'What have you said to her?' Vendramin was angrily demanding.
Marc-Antoine raised his eyebrows. 'Said to her? Said to her?'
'I demand to know.'
Domenico thrust between them.
'Are you mad, Leonardo?'
Before this need to be collected, Isotta rose. 'You make me ashamed. It is only that I am not so well. I will go now, mother.'
Vendramin moved towards her in concern.
'Dear child ...'
But the Countess gently waved him back. 'Not now,' she begged.
Mother and daughter departed, and the Count, protesting that here was a deal of turmoil because a girl was feeling indisposed, drew Vendramin back to the cool of the loggia, leaving the other two to follow.
But Domenico detained Marc-Antoine. His manner was hesitant.
'Marc, my friend, are you not being imprudent? You don't misunderstand me? You know that if I could change the course of things I would not spare myself.'
Marc-Antoine was short. 'I will study to be prudent, Domenico.'
'You see,' the young soldier continued, 'there is Isotta to consider. Already her fate is hard enough.'
'Ha! You perceive that, do you?'
'Can you suppose that I am blind: that I don't see, that I don't feel—for both of you?'
'Leave me out of account. If you feel so much for Isotta, why do you do nothing?'
'What is there to be done? You see how my father fawns upon him tonight now that he has given proof of his power. That is the expression of my father's love for Venice. Against that selfless passion of patriotism, to which he will sacrifice everything that he possesses, don't you see that it is idle to contend? We must bow, Marc.' He pressed his friend's arm.
'Oh, I am bowing. But whilst I bow, I watch.'
'For what?'
'For a gift from the gods.'
Domenico still detained him. 'They tell me you are a deal together: you and Vendramin.'
'That is by his seeking.'
'As I supposed.' Domenico was scornful. 'To Vendramin all travelling Englishmen are wealthy. Has he borrowed money from you yet?'
'How well you know him,' said Marc-Antoine.
CHAPTER XII
THE VICOMTESSE
Battista, the landlord of the Inn of the Swords, had procured a valet for Mr. Melville: a Frenchman named Philibert, who was an excellent hairdresser.
This Philibert, a plump, soft-voiced, soft-footed man of forty, had dressed for years the hair of the Duc de Ligniáres. But the guillotine having taken off the Duke's head, Philibert found himself out of work, and since other aristocratic heads in France seemed equally impermanent, Philibert, following the example of his betters, had emigrated from a republic in which the National Barber left hairdressers without employment.
Marc-Antoine, who was fastidious about the appearance of his glossy black mane, thanked God for it, and took the soft-voiced man into his service.
Philibert was at his duties on the head of his new master; to be particular, he was in the act of shaving him. Upon the intimate operation, Messer Vendramin, very brave in lilac taffeta, intruded. He strolled in familiarly, swinging a gold-headed cane, and found himself a chair by the dressing-table, whence he faced the lathered Mr. Melville.
He entertained the supposed Englishman with small talk and little anecdotes, mostly scandalous and sometimes salacious, of which invariably he was the hero. The presence of Philibert set no restraints upon him. Ser Leonardo made it appear that in Venice reticence was little practised. Besides, he was of those for whom kissing would lose half its delights if there were no telling.
Mr. Melville, wishing him at the devil, let him chatter, and grew somnolent.
'I shall take you today,' Vendramin announced, 'to one of the most elegant and exclusive casinos in Venice: that of the exquisite Isabella Teotochi. You'll have heard of her?'
Mr. Melville had not. The Venetian prattled on.
'I take you there at the request of a very entrancing lady who has remarked you, and desires your acquaintance: a very dear and charming friend of mine, the Vicomtesse de Saulx.'
Razor in hand, Philibert leapt back with a cry of dismay. 'Ah, Dieu de Dieu!' His voice was soft no longer. 'Not in twenty years has such a thing happened to me. Never shall I forgive myself, monsieur. Never!'
A crimson stain suffusing the lather on Mr. Melville's cheek explained the valet's anguish.
Vendramin was pouring abuse upon the luckless Frenchman. 'Clumsy, maladroit lout! You should be caned for that, by God! What the devil are you? A valet or a butcher?'
Mr. Melville was languid, yet with a hint of sternness. He waved Ser Leonardo into silence.
