The players withdrew into the adjoining rooms, among them the much-envied couple.

Claudia threw herself upon a couch; Ulrich left her to procure a gondola.

As soon as he was gone, she was surrounded by a motley throng of suitors.

How the beautiful woman’s dark eyes sparkled, how the gems on her full neck and dazzling arms glittered, how readily she uttered a witty repartee to each gay sally.

“Claudia unaccompanied!” cried a young noble.  “The strangest sight at this remarkable carnival!”

“I am fasting,” she answered gaily; “and now that I long for meagre food, you come!  What a lucky chance!”

“Heavy Grimani has also become a very light man, with your assistance.”

“That’s why he flew away.  Suppose you follow him?”

“Gladly, gladly, if you will accompany me.”

“Excuse me to-day; there comes my knight.”

Ulrich had remained absent a long time, but Claudia had not noticed it.  Now he bowed to the gentlemen, offered her his arm, and as they descended the staircase, whispered:  “The mask who escorted you just now detained me;—­and there . . . see, they are picking him up down there in the court-yard.—­He attacked me. . . .”

“You have—­you. . . .”

“’They came to his assistance immediately.  He barred my way with his unsheathed blade.”

Claudia hastily drew her hand from the artist’s arm, exclaiming in a low, anxious tone:  “Go, go, unhappy man, whoever you may be!  It was Luigi Grimani; it was a Grimani!  You are lost, if they find you.  Go, if you love your life, go at once!”

So ended the Shrove-Tuesday, which had begun so gloriously for the young artist.  Titian’s “well done” no longer sounded cheerfully in his ears, the “go, go,” of the venal woman echoed all the more loudly.

De Soto was waiting for him, to repeat to him the high praise he had heard bestowed upon his art-test at Titian’s; but Ulrich heard nothing, for he gave the secretary no time to speak, and the latter could only echo the beautiful Claudia’s “go, go!” and then smooth the way for his flight.

When the morning of Ash-Wednesday dawned cool and misty, Venice lay behind the young artist.  Unpursued, but without finding rest or satisfaction, he went to Parma, Bologna, Pisa, Florence.

Grimani’s death burdened his conscience but lightly.  Duelling was a battle in miniature, to kill one’s foe no crime, but a victory.  Far different anxieties tortured him.

Venice, whither the “word” had led him, from which he had hoped and expected everything, was lost to him, and with it Titian’s favor and Cagliari’s instruction.

He began to doubt himself, his future, the sublime word and its magic spell.  The greater the works which the traveller’s eyes beheld, the more insignificant he felt, the more pitiful his own powers, his own skill appeared.