“Mother,” said Marcantonio, sternly, “charge me with no unknightly deed!  To love Marina is to love a woman nobler than any of thy maidens; thou knowest her not.  I would bring her to thee to win thee, but she will not come.  It is thou, she saith, who must send her sign of favor.”

“I fear me it must be long in going, my Marco; yet I love thee well.  How should I send my favor to a daughter of the people!”

“Those are the words of Marina Magagnati.”

“She is wise then; she will help thee to forget.”

“The vow of a Giustinian is never broken; that hast thou taught me, my mother, from the legends of our house.  This sword, upon which I have sworn it, I lay at thy feet.  Bid me raise it in token of thy favor and of thine aid in this one thing which I ask of thee.”

They stood looking into each other’s faces, her pride melting under the glow of the beautiful new strength in the face of the son whom she had thought so yielding; yet it was she who had striven to teach him knightliness.

She hesitated,—­“If I cannot aid thee, what wilt thou do?”

“I must wait and suffer,” he said; “for Marina will not yield.”

“It is new for a maiden of the people to know such pride,” she answered, scornfully.

“It is because none are like her, and her soul is beautiful as her face!  My mother, there are none prouder in all this palace; the little Contessa Beata is a contadina beside her!  Yet, it is not pride, I think, but love and care for my happiness,” he added, grown suddenly bold.  “She will not come to bring me sorrow; and she hath said that my duty being to Venice, she can wed me only with the consent of our house.  And Messer Magagnati——­”

“There is a father, then, who would treat with thee?”

“Mother—­use not that tone; thou dost not understand!  Ask the Veronese.  Messer Magagnati knows not of this; for so tenderly doth his daughter care for him that, to save him pain of knowing that she suffers for lack of thy welcome, she hath not told him.  Shall the Veronese plead with thee better than thine own son?  For he knoweth the maiden well; and the father, who is most honorably reported in Venice for the wonder of his discoveries in his industry of glass.  He is of the people—­of the ’original citizens’—­for of the days before the serrata[1] hath his family records; but he might well be of the Signoria, so grave he is and full of dignity.  And his name is old—­Mother!”

  [1] An important constitutional act, limiting the aristocracy to those
  families who had at that period, sat in the Council; always referred
  to as an era in Venetian history.

“Nay, Marco, lift thy sword; how should it lie there for lack of thy mother’s favor?  I will not have thee suffer, if I can give thee aid.  But one may suffer in other ways—­quite other—­which thou hast no knowledge of, for to thee there seemeth to be, in all the world, nothing worthy but this wish of thine!  But it is no promise; one must ponder in so great a matter, my boy!”