," she had said, with gentle dignity; "but thou wilt best know how to
choose the elegance befitting Marco's home; for my father hath warned me
that in these matters there is a custom which I, more than others, may
not break. Dear Lady Laura, for Marco's sake forget that I am of the
people, yet, remembering it, to choose but so much of splendor as
seemeth needful, lest the palazzo be too costly for a mistress not noble
by birth, and so"--she hesitated--"and so win Marco's friends to love me
less."

"Marina, Marco hath told me, with a very lover's face, that some are
noble by birth who are not so by name."

"Dear Lady," the girl answered, with a charming flush, "had Marco not so
plead with me there could have been no question of this home."

The eyes of the great lady beamed with a new and tender pride; in
nothing that her boy had ever done for her had he offered her so much as
in this love of his which had threatened to part them, but had stirred
instead the mother depths of her soul, which had become clouded by years
of luxury and artificial life and the knowledge of the ceaseless
ambitions and selfish scheming which her husband--for the intellectual
stimulus she gave him--had been accustomed to confide to her. And now
Marco was not less to her, but more, as he had promised; and if the
uncertain hope of that dim, distant, ducal coronet moved her less, it
was not that she would not still do her possible to help Giustinian to
his ambition--but it had become a smaller peak in the distance since the
home life had grown broad enough to bear her calmly when the proud
Senator rehearsed some failure or disappointment, with disproportioned
bitterness.

Thinking of these things she smiled at Marina with new appreciation; the
girl's gentle face seemed to her more lovely and her rare calm and grace
of spirit more truly noble than the Venetian vivacity of charm in which
at first she had found her lacking.

"Thou hast a way of winning," she said, "which many might envy thee; and
in seeming not to ask, thou shalt be served for love. It is the grace of
one born to rule. But hast thou _no_ wish? Is there no one place I may
make all beautiful at thine asking, within thy palace, to prove, sweet
Marina, how thy Marco's mother loves thee?"

She parted her soft hair and kissed her forehead, but neither of them
noticed that it was a first caress.

"I should like the oratory to be beautiful!" Marina cried, clasping her
hands with sudde