own laws and uphold our prince!"

"Giustinian, there is more to it than that."

"Ay, there _is_ more, if it setteth the women up to preach to us and to
expound the laws of the Republic--a knowledge in which I knew not that
they held the mastery! Take not the tone of Marina, who hath come near
to killing herself and making half a fool of Marcantonio."

"Nay, Marco is true to Venice and swerveth not. And for our
daughter--she hath suffered till it breaks my heart to look into her
face, poor child! And thou, Giustinian, wert little like thyself, when
she lay almost dying! The Signor Nani hath confessed to me that in Rome
there was much intriguing for her favor--of which she suspected naught.
It was a harm to them that they went to Rome; I would not have had it
so."

"Ay, thou would'st not have had it so; thou would'st have had it all
thine own way!" retorted Giustinian, who was becoming impossible to
please, now that the paths of government were growing more thorny and
exacting, and the Lion showed no sign of climbing to his portal. "That
father confessor of hers hath much to answer for. Keep the little one
well out of the way of their craft--dost thou hear? He is to be trained
for Venice, after the ways of the Ca' Giustiniani. And Marcantonio--who
knows?"

He had drifted into his favorite reverie, and wandered abstractedly out
upon the balcony looking longingly toward the rose-colored palace where
his every ambition centred; but he felt the glittering, jeweled eyes of
the patron saint of Venice glare upon him mockingly from his vantage
point upon the column, while the very twist of the out-thrust tongue
insinuated a personal message of malice and defeat.

XXVIII

Venice was flooded with moonlight. The long line of palaces down the
Canal Grande shone back from the breast of the water, starred with
lights, repeated again and again in the rippling surface.

A ceaseless melody filled the air, braided of sounds familiar only to
this magic city--echoes of laughter from balconies high in air, silvery
tintinnabulations falling like drippings of water from speeding oars,
franker bursts of merriment from the open windows of the palaces, low
murmured tones of lovers in content from gliding gondolas, hoarse shouts
of quick imperious orders from gondoliers to offending gondoliers, as
they passed--apostrophes to liquid names of guardian saints, too
melodious for denunciations, hurled back with triple expletives and
forgot