of the fête is to be very important for me. I haven't yet decided that I want you involved, although—you're a dear. I believe—I believe—I think too much of you to get you into what may prove to be an awful mess. But the fact is that on the Saturday of the Fête of the Rendetori, when all of Venice will be on the Grand Canal, I'm going to get my casket.”
“Heavens! You don't mean it!” he exclaimed, and then, troubled, shook his head and remonstrated. “See here. I think you should not be too hasty about attempting anything rash. Can't I dissuade you from trying to go after that foolish malicious little box?”
She shook her head obstinately and the contour of her mouth that was customarily a tender and mobile arch, became set and firm. He read the danger signs and hastened to make his peace.
“Well, then, if you're intent on going after that fool thing I insist on being a fellow criminal. I don't care to—good Lord!—I don't care to have you take the risk of being shot at. You don't know what you are attempting,” he declared distractedly, recalling the unrelenting old guardian of the casket, the man whom she did not in the least surmise to be a kinsman of his own, his only one. Again she shook her head with that same air of determination.
Captain Jimmy, much distressed, looked away from her and upward as if seeking help or inspiration. They were standing at the head of the Merceria, that great Venetian shopping street and thoroughfare from St. Mark's to the Rialto, just within the shadow of the arch of the Clock Tower. He saw above him against the clear blue sky the whirling pigeons and then, closer at hand, the sculptured relief in perpetual memory of that harsh old woman who slew the chief conspirator of the plot against the Doge Gradenigo by hurling from the window above a marble mortar board, bringing horse and rider to the ground, and thus wrecking a great uprising. It seemed to him that this terrible old woman of the thirteenth century could have been no more desperately courageous and determinedly intent than this very modern girl here at his side. Argument was futile.
“Well,” he declared, “if there's anything doing in the burglary line on Saturday night it is I who must make the attempt. Not you! If I can't dissuade you, I insist that I'll do it myself. I can't let you take such a risk.”
His eyes came back from the marble woman above to the living one at his side and he surprised that in her lock which made him start; as if she had fathomed his great regard and glowed with appreciation and understanding. Standing there in the crowded thoroughfare, oblivious to the hurrying, jostling movement that surrounded them, forgetting all others, they were as isolated as if they had stood alone in a deserted street, and, confused at thus being caught unawares, she flushed and turned away with self-impatience.
“I'm not going to tell you any more about my plans—not now, at least,” she said. “Come on. I want to visit an artificial flower shop, and there's Pietro coming back to see what has detained us.”
“But what I said goes!” he muttered hurriedly. “Don't keep me out of your confidence.”
“I'll not, my friend,” she said, abruptly turning, looking up at him, and resting a hand for an instant on his coat sleeve.
“But you'll have to make it soon, won't you?” he insisted with equal haste as the obtrusive guide came toward them. “This is Thursday, remember, and Saturday comes quickly.”
“I thought I had lost you, signorina,” the musical but unwelcome young voice broke in upon them, and Jimmy could have turned and said things to Pietro that would have caused that patriot's hair to blanch. He looked his thought at the guide, perhaps, and encountered a scowl that was as harsh as his own. “Can't quite get him,” he thought to himself as they started onward in momentarily enforced single file through the narrow street. “To-night I'm going to try to learn why it is that he dislikes me. Hello! Who is that? Looks like that lean boob—what's this—his name is—Giuseppe! That's it, Giuseppe!”
The man who had so unexpectedly distracted his attention dodged into a doorway. Jimmy turned, shouldered his way through the crowd, and on the pretext of looking at a window filled with walking sticks stared inward. There could be no mistake. It was Giuseppe again. Giuseppe who always appeared wherever he went.
“I'll be hanged if it doesn't look as if—as if he might be following me,” Jimmy ruminated as he turned away to overtake
