“And the others?”

“Is there more than one treatment for a traitor?” Giustinian exclaimed, with increasing temper.  “And for the ambassador—­it hath already been courteously signified to him that the air of Venice agreeth not well with one of his devotional tendencies.”

“Tell me the name of the traitor,” the Lady Laura urged, coming close and laying her hand upon his shoulder.

“Nay,” said her husband, shaking off her touch impatiently, “my anger doth unlock my speech to a point I had not dreamed, for the matter may be held before the Inquisition!  But it is a name unknown to thee, and new to this dignity, which he weareth like a clown!  The freedom is still too great for this entry to the Senate; the serrata hath done its work too lightly if it leave space for one parvenu!  To-morrow, when thou takest the air in thy gondola, my Lady Laura, thou shalt look between the columns of the Ducal Palace and know whatever the State will declare to thee of that which concerneth the government alone!  The times are perilous.”

“They will be better when the interdict is removed——­”

“Ay—­no—­one knows not; it is a matter too grave for women and too little for the Republic to grieve about.  His Holiness would have us on our knees, weeping like naughty infants, and abjectly craving his pardon for daring to make our 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.