"You are looking for me?" asked Strozzi, with a singular smile. "I am here, my wife, to protect you from all danger; and as I am weary of standing, and as there is no seat for me beside you, I will take the place that my heart covets most."
And, before Laura could prevent him, he had thrown himself at full length, had clasped her feet, and raised them over his knee, so that they had the appearance of having been placed in that familiar position by her own will. He then pulled the silken cord which he had held all this while in his hand, and the curtains of the pavilion were rolled up, exposing its three occupants to the view of the whole Venetian world. On one side lay Lucretia, in her Danae- like position, and on the other, gazing with the rapture of an accepted lover into the face of the marchioness, lay Strozzi. The picture was unequivocally that of a pair of lovers, and those who knew her not as his wife were convinced that in Laura they beheld the mistress of the Marquis de Strozzi.
"Evviva!" shouted the enraptured multitude, dazzled by the beauty of the tableau. No one heard Laura's despairing entreaty for release from a posture so humiliating. Nor had any one heard the exclamation of delight that burst from the lips of the elector, as in Lucretia he recognized his houri.
"There she is!" exclaimed he to the French ambassador.
"Who?" asked the latter, in astonishment.
"The most beautiful woman that ever distracted a susceptible man," was the reply. "Do you not know her?"
"I regret to say that I do not, but I will make it my duty to discover her abode, and communicate the discovery to your highness."
"Thank you," began the elector. But suddenly he stopped, and gazed intently upon Prince Eugene, who was standing at the stern of his gondola, only a few feet distant from the bucentoro of the Strozzis. The elector directed his gondoliers to approach that of the prince, and, springing from one boat to the other, he laid his hand on Eugene's shoulder.
"Friend," said he, "I do not desire to force myself into your confidence; but lest I become your unconscious rival, answer me one question. Is that lady there, in the red-velvet dress, the object of your unhappy attachment?"
"No, dear Max," replied Eugene, with his eyes fixed steadfastly upon
Laura.