"No—ah no! There is no woman in the world but you."
"Then I am not jealous of the rest, least of all, of your young bride. I will wager with myself against all her gold for your life, and I shall win—I have won already! Am I not trying to persuade you that you should marry?"
"I have not even seen her. Her father sent me a message to-night, bidding me go to church on Sunday and stand beside a certain pillar."
"To see and be seen," laughed Arisa. "It is not a fair exchange! She will look at the handsomest man in the world—hush! That is the truth. And you will see a little, pale, red-haired girl with silly blue eyes, staring at you, her wide mouth open and her clumsy hands hanging down. She will look like the wooden dolls they dress in the latest Venetian fashion to send to Paris every year, that the French courtiers may know what to wear! And her father will hurry her along, for fear that you should look too long at her and refuse to marry such a thing, even for Marco Polo's millions!"
Contarini laughed carelessly at the description.
"Give me some wine," he said. "We will drink her health."
Arisa rose with the grace of a young goddess, her hair tumbling over her bare shoulders in a splendid golden confusion. Contarini watched her with possessive eyes, as she went and came back, bringing him the drink. She brought him yellow wine of Chios in a glass calix of Murano, blown air-thin upon a slender stem and just touched here and there with drops of tender blue.
"A health to the bride of Jacopo Contarini!" she said, with a ringing little laugh.
Then she set the wine to her lips, so that they were wet with it, and gave him the glass; and as she stooped to give it, her hair fell forward and almost hid her from him.
"A health to the shower of gold!" he said, and he drank.