"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it."
He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair.
"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted.
"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a gallery _with you_ before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison."
"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, "particularly after last night, when you were so very--amusing." She hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the adjective that ought to have closed the sentence.
"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel unawares."
"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she retorted, getting rather provoked.
"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now--here." And he settled himself deeper into the pile of cushions.
We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in such a hopeless cause again.
I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he wished us _buon viaggio_. When we reached the top, we made out his figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's."
He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one word. "Yes, I know--it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week _en penitence_, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water."