“That—­that’s very pretty,” said the Princess in French.  “I love much your Shakespeare.”

Whereupon Paul recognized her admission of the correctness of his conjecture; and so, with the precious vision they had borrowed, they went about tourist-wise to familiar churches and palaces, and everything they saw was lit with exceeding loveliness.  And they saw the great pictures of the world, and Paul, with his expert knowledge, pointed out beauties she had not dreamed of hitherto, and told her tales of the painters and discoursed picturesquely on Venetian history, and she marvelled at his insight and learning and thought him the most wonderful man that had ever dropped, ready-made, from heaven.  And he, in the flush of his new love, was thrilled by her touch and the low tones of her voice when she plucked him by the sleeve and murmured:  “Ah, Paul, regardez-moi ca.  It is so beautiful one wants to weep with joy.”

They spoke now half in French, half in English, and she no longer protested against his murderous accent, which, however, lie strove to improve.  Love must have lent its precious hearing too, for she vowed she loved to hear him speak her language.

In the great Council Chamber of the Ducal Palace they looked at the seventy-six portraits of the illustrious succession of Doges—­with the one tragic vacant space, the missing portrait of Marino Faliero, the Rienzi of Venice, the man before his time.

“It seizes one’s heart, doesn’t it?” said the Princess, with her impulsive touch on his sleeve.  “All these men were kings—­ sovereigns of a mighty nation.  And how like they are to one another—­in this essential quality one would say they were brothers of a great family.”

“Why, yes,” he cried, scanning the rows of severe and subtle faces.  “It’s true.  Illuminatingly true.”

He slid up his wrist quickly so that his hand met hers; he held it.  “How swift your perception is!  And what is that quality—­that quality common to them all—­that quality of leadership?  Let us try to find it.”

Unconsciously he gripped her hand, and she returned his pressure; and they stood, as chance willed it, alone, free from circumambulant tourists, in the vast chamber, vivid with Paul Veronese’s colour on wall and ceilings, with Tintoretto and Bassano’ with the arrogant splendour of the battles and the pomp and circumstance of victorious armies of the proud and conquering republic, and their eyes were drawn from all this painted and riotous wonder by the long arresting frieze of portraits of serene, masterful and subtle faces.

“The common factor—­that’s what we want, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

And as they stood, hand in hand, the unspoken thought vibrating between them, the memory came to him of a day long ago when he had stood with another woman—­a girl then—­before the photographs in the window of the London Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, and he had scanned faces of successful men.  He laughed—­he could not help it—­and drew his Princess closer to him.  Between the analogous then and the wonderful now, how immense a difference!  As he laughed she looked swiftly up into his face.