“I hinted of the matter to your excellencies, as a consideration for your wisdom; methinks it will be something gained to remove one so dangerous from the recollection and from before the eyes of a love-sick maiden.”

“Is the damsel so amorous?”

“She is of Italy, Signore, and our sun bestows warm fancies and fervent minds.”

“Let her to the confessional and her prayers!  The godly prior of St. Mark will discipline her imagination till she shall conceit the Neapolitan a Moor and an infidel.  Just San Teodoro, forgive me!  But thou canst remember the time, my friends, when the penance of the church was not without service on thine own fickle tastes and truant practices.”

“The Signore Gradenigo was a gallant in his time,” observed the third, “as all well know who travelled in his company.  Thou wert much spoken of at Versailles and at Vienna; nay, thou canst not deny thy vogue to one who, if he hath no other merit, hath a memory.”

“I protest against these false recollections,” rejoined the accused, a withered smile lighting his faded countenance; “we have been young, Signori, but among us all, I never knew a Venetian of more general fashion and of better report, especially with the dames of France, than he who has just spoken.”

“Account it not—­account it not—­’twas the weakness of youth and the use of the times!—­I remember to have seen thee, Enrico, at Madrid, and a gayer or more accomplished gentleman was not known at the Spanish court.”

“Thy friendship blinded thee.  I was a boy and full of spirits; no more, I may assure thee.  Didst hear of my affair with the mousquetaire when at Paris?”

“Did I hear of the general war?  Thou art too modest to raise this doubt of a meeting that occupied the coteries for a month, as it had been a victory of the powers!  Signor Gradenigo, it was a pleasure to call him countryman at that time; for I do assure thee, a sprightlier or more gallant gentleman did not walk the terrace.”

“Thou tellest me of what my own eyes have been a witness.  Did I not arrive when men’s voices spoke of nothing else?  A beautiful court and a pleasant capital were those of France in our day, Signori.”

“None pleasanter or of greater freedom of intercourse.  St. Mark aid me with his prayers!  The many pleasant hours that I have passed between the Marais and the Chateau!  Didst ever meet La Comtesse de Mignon in the gardens?”

“Zitto, thou growest loquacious, caro; nay, she wanted not for grace and affability, that I will say.  In what a manner they played in the houses of resort at that time!”

“I know it to my cost.  Will you lend me your belief, dear friends?  I
arose from the table of La Belle Duchesse de------, the loser of a
thousand sequins, and to this hour it seemeth but a moment that I was
occupied.”

“I remember the evening.  Thou wert seated between the wife of the Spanish ambassador and a miladi of England.  Thou wert playing at rouge-et-noir in more ways than one; for thy eyes were on thy neighbors, instead of thy cards.  Giulio, I would have paid half the loss, to have read the next epistle of the worthy senator thy father!”