'So I had heard. And then there are others.' His dreamy-looking eyes watched her closely. 'There is Camille Lebel, for instance.'

'Lebel?' She frowned in thought, and slowly shook her head. 'I do not number anyone of that name among my friends.'

'I could not suggest that. But you will have heard of him. Lebel was at one time the Vicomte de Saulx's steward.'

'Ah, yes,' she said vaguely. 'I think I remember that. But I never met the man to my knowledge.'

'That is strange; for I seem to recollect that he spoke of you and told me that you were in Italy.' He sighed, and then, to complete the test, abruptly flung his bombshell.

'Poor fellow! He died a week or two ago.'

There was a little pause before she answered him.

'We need not trouble about him, then. Talk to me of the living. Sit here beside me, Mr. Melville, and tell me of yourself.'

This utter lack of interest in Lebel's fate reassured Marc-Antoine. The steward of Saulx must, he assumed, have been personally unknown to her. His connection with her had gone no further than the indication to Barras of the title she might conveniently assume.

Her interest in Marc-Antoine had dispersed her audience. Only Terzi and Vendramin remained, and Terzi was stifling a yawn. Ser Leonardo took him by the arm.

'Do not let us restrain these confidences, Rocco. Let us go and annoy the Levantine Foscolo by praising Gozzi to him.'

Alone with the lady who claimed to be his widow, Marc-Antoine found himself subjected to a rapid fire of questions. Above all she desired to know why he was in Venice and what the nature of his relations with the Pizzamani. She was a little arch on this. But he did not choose to notice it.

He answered that he had known the Pizzamani in London when the Count was Venetian Minister there, and they had become friends of his.

'One of them in particular, no doubt.' She watched him slyly over the edge of her fan.

'Oh, yes. Domenico.'

'You disappoint me. Leonardo, then, troubles himself in vain?'

'Ser Leonardo troubles himself? On my account?'

'You know, of course, that he is to marry Isotta Pizzamano. He senses a rival in you.'

'And he has left us together so that you may ascertain for him whether he has cause to do so?'

She was shocked. 'You are blunt, you English. Mon Dieu, how blunt! It is what renders you adorable. And how sternly you can look upon a woman! With those eyes upon me I could never lie to you. Not that I should ever want to. Can you keep faith?'

'Put me to the test if you doubt it.'

'You've guessed the truth. An easy guess to one who knew Leonardo better. Unless he had ends to serve, he would not so readily have left us alone together.'

'Let me hope that he will often have ends to serve. Is it possible that I could have the honour of making him uneasy on your account as well?'

'Are you so ungallant as to be surprised?'

'It is the plurality of his jealousies that confuses me. Are there in Venice any ladies with whom I may be friends without going in peril of assassination by Monsieur Vendramin?'

'Now you want to laugh, and I am serious. Oh, but very serious. He is as jealous as a Spaniard, and as dangerous in his jealousy. Am I to reassure him on the score of Monna Isotta?'

'If I interest you sufficiently that you should not desire my death.'

'Far from it. I desire to see more of you.'

'In spite of the Spanish jealousy of this jealous Venetian?'

'Since you are so brave as to make a jest of it, come and see me soon. I am lodged at the Casa Gazzola, near the Rialto. Your gondolier will know it. Will you come?'

'In imagination I am there already.'

She smiled. A sweet, alluring smile, he accounted it; but he observed how it deepened the creases about her vivid eyes, betraying an age more advanced than was at first to be supposed in her.

'For an Englishman,' she said, 'you do not seem to lack enterprise. But, then, you'll have learnt it with your excellent French.'

Vendramin and Terzi were returning. Marc-Antoine stood up, and bowed over her hand.

'I shall expect you,' she said. 'Remember!'

'Superfluous injunction,' protested Marc-Antoine.

Terzi bore him away to make him known to others present and to give him refreshment. As he sipped a glass of malvoisie and listened to a heated argument upon the sonnet between two dilettanti, he saw Vendramin in the place he had vacated beside the little spurious Vicomtesse, very deeply and earnestly in talk.

