He could not tell her how deeply he had been provoked. For it could not suit him to pillory the lady he was to marry; and in any case the plea was not one that would win favour with a mistress.

'Could I suppose, could any gentleman suppose, that he would take refuge behind a debt? It's only an Englishman could behave so basely. My God, Anne, I shall kill that man.' He got up, trembling with passion. He looked at her keenly, then caught her wrist, and pulled her roughly to him. 'Does he matter to you, that you are afraid of that? Is that why you won't lend me the money? Because you want to protect this dog?'

She wrenched herself away from him. 'Oh, you are mad. God knows why I suffer you.'

He advanced upon her again. He caught her in his arms this time, and crushed her to him. 'You suffer me because you love me, Anne. As I love you, dear Anne. Dear Anne! Help me this once. I am ruined, shamed, dishonoured, unless you come to the rescue. You could not let that happen to the man who worships you, who lives for you. I have given you such proofs of my love, Anne.'

'You have certainly taken almost all that I possess,' she conceded. 'That is why you find me now at the end of my resources.'

'But there is your cousin, the ambassador.'

'Lallemant!' She laughed without mirth. 'If you knew the scenes he has made me of late because of my extravagance. My extravagance! If he knew the truth . . . Oh, but there! I cannot wring another ducat from Lallemant.'

He returned to the subject of her jewels, and whined to her that she should let him raise money on those. He protested that he would soon be married now; and then he could redeem the trinkets and restore them together with all that he had borrowed.

But she was not to be moved by his entreaties, not even when the tears sprang from his eyes. So that in the end, he flung out of her lodgings, cursing her for a hard-hearted Jezebel who had never known the meaning of love.

It certainly seemed as if Fate were against the affair. For just as this solid obstacle stood in the way of Vendramin, so another, no less solid, came to be placed in the way of Marc-Antoine.

This happened on the following evening, which was that of the feast of Saint Theodore, a public holiday in Venice, where Saint Theodore was held in a veneration second only to that of Saint Mark. Marc-Antoine sat in his lodging at the Swords, writing letters, when, to his surprise, Domenico suddenly stood before him.

The little affair at the Casino del Leone had created, naturally enough, gossip, and some of this had actually been borne to the Fort of Sant' Andrea by one of Domenico's brother-officers. It was responsible for Domenico's presence, as he now announced.

'It's a sweet mark of friendship,' said Marc-Antoine. 'But you have little occasion for concern.'

'You speak, Marc, as if the issue could be in no doubt. It is not your way to boast.'

Marc-Antoine shrugged. 'When a man engages in undertakings such as that which has brought me to Venice, and when he knows that his life may hang at any moment upon his use of his weapons, he's a fool unless he studies them closely. Do you account me a fool, Domenico?'

Domenico set a hand on his shoulder. 'I hope this quarrel was not of your provoking. I have had an account of it, but . . .'

'I give you my word that it was deliberately sought by Vendramin. And to my astonishment, he publicly insulted me.'

'That is how I heard the tale. What are you going to do?'

'I cannot suppose that the meeting will take place. I so handled Vendramin as to make it impossible until he pays me a matter of a thousand ducats that he owes me. It seems equally impossible that he should find such a sum.'

'I hope you may be right. I hope it devoutly.' Domenico explained himself. 'In my heart, Marc, I could wish that you should kill him. But if that happened, my father would never forgive you. You would be dead to us, Marc. It would be held against you that you had killed the only chance remaining to our cause, such is the power in certain quarters exercised by this worthless scoundrel. There have been things . . . Oh, but what use to talk of them? I do not think my father has many illusions left on the score of Vendramin. Nevertheless, for the sake of what Vendramin can do for Venice there is no sacrifice that my father will not make for him.'

'Including Isotta,' said Marc-Antoine in a dull voice. 'His daughter and your sister! Can fanaticism go further?'

'I have sought to combat it. But it is idle. My father put me in the wrong. He shamed me with my lack of patriotism.'

'And yet, Domenico, I tell you—and I have cause to know it—the chances are that in the end this dog will fail you. So if you love Isotta, play for time. Postpone and postpone the irrevocable until we reach the end.'

Domenico took him by the arm. 'You know something against him?'

'I know nothing in his favour. Nor does anyone else.'

'It will need more than that to save Isotta.'

'I shall hope to provide it. But I need time. That is all that I can say now.'

