II
They had just told her a thing most strange—a secret that made her childish heart stand still with wonder, then beat with a sort of frightened excitement, all unbefitting the new dignity to which she was called; for she was still enough a child to feel the glamour of it through all the strangeness, and she had stolen out upon the balcony, high over the Canal, to say over to herself the words that had been confided to her—the little maid Caterina.
She dropped the title softly down to the water below, and started at the echo of her own trembling voice.
Caterina Queen of Cyprus: Caterina—Regina!
A swaying figure in a passing gondola glanced up to the balcony of the old Palazzo Cornaro and the young girl hastily fled, not pausing until she had reached her own little chamber, looking on an inner court—the only sanctuary that she could call her own, in all this great ancestral palace, she, the future Queen of Cyprus.
Had any one heard her murmur those words? Would the Senate know that some one in a gondola had caught the new title from her own lips? And so—perchance—to punish the indiscretion—for the Senate was masterful, never-to-be-disobeyed, and the matter was not to be known until it should be declared by that solemn body of world-rulers. And if the gondoliero had carried her word to the Palazzo San Marco——? What if he had been sent there by the Senate itself to watch and see if she were already woman enough to be trusted? Then there would be an end to the golden dream—no coronation—no splendid ceremony of adoption. For there was more. Before she should be made queen of that distant island she was to be formally acknowledged "The Daughter of the Republic——" She was to be made a real Princess of Venice!
What wonder that the heart of this young Venetian maid quivered with the excitement of these visions of splendor, for by all the traditions of her ancestors she measured the unwonted honor that was being decreed for her—no one had yet been adopted "Daughter to the Republic"—the title was to be created that she might wear a crown, to the further honor of Venice! For her, who had never worn a jewel, nor a robe of state, nor taken part in any but the simplest fête, who had never left the walls of her ancestral palace, save under closest veil and guard—this sudden vision of freedom and empire was intoxicating.
If she had known of those wonderful tales of the "Arabian Nights" these things that were happening to her would have seemed more wonderful still: but her young mind was free of similes—a sensitive blank whereon the Senate might duly inscribe whatever tendencies seemed judicious; and after the Betrothal there would be much time.