"
"You do me little justice," returned the youth. "Neither Jew nor Jewess
hath this day greeted my eye."
"The calendar should mark the time for its singularity! I would know,
Giacomo, if thou turnest to a right advantage the occasion of my
guardianship, and if thou thinkest with sufficient gravity of the
importance of what I urge?"
"Doubt it not, father. He who hath so much suffered for the want of that
which the Donna Violetta possesses in so great a profusion, needeth
little prompting on such a subject. By refusing to supply my wants, you
have made certain of my consent. There is not a fool in Venice who sighs
more loudly beneath his mistress's window, than I utter my pathetic
wishes to the lady--when there is opportunity, and I am in the humor."
"Thou knowest the danger of alarming the senate?"
"Fear me not. My progress is by secret and gradual means. Neither my
countenance nor my mind is unused to a mask--thanks to necessity! My
spirits have been too buoyant not to have made me acquainted with
duplicity!"
"Thou speakest, ungrateful boy, as if I denied thy youth the usual
indulgences of thy years and rank. It is thy excesses, and not thy
spirits, I would check. But I would not now harden thee with reproof.
Giacomo, thou hast a rival in the stranger. His act in the Giudecca has
won upon the fancy of the girl; and like all of generous and ardent
natures, ignorant as she is of his merits, she supplies his character
with all necessary qualities by her own ingenuity.
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