Venetian Masque

'True enough. He sent a couple of bully swordsmen after Melville some nights ago. Melville disposed of those. But he perceived that there would presently be others. He told me what had happened. It lay in my power to present him with a very effective shield. That's all. But you are oddly moved, my dear.'

'Why should you be concerned to employ that secret so as to shield an Englishman who has no official connection with you?'

'I am on my defence, it seems. Well, well. I am helpless in your hands. Shall I tell you a secret? Although Melville has no official connection with me at present, I have cultivated him because I have a notion that I may be able to make use of him one of these days. There are all sorts of ways of using a man without directly employing him.'

Here at last was a reasonable explanation. Her knowledge of Lallemant's methods made it convincing. But her scorn was oddly aroused. 'Do you know that sometimes you disgust me, Lallemant; you and this vile service of yours? You sit here in this office weaving webs like some fat obscene spider. Why must you want to enmesh a decent man like Mr. Melville in your slime?'

Lallemant laughed without a trace of irritation. 'What an interest, my dear, in this Mr. Melville! A moment ago you looked as if you could murder Vendramin. And now you look as if you could murder me. And all this fury because you conceive that we might injure the little Englishman. Take care, Anne! Beware the ardent temperament!'

'Don't be a beast, Lallemant.'

He merely laughed again, and sauntered back to his table. But the laugh wounded her.

'Don't be a beast, I say, and jump at the beastly conclusion that Mr. Melville is my lover. That's what you are hinting, I suppose.'

'But why beastly? Mr. Melville is entirely to be envied. God knows if I were ten years younger, my dear . . .'

'It would make no difference to you if you were twenty years younger. Let that assurance reconcile you to your age. You're a slug, Lallemant, a nasty-minded slug. And you're wasting time if you think that you will ever get Mr. Melville into your toils. You don't know the man.'

'You certainly seem to have the advantage of me there, spider and slug that I am.' His mockery so infuriated her that it brought her to her feet.

'Yes, I have. I know him for a man of honour; courteous, kind, considerate, and brave. I take pride in numbering him among my friends. And God knows I haven't many. He's not like the others, who pursue me because I am a woman, who turn my stomach with their gallantries and nauseate me with their calculated flattery. Because I pass for a widow without a man to protect me, they regard me as something to be hunted and trapped by their sickly seductive arts. Mr. Melville is the one man in Venice who has sought my society and at the same time deserved my respect; because he has refrained from making love to me.'

'Thereby, as I perceive, exciting your interest all the more violently. It's the subtler method.'

She looked at him without affection. 'Your mind is a cess-pool, Lallemant. I am wasting my time on you. I talk of things you can't understand.'

'At least be grateful to me for the service I have done your Galahad.'

'I'll be grateful when you complete it by ridding me of this pig Vendramin.'

He abandoned his gross jocularity. 'That will follow soon, child. A little more patience. It shall be well rewarded. You know that. You've never found us stingy.'

But she was still angry with him when she departed.

CHAPTER XXII ARCOLA AND RIVOLI

Warned by Marc-Antoine of the present French attitude towards armed neutrality and of the pretext it might provide for a declaration of war, Count Pizzamano bestirred himself with the energy of despair. As a result there was an assembly a week later in Lodovico Manin's study in the Casa Pesaro. Seven alarmed gentlemen came there to consider with the Doge the situation in which the Serenissima found herself and the measures to be taken. There was Francesco Pesaro, the leading advocate of action; Giovanni Balbo and Marco Barbara, members of the Council of Ten, the State Inquisitor Catarin Corner, and Giacomo Nani, the Proveditor of the Lagoons. To these, who were to form his deputation, the Count had added Leonardo Vendramin, as the leader of the Barnabotti.

These were bad days for Vendramin. He moved precariously, and haunted by dangers; the danger of losing Isotta and the great fortune that went with her; the danger of losing his very life on a false charge at the hands of the inquisitors of state.

The scoundrel Melville held poised over his head a sword from which he was helpless to guard himself. The rage engendered by his bitter sense of wrong was held in check by fear alone.

Meanwhile, he did what he could for himself by displaying to Count Pizzamano more than ever his patriotic zeal, and he came to this meeting at Manin's house to give the Count's demand a passionate support.

This demand was for an offensive and defensive alliance with Austria.