. It is lucky for me that he is not two or three years older."

Maria laughed.

"I do care for him dearly; and if he had been, as you say, older and
had fallen in love with me, I can't say how it would have been. You
must acknowledge, it would be very hard to say no to a man who keeps on
saving you from frightful peril; but then, you see, a girl can't fall
in love with a man who does not fall in love with her.

"Francisco is so different from us Venetians. He always says just what
he thinks, and never pays anyone even the least bit of a compliment.
How can you fall in love with a man like that? Of course you can love
him like a brother--and I do love Francisco as if he were my
brother--but I don't think we should have got further than that, if he
had been ever so old."

"And does Francis never pay you compliments, Giulia?"

"Never!" Giulia said decidedly. "It would be hateful of him if he did."

"But Maria doesn't object to compliments, Giulia. She looks for them as
if they were her daily bread--

"Don't you, Maria--

"You will have to learn to put up with them soon, Giulia, for you will
be out in society now, and the young men will crowd round your chair,
just as they have done round that of this little flirt, your sister."

"I shall have to put up with it, I suppose," Giulia said quietly, "just
as one puts up with other annoyances. But I should certainly never get
to care for anyone who thinks so little of me, as to believe that I
could be pleased by being addressed in such terms."

"From which I gather," Giustiniani said, smiling, "that this English
lad's bluntness of speech pleases you more than it does Maria?"

"It pleases Maria, too," Giulia said, "though she may choose to say
that it doesn't. And I don't think it quite right to discuss him at
all, when we all owe him as much as we do."

Giustiniani glanced at Maria and gave a little significant nod.

"I do not think Giulia regards Francisco in quite the brotherly way
that you do, Maria," he whispered presently to her.

"Perhaps not," Maria answered. "You see, she had not fallen in love
with you before she met him. But I do not know. Giulia seldom speaks of
him when we are alone, and if she did, you don't suppose I should tell
you my sister's secrets, sir?"

The day after his conversation with Francis, Polani handed him his
nomination as second in command of the Pluto, which he had obtained
that morning from the seignory.

"You will be glad to h