“Nay, for the colors have a meaning; methinks this yellow is their sacred color.  But the texts are fine; the broken lines of the characters have a charm, and the scrolls relieve the surface, making semblance of shadow.  Yet I will make thee a prettier one for thine own chamber, with some thought of thy choosing.”

She looked up at him with shining eyes; their trouble, combated and borne together, had brought them very near to one another.

“I have often wished for a lamp with the colors soft like moonlight; and the design shall be of thine own hand, and the verse upon it shall be an ave, and in it there shall be always a light.  It shall be a prayer for the little one!” she said in quick response.  “The Senate wished thee to make a lamp of this design?  I have seen none like it.”

“Nay, not one; there will be nine hundred, for the decoration of a mosque,” and Girolamo’s eyes sparkled with triumph.  “It is not that it is difficult,” he explained, for Marina’s eyes wandered from her father’s face to the design with some astonishment.  “It is even simple for us.  But when the Levant sends to Venice for these sacred lamps for her own temples it is her acknowledgment that we have surpassed our teachers.  It is a glory for us!”

“Father, I thought the glass of Venice was even all our own!” Marina exclaimed in a tone of disappointment.  “I knew not that our art had come from the East to us.  Some say that it was born here.”

“Ay, some; but thou shouldst know the story of thy Venice better, my daughter,” Girolamo answered gravely, for to him every detail connected with his art was of vital import.  “There may be some who say this, but not thou.  In the time of Orseolo the mosaics were brought from the Levant for our old San Marco.  Thus came the knowledge to us in those early days.  But now there is no longer any country that shares it equally with Venice, for elsewhere they know not the art in its fineness.  These, when they are finished, shall be sent as a gift from the Republic; it is so written in this order from the Senate.”

“When came it to thee?”

“To-day, with much ceremony, it was delivered into mine own hand by one of the Secretaries of the Ten.  For, see’st thou, Marina, it is a mark of rare favor that they have trusted this parchment with me, and have not brought me into their presence to make copy of it in the palace.  If thou couldst lend me thy deft fingers——­”

“Surely,” she answered, smiling up at him.

He was standing over her with one hand on her shoulder; he rested the other lightly on her hair, looking down into her eyes for a moment with a caress still and tender, after his own grave fashion.  “It will be safer so,” he said, folding the parchment and the letters carefully and locking them away in his cabinet.  “And to-morrow, Marina—­for they have granted me but one day.”