In a few minutes maid and luggage were
installed in a big black gondola, oared by two men standing up, and the
brown boat, with the two lads in white and the veiled woman, glided out
on the calm water.
The day was a grey dream, mystical in its colourless silence. Blue Italy
was shrouded as the woman's face was shrouded. The speechlessness of
Nature environed her speechlessness. She was an enigma set in an enigma,
and the two rowers looked at her and at the sunless sky, and bent to
their oars gravely. A melancholy stole into their sensitive dark faces.
This new /padrona/ had already cast a shadow upon their buoyant
temperaments.
She noticed it and clasped her hands together in her lap. She was not
accustomed yet to her new /role/ in life.
The boat stole on. Como was left behind. The thickly-wooded shores of the
lake, dotted with many villas, the tall green mountains covered with
chestnut trees, framed the long, winding riband of water which was the
way to Casa Felice. There were not many other boats out. The steamer had
already started for Bellagio, and was far away near the point where Torno
nestles around its sheltered harbour. The black gondola was quickly left
behind. Its load of luggage weighed it down. The brown boat was alone in
the grey dream of the sunless autumn day.
Behind her veil Lady Holme was watching the two Italian boys, whose lithe
bodies bent to their oars, whose dark eyes were often turned upon her
with a staring scrutiny, with the morose and almost violent expression
that is the child of frustrated curiosity.
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