“I am not qualmish,” answered Venier languidly, “yet it sickens me to think of the life Jacopo means to lead.  I am sorry for the glass-maker’s daughter.”

Foscari laughed carelessly.  The idea that a woman should be looked upon as anything more than a slave or an object of prey had never occurred to him.  But Venier did not smile.

“Since we speak of glass-makers,” he said, “Jacopo is doing his best to get that unlucky Dalmatian imprisoned and banished.  Old Beroviero came to see me this morning and told me a long story about it, which I cannot possibly remember; but it seems to me—­you understand!”

He spoke in low tones, for the Merceria was crowded.  Foscari, who was one of those who took most seriously the ceremonial of the secret society, while not caring a straw for its political side, looked very grave.

“It is of no use to say that the poor fellow is only a glass-blower,” Venier continued.  “There are men besides patricians in the world, and good men, too.  I mean to tell Contarini what I think of it to-night.”

“I will, too,” said Foscari at once.

“And I intend to use all the influence my family has, to obtain a fair hearing for the Dalmatian.  I hope you will help me.  Amongst us we can reach every one of the Council of Ten, except old Contarini, who has the soul of a school-master and the intelligence of a crab.  If I did not like the fellow, I suppose I should let him be hanged several times rather than take so much trouble.  Sins of omission are my strongest point.  I have always surprised my confessor at Easter by the extraordinary number of things I have left undone.”

“I daresay,” laughed Foscari, “but I remember that you were not too lazy to save me from drowning when I fell into the Grand Canal in carnival.”

“I forgot that the water was so cold,” said Venier.  “If I had guessed how chilly it was, I should certainly not have pulled you out.  There is old Hossein at his window.  Let us go in and drink sherbet.”

“We shall find Mocenigo and Loredan there,” answered Foscari.  “They shall promise to help the glass-blower, too.”

They nodded to the Persian merchant, who saluted them by extending his hand towards the ground as if to take up dust, and then bringing it to his forehead.  He was very fat, and his pear-shaped face might have been carved out of white cheese.  The two young men went in by a small door at the side of the window-counter and disappeared into the interior.  At the back of the shop there was a private room with a latticed window that looked out upon a narrow canal.  It was one of many places where the young Venetians met in the afternoon to play at dice undisturbed, on pretence of examining Hossein’s splendid carpets and Oriental silks.  Moreover Hossein’s wife, always invisible but ever near, had a marvellous gift for making fruit sherbets, cooled with the snow that was brought down daily from the mountains on the mainland in dripping bales covered with straw matting.