Venetian Masque

Standing close behind and immediately over her, Vendramin fell appreciatively to considering the rich mass of her dark hair. A faint elusive fragrance that arose from it had the effect of quickening his perception of her other charms. With the eye of an experienced dilettante, he passed on to appraise the lovely column of the neck and the smooth shoulders, whiter than the foam of lace from which they emerged. He became aware of advantages other than those of wealth and position to be derived from making her his wife. By contrast with a beauty so regal, the porcelain daintiness of the Vicomtesse de Saulx became trivial and commonplace.

His day-dream was disturbed when Isotta paused, waiting for him to turn the sheet of music. Leaning forward to do so, his eyes strayed to the fan which she had placed on top of the harpsichord. He had seen it many times in her hand, or hanging from her girdle; but he had never before had this opportunity of considering the beauty of its workmanship. Its shafts were of gold in the lower half and very delicately carved, presumably by Chinese hands, into the semblance of a dragon. There were little emeralds in the tail and little rubies in the nostrils. But the dragon's eye was missing; the disproportionately large eye-socket was empty.

Idly he picked up the fan, and turned it over in his hand. The design on the other side was the same and identically jewelled; but here the eye was present, a grotesquely bulging cabochon sapphire.

He turned the fan over again, and perspiration broke out in his palm.

He had a sudden vision of a lady surprised in Mr. Melville's arms, and then of that same lady scurrying masked from Mr. Melville's lodging. The vision was conjured by the dragon's missing eye. Just such a cabochon sapphire was in his malicious possession, and at need, to convict her, he could fit it to this empty socket.

Whilst her skilled, graceful fingers drew Paisiello's melodies from the harpsichord, he stood immediately behind her with hell raging in his soul. The eyes that so lately had grown soft and tender as he regarded her burned now with hate. In this delicately fashioned lady, so cold and virginal and aloof, they contemplated a consummate hypocrite, a wanton. And he, poor fool, for all his vaunted experience of her sex, had been so easily deluded by her false, prudish airs.

He was the more enraged because he perceived at once, despite the disturbance in his mind, that he could not call her to account for her wantonness without irrevocably wrecking all those worldly prospects which were already in jeopardy. He was being grossly abused and swindled. She would accept him for her husband so that his support might be given to the cause the Pizzamano had at heart. But the false jade, with her airs of dignity and her nunlike reserves, cheated him in advance by taking a lover.

Small wonder that he had sensed the existence of intelligences between Mr. Melville and this wanton, this cold piece who could never suffer to be left alone for a moment with her future husband lest the proprieties should be outraged. He saw this imposture, and must submit to it, pretending not to see it. It was an intolerable situation to a man of feeling.

But if he dared not denounce it, at least he could in part avenge it upon Mr. Melville. That would be something towards restoring his self-respect. And not only would it set a term to the dishonour he was suffering, it would remove that other danger he had been apprehending. In this perception he so far recovered his equanimity as to be able to dissemble his black thoughts.

He found his opportunity two days later at the Casino del Leone, where, as if to supply him with yet another grievance, he came upon Mr. Melville in the company of the Vicomtesse.

Vendramin came accompanied by a young gentleman named Nani—a nephew of the Proveditor of the Lagoons—and he thrust his way without ceremony into the little group of which Marc-Antoine formed part. From this group one or two fell away immediately on his approach. Vendramin's was not a company that was ardently sought by all Venetian gentlemen. Young Balbi and Major Andrea Sanfermo, between whom and Marc-Antoine a certain friendliness, if not actual friendship, had been growing in these last few months, remained, but with assumptions of aloofness.

Vendramin flung a hearty greeting to them all, and stooped to kiss the hand of the seated Vicomtesse.

As he straightened himself, his smiling eyes met those of Marc-Antoine.

'Ah, Monsieur l'Anglais! You, too, are here. Still lingering in Venice. You threaten to become permanently domiciled.'

'The enchantment of Venice is an abundant justification. But I don't like "threaten." I am not a menace, Ser Leonardo.'

'Not a serious one. No,' said Vendramin, in a tone that set them staring. 'And I can understand that these our enchantments should lay a potent spell upon one accustomed to a barbarous northern country.'