Domenico tightened his grip of his friend's arm. 'Count upon all the time that I can make for you. For Isotta's sake.'

'Oh, and for mine,' said Marc-Antoine, with his wistful smile.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MEETING

Marc-Antoine's confidence that it must prove impossible for Vendramin to find the money was abruptly shattered on the morrow.

He was waited upon at an early hour by Colonel Androvitch, a middle-aged officer of the Slavonian regiment stationed at San Giorgio Maggiore. The colonel, a short, spare man, but as tough of body as of manner, placed two heavy bags upon the table. Having done so, he clicked his heels together, bowed from the waist, stiffly, and announced that the bags contained gold to the value of nine hundred and fifty ducats due from Messer Leonardo Vendramin.

He passed on to state that as Ser Leonardo's friend he would be happy to hear from Messer Melville when it would suit his convenience to afford Ser Leonardo the satisfaction due between them.

Remembering Domenico's warning, Mr. Melville preserved with difficulty a calm deportment. He assumed, of course, that the woman who called herself the Vicomtesse de Saulx had, after all, allowed herself to be persuaded, reluctantly or otherwise, to provide the money.

And just as Vendramin had found this, so he had found a Slavonian officer to carry the message which Andrea Sanfermo had said that no gentleman would carry for him.

For Mr. Melville, however reluctant he now might be, there was no retreat.

He could only accept the assurance of Colonel Androvitch that the piece of ground behind the riding-school on the Giudecca would in the early hours be a suitable place for the transaction of their business. When he had agreed to attend there at seven o'clock on the following morning, accompanied by a friend, the colonel clicked his heels once more.

'Most fortunate to have had the honour.' He bowed. 'Your very obedient servant, Monsieur Melville.' And he creaked out in his long military boots.

Later in the day the uneasy Marc-Antoine sought Major Sanfermo, and found him in the gaming-room of the Casino del Leone. He drew him aside.

'Vendramin has paid me his debt.'

'I wonder whom he has robbed.'

'And we meet tomorrow morning. May I count upon your services, Sanfermo?'

Sanfermo bowed formally. 'Deeply honoured.' His dark eyes were grave. 'This Vendramin, like all rascals who live more or less on their wits, has a reputation as a swordsman.'

'I trust I shall not help him to maintain it,' said Marc-Antoine.

That night he wrote a letter to Domenico Pizzamano: 'I am meeting Vendramin tomorrow morning. You are not to suppose from this that I am breaking faith with you. He has paid the money, and I cannot help myself. I shall do what I can; but if there should be an accident, save Isotta from this scoundrel.'

He also wrote letters to his mother and to Isotta, which he left, with definite instructions, in the hands of Philibert.

For what occurred on the morrow Vendramin blamed the dullness of the light and the slipperiness of the ground; for it was a grey morning, and it had rained a little in the night. These, however, were excuses urged to save his face. The light was not merely abundant, it was excellent because there were no reflections. And the turf on that strip of ground with its single rather melancholy sycamore, behind the long, low, brick building of the riding-school, whilst damp was certainly not slippery.

Vendramin came to the engagement with the confidence of acknowledged mastery, and the first few engages with which the adversaries tested each other revealed him for a graceful and accomplished, if academic fencer.

Marc-Antoine's play displayed a greater flexibility; but neither Sanfermo nor Androvitch, who stood watchfully at hand, and both of whom had been trained in the Italian school, could approve his methods. Sanfermo was fearful and Androvitch confident of the issue. Neither of them had a high regard for the French school. This may have been because neither of them had ever seen an exponent of it who was in the first class. The straight Italian arm, with its consequent extremely close parries and ever-menacing point, seemed to them infinitely superior, because entailing infinitely less exertion, than the bent arm of the French method which kept the elbow close to the body. And to Marc-Antoine, who had never yet opposed an Italian swordsman, that extended reach and steady point were at first so disconcerting he could not do himself full justice. He could do himself justice enough, however, successfully to deflect every attempt to pass his guard. Presently growing accustomed to the opposing method, and settling down more to his own, he gave a demonstration which surprised them of the advantages of the French school. Its greater flexibility permitted of double feints; and their lightning speed was impossible to the Italian rigidity, which confined a swordsman to single time, wherein parry and riposte were almost one. With a succession of attacks following upon these whirling double feints, Marc-Antoine presently drove Vendramin before him in such a manner as to make the seconds reconsider their opinion.