“But do you really prefer the Gritti?”
“I do. Because it is a lovely restaurant and it is where you live and anyone can look at us that wants to.”
“When did you get like that?”
“I have always been like that. I have never cared what anyone thought, ever. Nor have I ever done anything that I was ashamed of except tell lies when I was a little girl and be unkind to people.”
“I wish we could be married and have five sons,” the Colonel said.
“So do I,” the girl said. “And send them to the five corners of the world.”
“Are there five corners to the world?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It sounded as though there were when I said it. And now we are having fun again, aren’t we?”
“Yes, Daughter,” the Colonel said.
“Say it again. Just as you said it.”
“Yes, Daughter.”
“Oh,” she said. “People must be very complicated. Please may I take your hand?”
“It’s so damned ugly and I dislike looking at it.”
“You don’t know about your hand.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he said. “I’d say you were wrong, Daughter.”
“Maybe I am wrong. But we’re having fun again and whatever the bad thing was is gone now.”
“It’s gone the way the mist is burned off the hollows in broken ground when the sun comes out,” the Colonel said. “And you’re the sun.”
“I want to be the moon, too.”
“You are,” the Colonel told her. “Also any particular planet that you wish to be and I will give you an accurate location of the planet. Christ, Daughter, you can be a God-damn constellation if you like. Only that’s an airplane.”
“I’ll be the moon. She has many troubles too.”
“Yes. Her sorrows come regularly. But she always fills before she wanes.”
“She looks so sad to me sometimes across the Canal that I cannot stand it.”
“She’s been around a long time,” the Colonel said.
“Do you think we should have one more Montgomery?” the girl asked and the Colonel noticed that the British were gone.
He had been noticing nothing but her lovely face. I’ll get killed sometime that way, he thought. On the other hand it is a form of concentration, I suppose. But it is damned careless.
“Yes,” he said. “Why not?”
“They make me feel very good,” the girl said. “They have a certain effect on me, too, the way Cipriani makes them.”
“Cipriani is very intelligent.”
“He’s more than that. He’s able.”
“Some day he’ll own all Venice.”
“Not quite all,” the Colonel disagreed. “He’ll never own you.”
“No,” she said. “Nor will anyone else unless you want me.”
“I want you Daughter. But I don’t want to own you.”
“I know it,” the girl said. “And that’s one more reason why I love you.”
“Let’s get Ettore and have him call up your house. You can tell them about the portrait.”
“You are quite correct. If you want the portrait tonight, I must speak to the butler to have it wrapped and sent. I will also ask to speak to Mummy and tell her where we are dining and, if you like, I will ask her permission.”
“No,” the Colonel said. “Ettore, two Montgomerys, super Montgomerys, with garlic olives, not the big ones, and please call the home of this lady and let her know when you have completed the communication. And all of this as rapidly as possible.”
“Yes, my Colonel.”
“Now, Daughter, let us resume the having of the fun.”
“It was resumed when you spoke,” she said.
CHAPTER X
THEY were walking, now, along the right side of the street that led to the Gritti. The wind was at their backs and it blew the girl’s hair forward. The wind parted her hair in the back and blew it forward about her face. They were looking in the shop windows and the girl stopped in front of the lighted window of a jewelry shop.
There were many good pieces of old jewelry in the window and they stood and looked at them and pointed out the best ones to each other, unclasping their hands to do so.