Venetian Masque

A moment still Vendramin stood glaring at him. Then abruptly he surrendered.

'Come in, then, since you insist. Let him pass, Luca. Let him pass.'

Marc-Antoine advanced into the passage. Vendramin flung out his left arm towards the doorway from which he had emerged. 'In there, if you please,' he said.

They went into a fair-sized salon which if without splendours was also without meanness in its furnishings; indeed, it gathered a certain pretentiousness from a spread of tapestry covering one of its walls and the gildings on some of the movables.

Vendramin remained with his back to the closed door. Marc-Antoine turned, one gloved hand holding his hat in the crook of his left arm, the other leaning lightly upon his gold-headed cane.

'I don't think you are pleased to see me,' he said, with ironic affability.

'What do you want with me, Monsieur l'Anglais?'

'I want to tell you that it might have had the most serious consequences for you if I had not been able, as a result of any arrangements you had made for me, to have paid you this little visit. You will have heard, of course, that a friend of yours was fished out of the Canal of San Moisè in the early hours of the morning. You will have surmised how he got there. I hope you have some sense of your responsibility for that poor fellow's untimely end.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'I mean, my dear Messer Leonardo, that at your next attempt upon my life, you had better send at least four of your bullies to the job. Two are hardly enough.'

Vendramin smiled balefully. 'That, my dear Monsieur Melville, is my intention.'

'I see that we shall understand each other.'

'Will you take a piece of advice from me? Leave Venice while you are able to do so. The air here is not very healthy for meddling foreigners.'

'Your concern touches me. But my health, I assure you, is excellent.'

'It may not so continue.'

'I am content to take the risk. But does your own health give you no concern? Have you reflected how short might be your shrift if the inquisitors of state were to discover that in the past six months you have received five or six thousand ducats from the French Legation?'

Vendramin went white to the lips. He took a step forward. 'What do you mean by that lie? It's a foul lie, do you hear?'

'Of course if it's a lie, it should give you no anxiety.'

'I have not had a farthing; not a farthing from the French Legation.'

'Strictly speaking, perhaps you have not. But there are drafts in existence for that amount, issued by the Legation, endorsed by you, and cashed at Vivanti's Bank. How would you satisfy the inquisitors of state that you have innocently acquired all this French money? How would you persuade them that you had not received it for the purposes which they must naturally assume?'

Vendramin glared at him, speechless and trembling. Marc-Antoine continued pleasantly.

'You would go the way of Rocco Terzi, whom it would be remembered was your friend; who, as impecunious as yourself, was as unable as you might be to explain upon what resources he lived in surroundings similar to these. Unless you want this to happen to you, you will meddle no more with me. When you realize that this is what I came to tell you, perhaps you will not resent my visit quite so much. It does not suit me to leave Venice just at present. It does not suit me to lie under a perpetual menace of assassination. And it does not suit me to move about with a bodyguard to protect me from your bully swordsmen. Therefore, I have taken my precautions; and they are such that I should advise you to do all in your power to promote my good health and my well-being.' He had been smiling. But he hardened now his tone. 'I have provided that at any accident to me, of whatsoever nature, and even if not fatal, information will immediately be lodged with the inquisitors of state which will lead them to ask you some awkward questions. You understand, I hope?'

Vendramin showed his strong teeth in a rigid grin.

'Do you think you can frighten me so easily? Where are the proofs?'

'You don't suppose that the drafts have been destroyed. They could be produced under inquisitorial insistence.'

'By whom? By whom?'

'I will leave you to find the answer to that question. You are warned, Vendramin. I will detain you no longer.'

Mechanically Vendramin wiped the beads of sweat from his upper lip. 'You miserable coward, to shelter yourself behind this lie! Is this how men of honour protect themselves in England? I swear to God that not a penny of this money is in payment for any treasonable service.'

'But will the inquisitors believe you? You will have to reckon with what they suppose. And that is easily imagined.'

'My God! I believe you know the truth. And yet, you scoundrel, you can hold this menace over me! My God, it's unbelievable.'

'Of course, I could adopt your methods, and hire ruffians to assassinate you. But I prefer to do things in my own way. And now, if you will let me pass, I will be wishing you good-day.'

Violently Vendramin threw the door open.

'Go, sir! Go!'

Marc-Antoine went out without haste.

CHAPTER XX THE GALLED JADE

Messer Vendramin descended in wrath upon the Vicomtesse de Saulx that afternoon. He found her holding a reception in the dainty black-and-gold salon that was so admirable a setting to her own delicate elegance.

The queenly Isabella Teotochi, with the dissipated-looking little Albrizzi in passionate attendance, was the dominant figure in that fashionable gathering.

The barnabotto leader found here the cool reception which was everywhere being vouchsafed him nowadays. He fortified himself in a scorn of them, which was genuine enough. Simpering, affected, presumptuously critical and self-assertive, they made up a noisy group to be found in every age and in every society.

There was a great deal of talk of Liberty, the Age of Reason and the Rights of Man; and a great deal of ill-digested matter from the encyclopædists was being tossed about by these pseudo-intellectuals, over ices and coffee and malvoisie. There was also some scandal. But even this was dressed-up in intellectual rags, implying on the part of those who mongered it a breadth of outlook as startling as it would have been indefensible by any reasonable canons.

He was fretted by impatience until the last of them had departed.

Then the Vicomtesse reproached him with the disgruntled air and manner he had paraded among her friends.

'Friends?' he said. He was very bitter. 'Faith, if you find your friends among these posturing pimps and these silly spirituelle baggages I can believe anything of you. Nothing surprises me any more. Not even that you should stoop to betraying me.'

She accommodated herself of her black-and-gold settee, and spread on either side of her the blue panniers of her gown. 'Oh, I see. Your ill-humour is rooted in jealousy again.' She sighed. 'You grow intolerably tiresome, Leonardo.'

'I have, of course, no cause. Your loyalty renders my suspicions shameful. They emanate from the intemperance of my own mind. That is what you would say, is it not?'

'Something of the kind.'

'You would be wise to leave flippancy. I am not in the humour for it. And you had better not provoke me more than you have done already.'

But the dainty little lady laughed at him. 'You are not threatening me, by any chance?'

He looked down upon her malevolently. 'My God! Are you quite shameless?'

'It must be that I follow your example, Leonardo, although with less cause for shame.'

'What I ask myself is whether a woman ever had cause for more.'

'Your mother, perhaps, Leonardo.'

He stooped and seized her wrist viciously. 'Will you curb that pert tongue of yours before I do you a mischief? I will not have my mother's name on your lips, you jade.'