This was followed by a common-sense
view of the whole situation. The mystery in it, after all, if there was
any mystery, was one of my own making. To ask a man who had been dining
with you to come to your lodging was neither a suspicious nor an unusual
thing. Besides, while he had been often brusque, and at times curt, he
had shown me nothing but kindness, and had tried only to please me.
"My mind was made up instantly. I determined to follow the affair to the
end.
"'Yes, I'll go,' and I pulled my umbrella into shape, opened it with a
flop, and stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the pelt of the
driving rain.
"We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the bridge by the side of the
Canal of San Vio as far as the Caffe Calcina, and then out on the
Zattero, which was being soused with the waves of the Giudecca breaking
over the coping of its pavement. Hugging the low wall of Clara
Montalba's garden, he keeping out of the wind as best he could, we
passed the church of San Rosario and stopped at the same low door
opening into the building next to Pietro's wine-shop--the one I had seen
him enter when I was painting.
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