Yes, he thought. Please and please again.
She said nothing, and neither did he, and when the great bird had flown far out of the closed window of the gondola, and was lost and gone, neither of them said anything. He held her head lightly with his good arm and the other arm held the high ground now.
“Please put it where it should be,” she said. “Your hand.”
“Should we?”
“No. Just hold me tight and try to love me true.”
“I love you true,” he said, and just then the gondola turned to the left, quite sharply, and the wind was on his right cheek, and he said, with his old eyes catching the outline of the Palace where they turned, and noting it, “You’re in the lee now, Daughter.”
“But it is too soon now. Don’t you know how a woman feels?”
“No. Only what you tell me.”
“Thank you for the you. But don’t you really know?”
“No. I never asked, I guess.”
“Guess now,” she said. “And please wait until after we have gone under the second bridge.”
“Take a glass of this,” the Colonel said, reaching accurately and well for the champagne bucket with the ice, and uncorking the bottle the Gran Maestro had uncorked, and then placed a common wine cork in.
“This is good for you, Daughter. It is good for all the ills that all of us have, and for all sadness and indecision.”
“I have none of those,” she said, speaking grammatically as her governess had taught her. “I am just a woman, or a girl,
