When they reached the Palazzo Vendramin, they saw a gondola moored at the water-gate. The Prince put his arm round Vendramin and clasped him affectionately, saying:
“Good-night to you, my dear fellow!”
“What! a woman? for me, whose only love is Venice?” exclaimed Marco.
At this instant the gondolier, who was leaning against a column, recognizing the man he was to look out for, murmured in Emilio’s ear:
“The Duchess, monseigneur.”
Emilio sprang into the gondola, where he was seized in a pair of soft arms—an embrace of iron—and dragged down on to the cushions, where he felt the heaving bosom of an ardent woman. And then he was no more Emilio, but Clarina’s lover; for his ideas and feelings were so bewildering that he yielded as if stupefied by her first kiss.
“Forgive this trick, my beloved,” said the Sicilian. “I shall die if you do not come with me.”
And the gondola flew over the secret water.
At half-past seven on the following evening, the spectators were again in their places in the theatre, excepting that those in the pit always took their chances of where they might sit. Old Capraja was in Cataneo’s box.
Before the overture the Duke paid a call on the Duchess; he made a point of standing behind her and leaving the front seat to Emilio next the Duchess. He made a few trivial remarks, without sarcasm or bitterness, and with as polite a manner as if he were visiting a stranger.