Venetian Masque

'You will have heard the news?'

'That Austrian troops are pouring down from the Tyrol to the relief of Mantua?'

'I mean about poor Rocco. Rocco Terzi. He has disappeared, and the rumour is that he has been arrested. What do they say in the Piazza?'

'Oh, yes. Of course. Rocco Terzi. A friend of Vendramin's. That is the rumour: that the inquisitors have arrested him.'

'But why? Have you heard?'

'It is said, I think, that he is suspected of holding communications with General Bonaparte.'

'Preposterous! My poor Rocco! A butterfly; a joyous creature concerned in life only with its gay aspects. And so amusing. Do they say what it was that he communicated?'

'I don't think it is known. The inquisitors work very secretly.'

She shuddered. 'That is what frightens one.'

'You! But of what should you be frightened?'

'That harm may come to this poor, foolish Rocco.'

'So much concern! He is enviable a little, this Messer Rocco.'

Vendramin was announced and ushered in at the same time. Marc-Antoine observed that here was one who did not wait to discover if he would be received.

He came in airily with that swaying, jaunty step of his, and frowned upon beholding Marc-Antoine. His greeting was tart.

'Sir, I protest, you begin to have the gift of ubiquity.'

'A little, yes.' Marc-Antoine smiled amiably. 'I develop it. I do what I can.' Then he turned the subject. 'This is sad news I hear of your friend Terzi.'

'No friend of mine, by God, sir. The treacherous rogue. I pick my friends with care.'

'Fi donc, Leonardo!' cried the Vicomtesse. 'To deny him at such a time. That is not nice.'

'Time to deny him. High time. Do you know of what they accuse him?'

'Of what? Tell me.'

Her eagerness faded into disappointment when it was discovered that he merely repeated what was known already.

'I sicken to think that such a man moved freely amongst us,' he protested.

'Yet,' Marc-Antoine objected, 'all that you know at present is that he has been arrested. The remainder is rumour.'

'I want no friends about whom such rumours are possible.'

'How is rumour ever to be suppressed? It builds on the flimsiest grounds. Rocco Terzi, for instance, is said to have lived in luxury, and yet he is known to have been without any proper source of means. Is it not usual in such cases for rumour to suggest an improper source? Might not the suspicion born of this be the sole reason for his arrest?'

Vendramin had entirely lost his genial look. His eyes were almost malevolent at this reminder that Rocco Terzi's case in that respect was very much his own.

He came to it with the Vicomtesse as soon as Marc-Antoine had gone, which was quite soon thereafter, for Ser Leonardo made him feel that here his room would be more welcome than his company.

'You heard what that damned Englishman said, Anne? That Rocco may have been arrested on suspicion because of the means he displayed. Do you know whence he derived them?'

'How should I?'

He got up from the couch, where he had been sitting beside her, and paced the little room. 'It is cursedly odd. It must be that what is said is true. He was being paid by the French Government. They'll most likely rack him to make him speak.' He shivered. 'The inquisitors stop at nothing.' He stood still and looked at her. 'Suppose now that I . . .'

He did not dare, nor was it necessary to continue; nor for that matter did she give him time.

'You are starting at shadows, Leonardo.'

'A shadow seems to me to have been all that there was against Rocco; the same sort of shadow they may discover that I am casting. Like Rocco's my resources are beggarly; yet like Rocco I live well and lack for nothing. Suppose they put me on the rack to discover the source of my means. Suppose that I break down, and confess that you . . . that you . . .'

'That I have been lending you money. What then? I am not the French Government. They may despise you for living on a woman. But they can't hang you for it.'

The phrase made him uncomfortable. He flushed and looked at her in annoyance. 'You know that the money is only borrowed. I am not living on you, Anne. I shall pay you back every penny.'

'When you make your rich marriage, I suppose.'

'Do you sneer? You are not jealous, Anne? You are never jealous?'

'Why not? You are jealous enough of me. But perhaps you have the exclusive right to jealousy. You certainly behave as if you had, and as if you suppose that others have no feelings.'

'Oh, Anne!' He set a knee on the couch beside her, and put an arm about her shoulders. 'How can you say this to me? You know that I make this marriage because I must. That all my future hangs upon it.'

'Oh, yes, I know. I know.' She spoke a trifle wearily.

He stooped to kiss her cheek. She suffered it without excitement. And he discovered that he was straying from the point.

'You are not the French Government, you have said. But a good deal of the money has been in drafts on Vivanti's drawn by Lallemant.'

'What then?' She was sharply impatient. 'How many times have I told you that Lallemant is my cousin and has charge of my affairs. When I want money, it is thus he gives it to me.'

'I know, my love. But if this were discovered? You see this misfortune of Rocco's has made me cursed nervous.'

'How could it be discovered? You are being foolish. What does the money matter? Do you suppose I care whether you pay me back or not?'

He slid down onto the couch, and took her in his arms. 'How I love you for your sweet trust.'

But the lady was not thrilled. 'Nevertheless you will marry Madame Isotta.'

'Why will you rally me, my angel? You have said that you will not marry ever again.'

'Certainly not you, Leonardo.'

He frowned annoyance. 'Why not?' he demanded.

Impatiently she thrust him away from her. 'God in Heaven! Was there ever such a vain fribble of a man? You are to love where you please and marry where you please, and those upon whom you place the sacred seal of your kiss are to hold themselves in perpetual fidelity to you! Faith, you are modest in your claims. What woman could deny you? It annoys you that I should not be ready to marry you, given the chance, whilst you would take no chance of marrying me.' She stood up, a slight wisp of lovely, dainty anger. 'Do you know, Leonardo, there are moments when you make me sick. And this is one of them.'

He was in an alarm of penitence. He protested that he was just a poor devil at the mercy of a cruel fate, with a great name to maintain and perpetuate, and able to do it only by a marriage of convenience. Knowing how he loved her, as she must know from the proofs he had given, it was cruel of her to cast his misfortunes in his teeth. He was on the point of tears before she consented to make her peace with him. In the sweetness of that reconciliation he forgot the fate of Rocco Terzi and his own fears, persuaded himself that he had been starting at shadows, as she had declared.

But there were others who had not at hand such delectable means to stifle alarm at the fate of Rocco Terzi. And Lallemant was of these.

Profoundly disturbed and exercised by the event, he welcomed the arrival of Marc-Antoine.

'I have just left the Vicomtesse,' the supposed representative announced. 'I found her distressed by news of the arrest of a friend of hers, one Rocco Terzi.' And then he dropped his voice. 'Was not that the name of the man who was charting the canals?'

'It was,' said Lallemant, with a queer dryness.

He sat at his writing-table in a crouching attitude, watching Marc-Antoine with eyes that were like gimlets in his pallid face. The tone and the look were warning enough for Marc-Antoine. He knew himself in danger.

Meditatively he stroked his chin, his face a mask of glumness.