"Signore, you know that the agents of the police are active, and little that comes to their knowledge fails to reach the ears of the council. But, at the worst, the matter is not of life or death. It can only cost the inconsiderate young man a visit to Dalmatia, or an order to waste the summer at the foot of the Alps."
"Youth is the season of indiscretion, as ye know, Signori," returned the father, breathing more freely—"and as none become old that have not been young, I have little need to awaken your recollection of its weaknesses. I trust my son is incapable of designing aught against the Republic?"
"Of that he is not suspected." A slight expression of irony crossed the features of the old senator as he spoke. "But he is represented as aiming too freely at the person and wealth of your ward; and that she who is the especial care of St. Mark is not to be solicited without the consent of the Senate, is an usage well known to one of its most ancient and most honorable members."
"Such is the law, and none coming of me shall show it disrespect. I have preferred my claims to that connexion openly, but with diffidence; and I await the decision of the state in respectful confidence."
His associates bowed in courteous acknowledgment of the justice of what he said, and of the loyalty of his conduct, but it was in the manner of men too long accustomed to duplicity to be easily duped.
"None doubt it, worthy Signor Gradenigo, for thy faith to the state is ever quoted as a model for the young, and as a subject for the approbation of the more experienced. Hast thou any communications to make on the interest of the young heiress, thyself?"
"I am pained to say that the deep obligation conferred by Don Camillo Monforte, seems to have wrought upon her youthful imagination, and I apprehend that, in disposing of my ward, the state will have to contend with the caprice of a female mind. The waywardness of that age will give more trouble than the conduct of far graver matters."
"Is the lady attended by suitable companions in her daily life?"
"Her companions are known to the Senate. In so grave an interest, I would not act without their authority and sanction. But the affair hath great need of delicacy in its government. The circumstance that so much of my ward's fortune lies in the states of the church, renders it necessary to await the proper moment for disposing of her rights, and of transferring their substance within the limits of the Republic, before we proceed to any act of decision. Once assured of her wealth, she may be disposed of as seemeth best to the welfare of the state, without further delay."
"The lady hath a lineage and riches, and an excellence of person, that might render her of great account in some of these knotty negotiations which so much fetter our movements of late. The time hath been when a daughter of Venice, not more fair, was wooed to the bed of a sovereign."