'If you please, sir! If you please.' He took a corner of the towel, and dabbed the gash. 'It's not a question of whether you can forgive yourself, Philibert; but whether you can forgive me for having spoilt the record of your twenty years. The fault was mine, my friend. I was drowsing, and I started under your hand.'
'Oh, monsieur! Oh, monsieur!' Philibert's tone expressed the inexpressible.
Vendramin was sneering. 'I vow to Heaven you English are incomprehensible.'
Philibert was bustling feverishly; finding a fresh towel; mixing something in a basin. 'I have water here that will staunch a cut almost at once, monsieur. By the time I have dressed your hair the bleeding will have ceased.'
He approached to minister. 'You are very good, sir,' he said, and the gratitude in his tone was touching.
Mr. Melville's next words announced that the subject was closed.
'You were speaking, Ser Leonardo, of a lady, I think; of a lady to whom you are to present me. You named her; did you not?'
'Ah, yes. The Vicomtesse de Saulx. You will be glad to meet her.'
'I can think of no one who would interest me more,' said Mr. Melville in a tone that sharpened Vendramin's glance.
'You will have heard of her?'
'The name is extraordinarily familiar.'
'She is an èmigrèe. The widow of the Vicomte de Saulx who was guillotined in the Terror.'
So that was it! Beyond a doubt this would be the Vicomtesse described by Lallemant as of Lebel's creation. That, in itself, went far to explain the title Lebel had chosen for her. Considering that dead scoundrel's connection with Saulx, it would, of course, be the first to occur to him. Of the danger attached to meeting her in his present circumstances, Marc-Antoine could only judge when he had met her. And since, in any case, it would be his duty to denounce her for a spy, she would not remain a danger to him long.
They came to the casino of Isabella Teotochi, the famous and beautiful Greek prècieuse, who, separated from her first husband, Carlo Marin, was now being ardently wooed by the patrician Albrizzi. This private casino, conducted for her by a French director, bore no resemblance to the Casino del Leone. There was no gaming here. Its rooms were devoted to intellectual reunions. It was a temple of arts and letters, in which La Teotochi was the high priestess; in which the compositions of the day supplied the topics of conversation; and in which the advanced ideas of life imported from France were given a free flight. So much was this the case that already the British and Russian ambassadors, looking upon these assemblies as hot-beds of Jacobinism, were urging the inquisitors of state to give attention to them.
In Marc-Antoine the lovely Teotochi could discern no claim to her lofty interest. She gave him a languid, careless welcome. She was absorbed and entranced at the moment by a youth with a lean, pale, Semitic face and ardent eyes, who, leaning over her where she reclined, talked volubly and vehemently.
If he made a pause when Vendramin presented his Englishman, it was merely to glare his impatience at the interruption. He acknowledged by a curt, contemptuously absent-minded nod the expansive greeting which Vendramin addressed to him.
'A mannerless Greek cub,' Ser Leonardo condemned him as they withdrew.
Later Marc-Antoine was to learn that he was Ugo Foscolo, a young student from Zara turned dramatist, who already at the age of eighteen was startling Italy by his precocious genius. But at the moment his attention was elsewhere.
He had discovered the porcelain lady of the Casino del Leone enthroned on a settee, receiving the courtship of a little group of lively gallants, amongst whom he recognized Rocco Terzi of the uneasy eyes. Observing her he reflected that it is rarely given to a man to enjoy the advantage of contemplating his own widow.
Her quickening glance apprised him that she was aware of his approach. Then, he was bowing before her, and she was telling him archly that he arrived in time to check the scandalous tongues of those about her to whom no character was sacred.
'That is too severe,' Terzi protested. 'We leave sacred things alone. Madame Bonaparte is hardly sacred even when hailed by the mob as a divinity.'
He alluded to the accounts which had just reached Venice of the worship of Madame Josèphine since the arrival in Paris of the captured Austrian standards sent home by Bonaparte, and to the title of 'Our Lady of Victory,' by which she was hailed whenever she showed herself in public.
Presently Marc-Antoine found the opportunity he sought.
'We have acquaintances in common, I believe, madame. In England I know another Vicomtesse de Saulx.'
The blue eyes flickered. But the movement of the slowly waving fan was never checked or troubled. 'Ah!' she drawled. 'That will be the dowager Vicomtesse. My late husband's mother. He was guillotined in '93.'
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