Thereupon my heart seemed to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed
through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while.
I managed at last to stammer forth some words of awkward congratulation,
and he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission to bring his
bride to see me on the morrow as they returned from church.
'For', said he, 'my Angela has known you very long--ever since she was a
child, and she has often spoken to me of the poor Englishman who was a
good Catholic, and who lay all day long for years and years on a sofa at
a window, and she had said over and over again how dearly she wished she
could speak to him and comfort him; and one day, when you threw a flower
into the canal, she asked me whether she might throw another, and I told
her yes, for he would understand that it meant sympathy for one sorely
afflicted.'
And so I learned that it was pity, and not love, except indeed such love
as is akin to pity, that prompted her to interest herself in my welfare,
and there was an end of it all.
For the two flowers that I thought were on one stem were two flowers
tied together (but I could not tell that), and they were meant to
indicate that she and the gondolier were affianced lovers, and my
expressed pleasure at this symbol delighted her, for she took it to
mean that I rejoiced in her happiness.
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