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The menials lingered around the water-gate of Donna Violetta's palace with distrustful but cautious faces, scarce whispering among themselves their secret suspicions of the fate of their mistress. The residence of the Signor Gradenigo presented its usual gloomy magnificence, while the abode of Don Camillo Monforte betrayed no sign of the heavy disappointment which its master had sustained.
"To think," she said, "that by a mere accident you and Donna Sabina should meet here, the descendants of two of the oldest families of the Italian aristocracy!" "I am a republican," observed Malipieri quietly. "You!" cried the Baroness in amazement. "You, the offspring of such races as the Malipieri and the Gradenigo a republican, a socialist, an anarchist!"
"This bearing is suited to the sex of Don Camillo, dearest, but it ill becometh thee. A maiden of high quality must await the decision of her natural guardians." "But should that choice be Giacomo Gradenigo?" "The Senate will not hear of it. The arts of his father have long been known to thee; and thou must have seen, by the secresy of his own advances, that he distrusts their decision.
The reader will have gained some insight into the character of the individual who was the chief actor in the foregoing scenes. The Signor Gradenigo was born with all the sympathies and natural kindliness of other men, but accident, and an education which had received a strong bias from the institutions of the self-styled Republic, had made him the creature of a conventional policy.
"I would not be trafficked for, Don Camillo Monforte, but wooed and won as befitteth a maiden of my condition. They may still leave me liberty of choice. The Signor Gradenigo hath much encouraged me of late with this hope, when speaking of the establishment suited to my years." "Believe him not; a colder heart, a spirit more removed from charity, exists not in Venice.
"They might have a better sun and a clearer sky, but there is excellent cheer, and no want of hospitality," observed the Signor Gradenigo, who maintained his full share of the dialogue, though we have not found it necessary to separate sentiments that were so common among the different speakers.
"Thou art a persuasive advocate, and I will think of what thou urgest," said the Signor Gradenigo, changing the frown which had been gathering about his brow, to a look of indulgence, with a facility that betrayed much practice in adapting the expression of his features to his policy.
"The monastic life is ill suited to the temper of my ward," the Signor Gradenigo drily observed, "and I fear to hazard the experiment; gold is a key to unlock the strongest cell; besides, we cannot, with due observance of propriety, place a child of the state in durance."
"I know thee not!" exclaimed the Doge, with an open amazement that proved his sincerity, after regarding the other earnestly for a moment. "Thy reasons for the disguise should be better than thy reasons for refusing the prize." The Signor Gradenigo drew near to the sovereign, and whispered in his ear.
"What kind of man is he?" the Princess repeated, "I suppose he is a Venetian, a son of the man who married the Gradenigo heiress, about the time when I was married myself. Is he the man who discovered Troy?" "Carthage, I think," said Sabina. "Troy, Carthage, America, it is all the same. He discovered something, and I fancy he will be rich. But what is he like?
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