But on this morning of gladness only Joan thought of the dead woman.
"To-day I will do the thing she wished," the Duchess thought, as she looked from the window towards her father's tomb. "She would take nothing for herself, yet shall her son sit in my place and rule where his father ruled. I am glad!"
Here she blushed.
"Yet, why should I vaunt? It is no sacrifice, for I shall be—what I would rather a thousand times be. Small thanks, then, that I give up freely what is worth nothing to me now!"
And with the arm that had wielded a sword so often and so valiantly, Joan the bride went on arraying her hair and making her beautiful for the eyes of her lord.
"My lord!" she said, and again with a different accent. "My lord!"
And when these her living eyes met those others in the Venice mirror, lo! either pair was smiling a new smile.
Meantime, beneath in her chamber, the Princess Margaret was making her husband's life a burden to him, or rather, first quarrelling with him and the next moment throwing her arms about his neck in a passion of remorse. For that is the wont of dainty Princess Margarets who are sick and know not yet what aileth them.
"Maurice," she was saying, "is it not enough to make me throw me over the battlements that they should all forsake me, on this day of all others, when you are to be made a Duke in the presence of the Pope's Legate and the Emperor's Alter—what is it?—Alter ego? What a silly word! And you might have told it to me prettily and without laughing at me. Yes, you did, and you also are in league against me. And I will not go to the wedding; no, not if Joan were to beg of me on my knees! I will not have any of these minxes in to do my hair. Nay, do not you touch it. I am nobody, it seems, and Joan everything. Joan—Joan! It is Joan this and Joan that! Tush, I am sick of your Joans.