“I know why you laugh.”

“No, my Princess.  Impossible.”

“Mais oui.  Tell me.  All these great princes”—­she swept her little gloved hand toward the frieze.  “What is their common factor?”

Paul, forgetful of his mirth, looked round. “’Indomitable will,” said be seriously.  “Unconquerable ambition, illimitable faith.  They all seem to be saying their creed.  ’I believe in myself almighty, and in Venice under my control, and in God who made us both, and in the inferiority of the remnant of the habitable globe.’  Or else:  ’In the beginning God created Venice.  Then He created the rest of the world.  Then He created Me.  Then He retired and left me to deal with the situation.’  Or else:  ’I am an earthly Trinity.  I am myself.  I am Venice.  I am God.’”

“It is magnificent!” she cried.  “How you understand them!  How you understand the true aristocratic spirit!  They are all, what you call, leaders of men.  I did not expect an analysis so swift and so true.  But, Paul”—­her voice sank adorably—­“all these men lack something—­something that you have.  And that is why I thought you laughed.”

He smiled down on her.  “Do you think I was measuring myself with these men?”

“Naturally.  Why should you not?” she asked proudly.

“And what have I got that they lack?”

“Happiness,” said the Princess.

Paul was silent for a while, as they moved slowly away to the balcony which overlooks the lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore glowing warm in the sunshine, and then he said:  “Yet most of those men loved passionately in their time, and were loved by beautiful women.”

“Their love was a thing of the passions, not of the spirit.  You cannot see a woman, that is to say happiness, behind any of their faces.”

He whispered:  “Can you see a woman behind mine.”

“If you look like that,” she replied, with a contented little laugh, “the whole world can see it.”  And so their talk drifted far away from Doges, just as their souls were drifting far from the Golden Calf of the Frank and Loyal Friendship which Sophie the Princess had set up.

How could they help it—­and in Venice of all places in the world?  If she had determined on maintaining the friendship calm and austere, why in Minerva’s name had she bidden him hither?  Sophie Zobraska passed for a woman of sense.  None knew better than she the perils of moonlit canals and the sensuous splash of water against a gondola, and the sad and dreamy beauty which sets the lonely heart aching for love.  Why had she done it?  Some such questions must Mademoiselle de Cressy have asked, for the Princess told him that Stephanie had lectured her severely for going about so much in public alone with a beau jeune homme.

“But we don’t always want Stephanie with us,” she argued, “and she is not sympathetic in Venice.  She likes restaurants and people.  Besides, she is always with her friends at Danielli’s, so if it weren’t for you I should be doing nothing all by myself in the lonely palazzo.  Forcement we go about together.”