"It seemeth not easy to translate his choice. What sayeth the proud Lady of the Bernardini? For it is less honor."
"One knoweth not; she being of Casa Cornaro, of the elder branch, and, like her son, of few words and great discretion. But she had lately spoken with me of this embassy to France, wishing that her son might hold it, thinking him well fitted for the place. Ah, well—she giveth no sign; and to-morrow she also setteth sail for Cyprus,—being created chief lady in waiting to her fair, young cousin."
"The Lady of the Bernardini in the court of the Caterina! Impossible! She, in whose salons one might not think one's own thoughts!"
"By San Tadoro! one might think them, at one's ease, so only they were of a quality to please her."
"And the Lady of the Bernardini to leave her splendid palace! Venice without the Lady of the Bernardini!"
"Where hast thou been that thou knowest it not? It is even so!"
"Thou dost verily flatter the vanity of a man, Querini, to forget that I am but two days returned with my cargoes from Flanders."
"Nay—thy pardon, friend. I mind it well enough and shall mind it better when thou hast a chance to make us envious of the wares thou wilt unburden from thy cumbrous, carven chests, for there is much talk of their richness. But the ear of Venice is so attuned to these wedding-chimes that it hath no chance to vibrate to another theme until the rejoicings of the morrow be past."
"And the great estates of the Bernardini? I remember some rumor in the Broglio, before this matter of Cyprus came uppermost, that the houses would have been allied—a marriage between the little Caterina and the cousin Aluisi—a dispensation to be gotten from His Holiness. It would have been well for the estates and the Casa Cornaro."
"Aye, it would have been well for the Casa Cornaro: better perchance than this dazzling foreign marriage, and more fortune in it for the Cornari. For the estates of the Bernardini are princely; and it is well known in the Senate, though it be uttered in decorous whispers, that the dower of the charming bride hath left small remainder to her noble uncle. And Messer Andrea also, is large lender to a king—for war-debts and the like—Janus having nothing until he had regained his kingdom. But as well buy a King as a vast estate for one's toy, if one hath the zecchini."