Dora had arrived at the palazzo while yet the morning was young and dewy, and, leaving word that she had come, passed through the white shady courtyard of the house and down the long alleys of the garden to look out on the lagoon from the far end of it. The tide was high and the cool water shimmered over the flats that an hour or two ago were still exposed and lay in expanse of glistening ooze, or green with fields of brilliant seaweeds. But the red-sailed fishing boats had to pass between the rows of _pali_ that marked the channels, and a little company of them were even now going seaward. The wind blew gently from the north, tempering the heat, and to the north were visible the remote summits of snow-clad Alps. Just opposite were the orange walls and black cypresses of San Michele, but in the gaiety of the gay day even those associations were gladdened. It was good to be anything in Venice, even to be dead, and resting there in sound of the whispering lagoon.
Then came the interruption she had waited for: her name was jovially called, and down the pergola of vines which led to the grille, between the clumps of syringa and riot of rambler, came Mr. Osborne.
He had left England with the intention of roughing it and enjoying the experience, and was clad in the way that had seemed to him appropriate. He wore a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, below which his short fat calves looked like turned oak posts clad in thick worsted and set in strong brown boots. On his head he wore a felt hat with a puggaree attached to it, and round his shoulders was a strap that carried a large binocular glass. In a word, he appeared like a man deerstalking in the tropics. Like this he was equal to any foreigneering vicissitudes and provided against all accidents that might happen in a town where, instead of walking from one place to another, you went in a black sort of punt with a strange battleaxe at the prow.
“Well, dearie, and here we are,” he said, “and pleased we are to be here, I do assure you. Passed a comfortable night, too, and so I warrant you has Mrs. O., for she was asleep still when I came downstairs. But, my dear, they’ve got but a paltry notion of furnishing these rooms. We had supper last night when we got in, in a great room as big as the hall at Grote, and nothing there but a table and a few chairs and some painted canvas on the walls, and on the floor a rug or two as you could scarcely get both feet upon. However, we were hungry, and the food was good enough. Macaroni they gave us, and a bit of veal and some cheese and strawberries. And this seems a pretty bit of garden, where Mrs. O. can sit and be cool if she finds the heat oppressive. And it’s good to see you, my dear, and blooming you look.”