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aren’t easy to love.”
    “But I am, I am,” Flora said passionately.
    Lavinia found her both unlikable and comic. She had the pathos of the very young and intense. She was going to be hurt too often if she lived with such intensity. The sneaking thought came that that was something Lavinia could help her avoid. I could speak from experience, she thought wryly.
    “I think your Papa loves you very much.”
    “Yes, now he does because he feels he was partly to blame for my accident. He wasn’t to blame, of course. I was showing off. I always have had to, because Papa loved Simon and Mamma loved Edward. I was just in the middle, and only a girl.”
    Lavinia willed herself not to have her sympathies touched. What was the use? She would never see Flora again.
    “Who is Simon?”
    “My elder brother. He’s thirteen, and he’s at school. He’s Papa’s favorite.”
    “I think you talk too much about favorites,” Lavinia said. “Well, what are we going to do this morning? Feed the pigeons, then have an ice, then walk all the way down the Merceria to the Rialto bridge and come back by gondola? That way, we’ll pass those wonderful old palaces.”
    “Great-aunt Tameson lives in one of them,” Flora said. “She’s a contessa.” The information was flung out before she added, her face sparkling, “That sounds like a wonderful morning, Miss Hurst. Much much better than Eliza would have given me. I wish you could be with me always.”
    “That’s nonsense. You didn’t set eyes on me until yesterday and then you despised me for being a servant.”
    “No, no, I didn’t despise you. I only thought it a pity. So did Papa.”
    Lavinia’s voice was careful. “Did he say so?”
    “He said you looked much more suitable to be sitting listening to the opera than looking after a detestable cousin.”
    Cousin Marion was right again. She must subdue her looks and her high spirits.
    “Then perhaps I’m not suitable to be pushing one young woman about Venice in a wheelchair.”
    “Oh, you are, Miss Hurst, you silly. Look, I have some money to buy grain for the pigeons.”
    Flora was too observant. She noticed Lavinia’s silences, and the way her eyes dwelt lovingly on the dazzling scene. Later, as they walked slowly down the narrow winding street that led to the Rialto, she kept pausing to look at unexpected views, the little humped bridges over sluggish backwaters, the flowers—morning glory and geraniums and nasturtiums—cascading from window boxes, lacy iron balconies, dark windows from which who knew what face peered, patches of sunlight as yellow as mimosa.
    “Why are you sad, Miss Hurst?” she asked.
    “Do I seem sad?”
    “You look as if you’re seeing all this for the last time—as if you might be going to die.”
    In a strange way the beauty here was mixed with death. There was a chilly smell of decay in the old walls and the dark green water of the canals. Flora was too perceptive.
    “Well, one can’t stay here forever,” she said cheerfully. England, without Robin, without a reputation, without money, would be a kind of death—how did Flora know?
    Flora, indeed, had divined something else. She was gazing at Lavinia with her intense tawny eyes.
    “Your cousin found out about the earrings!”
    “Yes, I’m afraid she did. I wasn’t going to tell you.”
    “Did she scold you dreadfully?”
    “She wasn’t pleased. As a matter of fact, we have decided to part. I am going back to England, perhaps tomorrow.”
    “Miss Hurst, you can’t!”
    Lavinia laughed a little at Flora’s dismay.
    “Why not?”
    “Because I’m enjoying your friendship. You can’t leave until we do, and that won’t be for at least another week. Miss Hurst, do stay.”
    “I don’t think that’s possible, you silly child.”
    “Aren’t you enjoying being with me?”
    “A certain amount, yes.”
    “You don’t want to go, do you? It’s not as though you have Winterwood to go back to. What do you have to go back