"
Again the Signor Gradenigo bowed submissively, and with apparent joy. He
saw that his secret designs had been penetrated, notwithstanding all his
practised duplicity and specious candor; and he submitted with that
species of desperate resignation, which becomes a habit, if not a
virtue, in men long accustomed to be governed despotically. When this
delicate subject, which required the utmost finesse of Venetian policy,
since it involved the interests of one who happened, at that moment, to
be in the dreaded council itself, was disposed of, the three turned
their attention to other matters, with that semblance of indifference to
personal feeling, which practice in tortuous paths of state-intrigue
enabled men to assume.
"Since we are so happily of opinion concerning the disposition of the
Donna Violetta," coolly observed the oldest senator, a rare specimen of
hackneyed and worldly morality, "we may look into our list of daily
duties--what say the lions' mouths to-night?"
"A few of the ordinary and unmeaning accusations that spring from
personal hatred," returned another. "One chargeth his neighbor with
oversight in religious duties, and with some carelessness of the fasts
of Holy Church--a. foolish scandal, fitted for the ears of a curate."
"Is there naught else?"
"Another complaineth of neglect in a husband. The scrawl is in a woman's
hand, and beareth on its face the evidence of woman's resentment.
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