Rufino Giustiniani had indeed been most warm in his expressions of gratitude to Francis, to whom the whole family had shown the greatest attention, giving him many presents as a proof of their goodwill and gratitude.

“I am quite jealous of your English friend,” Rufino had said one day to Maria.  “I do believe, Maria, that you care for him more than you do for me.  It is lucky for me that he is not two or three years older.”

Maria laughed.

“I do care for him dearly; and if he had been, as you say, older and had fallen in love with me, I can’t say how it would have been.  You must acknowledge, it would be very hard to say no to a man who keeps on saving you from frightful peril; but then, you see, a girl can’t fall in love with a man who does not fall in love with her.

“Francisco is so different from us Venetians.  He always says just what he thinks, and never pays anyone even the least bit of a compliment.  How can you fall in love with a man like that?  Of course you can love him like a brother—­and I do love Francisco as if he were my brother—­but I don’t think we should have got further than that, if he had been ever so old.”

“And does Francis never pay you compliments, Giulia?”

“Never!” Giulia said decidedly.  “It would be hateful of him if he did.”

“But Maria doesn’t object to compliments, Giulia.  She looks for them as if they were her daily bread—­

“Don’t you, Maria—­

“You will have to learn to put up with them soon, Giulia, for you will be out in society now, and the young men will crowd round your chair, just as they have done round that of this little flirt, your sister.”

“I shall have to put up with it, I suppose,” Giulia said quietly, “just as one puts up with other annoyances.  But I should certainly never get to care for anyone who thinks so little of me, as to believe that I could be pleased by being addressed in such terms.”

“From which I gather,” Giustiniani said, smiling, “that this English lad’s bluntness of speech pleases you more than it does Maria?”

“It pleases Maria, too,” Giulia said, “though she may choose to say that it doesn’t.  And I don’t think it quite right to discuss him at all, when we all owe him as much as we do.”

Giustiniani glanced at Maria and gave a little significant nod.

“I do not think Giulia regards Francisco in quite the brotherly way that you do, Maria,” he whispered presently to her.

“Perhaps not,” Maria answered.  “You see, she had not fallen in love with you before she met him.  But I do not know.  Giulia seldom speaks of him when we are alone, and if she did, you don’t suppose I should tell you my sister’s secrets, sir?”

The day after his conversation with Francis, Polani handed him his nomination as second in command of the Pluto, which he had obtained that morning from the seignory.

“You will be glad to hear that it is in this ship that Matteo also sails,” for Matteo had come home for his brother’s wedding.