion to the gondola and threw the little fellow into the water.