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"Ah, I recall now the face of your lady, though I have not known her," the friar responded courteously, yet he hesitated a moment before accepting the seat which the secretary rose to offer him. "If it is the face which the Veronese hath painted, her spirit must be fair. It should make a home holy," he added, after a moment's pause. Marcantonio's face flushed with pleasure.
But the bridal must be soon, to make this endless talking cease. And before we leave her for she will learn to love me, Marco mio, and she will not take thee from me? I will give her the token that is fitting for a daughter of our house." Among the members of the Senate, meeting by twos and threes in the Broglio, Marcantonio's name was often heard.
The torch-bearers flashed their lights over it, and the squires of the household pressed forward to admire it, but Giustinian cut short the enthusiastic chorus of the young men-at-arms and Marcantonio's eager words of appreciation, crossing the sombre hall with stately steps; for to his mind this important day held many ceremonies yet unfulfilled, and the pomp with which he chose to surround them was not a circumstance to be dilated on.
He called forth his family, and they came trooping through the doorway an old man, two old women, a middle-aged matron whom I took for Marcantonio's wife, three stalwart girls, a stunted lad of about fourteen and four smaller and very dirty children.
There was no banquet hall in the palazzo Marcantonio Giustiniani, but it was not needed, for the two palaces were like one. The Lady Laura was radiant. If there had ever been a question of the place that Marcantonio's bride should occupy in that patrician circle, the distinction conferred upon her by the Senate had sufficed to establish it.
But his father, apparently unaware of Marcantonio's turbulent sensations, wore his usual reserved and dignified mien; even the motion he had seemed to make before the columns in the Piazzetta was probably only due to Marcantonio's imagination, and the young fellow's light rejoinder passed unuttered, intensifying his discomfort.
"The introduction of our Reverend Father Paolo had preceded her," the young secretary answered lightly, bowing in the direction of the friar, who sat apparently lost in thought. But Morosini repeated Marcantonio's speech with some amusement, for the scholarly friar had never been known to have a friend among the women old or young.
Among the maidens who should grace the banquet to be given on Marcantonio's birthnight, more than one had sat for hours in some high balcony of her palace, preparing for Venetian belle-ship with a patience worthy of a better cause her long locks, mysteriously treated, streaming over the broad brim of the great, crownless hat which protected her fair face, while the sun bestowed its last touch of beauty in bleaching the dark tresses to that rich, red, burnished gold which the Venetians prized.
There was an icy inflection in the tones which sent a chill to Marcantonio's heart as he listened. One of the Chiefs of the Ten was always a member of the still more dreaded Inquisition, whose identity was never known, and the passionless voice held a hint of indisputable authority was his suffering wife to rely upon the mercy of the most puissant member of this terrible commission!
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