The precise extent of Vendramin's entanglement with this woman was only half—and the less important half—of the problem that confronted Marc-Antoine. Knowing her for an active French secret agent, charged at this very moment with the corruption of a man as valuable to the anti-Jacobin cause as Vendramin, it was his duty at once to denounce her. A man so engaged he would destroy without compunction. But she was a woman, and very delicate and frail, and the vision of that slender white neck in the strangler's cord was a vision of pure horror. Chivalry, then, made duty's course repellent. The reflection that Vendramin's corruption if accomplished would open a door of escape for Isotta must—even had there been in that no profit to himself—make the course impossible. Duty, however, demanded imperiously that he should follow it.

In this conflict of aims personal and political he postponed solution of his problem until he could see ahead more clearly. He could keep this charming widow of his under closest observation, and he would watch no less closely the measures taken for the seduction of Vendramin.

This took him a few days later to the legation, at a time when Venice was agog with the news that the Austrians, pleading the necessities of war, had occupied the fortress of Peschiera.

He found Lallemant rubbing his hands over the news.

'After this,' said the French Ambassador, 'it seems to me that we do as we please. Having tolerated the violation of her frontiers by the Austrians, Venice can hardly complain if we do the same. Unarmed neutralities have no rights that I can discern.'

Marc-Antoine was caustic. 'If it will remove the necessity for your reckless waste of the nation's money, that will be something to the good.'

Lallemant looked up from his dispatches. 'What flea is biting you now? Of what reckless waste am I guilty?'

'I was thinking of Vendramin, on whose corruption you have spent so much so vainly.'

'So vainly? Ah, that! You are well informed.'

'Well enough. I see a scurry of warlike activity where hitherto all has been peaceful indifference, and I know where the reason is to be found: in Vendramin's eloquence at the last meeting of the Council, when he was supported by the entire barnabotto rabble. Having spent so much gold and pains upon his corruption, you might have completed it in time to avoid that.'

'Bah!' Lallemant stretched his hand across the table palm upwards, the fingers and thumb clawing inwards. 'I have him there whenever I want him.'

'Then why let him go bleating of defences and armaments? How much longer will you leave him to do the work of the Austrophiles?'

'All in my own good time, citizen-representative. The further he is led into this quagmire, the more difficult will it be for him to extricate himself.' He turned aside to take up two packages from his table. 'Here are letters for you.'

One of these was from Barras. The Director wrote on various matters, and particularly stressed the need for harmonious co-operation with Bonaparte, who must be given every assistance. Marc-Antoine observed here a change of tone reflecting the growing influence of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy.

The other letter was from Bonaparte himself. It was cold, curt, peremptory, and remarkable for bad spelling. It informed the Representative Lebel that General Bonaparte required soundings taken of the canals by which the city of Venice was to be approached. He added that he was writing to Lallemant in the same sense, and he commanded rather than requested the representative to co-operate diligently with the ambassador.

Since thus the matter was already in Lallemant's knowledge, Marc-Antoine at once took it up with him as if he were giving him news.

'Yes, yes,' he was interrupted. 'I have a letter from the General, too, on that. He's behind the fair. These soldiers think they alone can discern the obvious. We've been at work on it here for some weeks already.'

Marc-Antoine displayed a proper interest.

'Who is at work on it?'

'Our invaluable Vicomtesse.'

'You are not telling me that she is taking soundings, are you?'

'Don't be a fool. She has charge of the matter. She has corrupted a rascal named Rocco Terzi—another starveling barnabotto—and he is employing three or four scoundrels of his own. They work for him by night and bring him daily their results from which he is preparing charts. Considering what I have done, I propose, myself, to inform the General in detail.'

Marc-Antoine shrugged indifferently. 'You will save me the trouble.'

He repressed his excitement until he was closeted with Count Pizzamano.

The Count was in exasperation at the hedonistic apathy into which he observed the Government and the people alike to be relapsing. In particular he was disgusted with the Doge. Along the canals and through the narrow streets of the city was to be heard a new song:

El Doge Manin

Dal cuor picenin

L'è streto de man