'Considering what has happened at Lodi, I should have thought that the representations I am charged to make have become of a singular urgency.'
'I do not admit, sir, your qualifications to judge. I do not admit them at all. You must allow me to know better, sir.' His ruffled vanity was stiffening him in obstinacy. 'The importance of what happened at Lodi may easily be exaggerated by the uninformed; by those who do not know, as I know, the resources of the Empire. I have sure information that within three months Austria will have a hundred thousand men in Italy. That should abundantly suffice to sweep this French rabble out of the country. There is the answer for timid alarmists who take fright at these lucky successes of the French.'
Mr. Melville lost patience. 'And if in the meanwhile Venice should be drawn into alliance with France?'
Sir Richard laughed unpleasantly. 'That, sir, is fantastic, unimaginable.'
'Even if France should tempt the Serenissima with offers of alliance?'
'That, too, is unimaginable.'
'You are sure of that?'
'As sure as that I sit here, sir.'
Mr. Melville fetched a sigh of weariness, produced his snuffbox and proceeded to shatter that complacency.
'You relieve me. I desired to test your opinions by that question. I find, as I supposed, that I cannot trust myself to be guided by them.'
'By God, sir! You are impudent.'
'Mr. Melville snapped his snuffbox. With a pinch of snuff held between thumb and forefinger, he tapped the writing-table with his second finger. 'The proposals of alliance which you so complacently assert to be unimaginable have already been put forward.'
The ambassador's countenance momentarily reflected his dismayed astonishment. 'But . . . But . . . How could you possibly know that?'
'You may accept my assurance that the French Ambassador here has received instructions from Bonaparte to propose an alliance to the Serenissima.'
Sir Richard announced his recovery by a fleering laugh.
'Only an utter ignorance of procedure could permit you so easily to be deceived. My good sir, it is not for Bonaparte to make such proposals. He has no such powers. These are matters for governments, not for soldiers.'
'I am as aware as you are, Sir Richard, of the irregularity. But it does not affect the fact. That Bonaparte has done this I know; and the presumption is that he has grounds for believing that his government will support him. Generals who achieve what Bonaparte has achieved do not want for influence with their governments.'
Before Mr. Melville's impressiveness, Sir Richard was driven from irony to sullenness.
'You say that you know positively. But how can you know?'
Mr. Melville took time to answer him.
'Just now, Sir Richard, you described me as a secret agent. You need not have boggled at the word "spy." It would not have offended me. I am a spy in a cause that dignifies the calling; and it happens that I am a good spy.'
Sir Richard's expression suggested the presence of an offensive smell. But he said nothing. Mr. Melville's revelation left him with a sense of defeat. Still, obstinately, like a stupid man, he struggled against reason.
'Even if all this were so, I still fail to perceive what you can hope to accomplish.'
'Are we not wasting time? Does it really matter that you should perceive it? You have Mr. Pitt's orders, as I have. It only remains that acting upon yours, you should enable me to act upon mine.'
The mildness of the tone employed could not rob the rebuke of its asperity. Sir Richard, deeply affronted, coloured from chin to brow.
'By God, sir, I find you singularly bold.'
Mr. Melville smiled into the fierce greenish eyes. 'I should not otherwise be here, sir.'
For a long moment the scowling ambassador considered. Irritably, at last, he spoke, tapping the letter before him.
'I am asked here to lend you support and assistance. I am asked to do this in a letter brought to me by a man whom I do not know. There is the question of your identity. You will have papers; a passport, and the like.'
'I have not, Sir Richard.' He did not attempt to explain how this happened. There was only his word for it, and this man would certainly affront him by refusing to accept it. 'That letter should be my sufficient passport. Mr. Pitt, you observe, has taken the precaution of adding a description of me at the foot. However, if that does not suffice, I can produce persons of eminence, integrity, and repute in Venice who are personally acquainted with me.'
Mr. Melville read in his glance the man's mean satisfaction at being at last able to gratify the rancour aroused in him by the appointment of this envoy-extraordinary and nourished by the defeat he had suffered in argument.
'Until you produce them, sir, and until I am satisfied that they are as you describe them, you will not wonder that I decline to act as your sponsor.' He touched a bell on the table as he spoke. 'That, I am sure, is what Mr. Pitt would expect and desire of me. I must be very sure of my ground, sir, before I can take the responsibility of answering for you to His Serenity the Doge.'
The door was opened by the usher. There was no invitation to dinner from the British Ambassador.
'I have the honour, sir, to wish you a very good day.'
If Mr. Melville departed in any perturbation, it was only to see England represented in Venice at such a time by such a man. When he came to contrast the shrewd smoothness of Lallemant—one who had won to his position by the proofs of ability he had afforded—with the stiff-necked stupidity of Sir Richard Worthington—who no doubt owed his appointment to birth and influence—he began to ask himself whether, after all, there might not be grounds for the republican doctrines which had found application in France and which everywhere in Europe were now in the air; whether the caste to which he belonged was not indeed already an effete anachronism, to be shovelled by men of sense out of the path of civilization and progress.
These misgivings, however, did not sink so far as to imperil the championship of the cause of aristocracy to which he was pledged. After all, he belonged to that caste; the recovery of his estates of Saulx depended upon the restoration of the monarchy in France, and this restoration could not take place until the anarchs were brought to their knees and broken. Personal profit apart, however, the cause was one to which by birth he owed his loyalty, and loyally he would spend himself in its service, right or wrong.
From the austere English lady, his mother, he had inherited a lofty and even troublesome sense of duty, which his education had further ingrained.
An instance of this is afforded by the order in which he handled the matters concerned with his presence in Venice. That affair of his own primarily responsible for the journey—and one which might well have justified impatience—was yet to be approached. His approach of it now may have gathered eagerness because Sir Richard Worthington's cavalier treatment of him rendered it politically as necessary as previously it had been personally desirable.
When, on the death of his father Marc-Antoine had undertaken at the call of duty to his house and caste that hazardous and all but fatal journey into France, Count Francesco Pizzamano was, and had been for two years, Venetian Minister in London. His son Domenico, an officer in the service of the Most Serene Republic, was an attachè at the Legation, and between him and Marc-Antoine a friendship had grown which had presently embraced their respective families. Gradually Marc-Antoine's interest in Domenico had become less than his interest in Domenico's sister, the Isotta Pizzamano, whom Romney painted, and whose beauty and grace are extolled in so many memoirs of the day.
The events—first Marc-Antoine's excursion into France and then the recall of Count Pizzamano—had interrupted those relations. It was his ardent desire to resume them, now that the way was clear, which had dictated his journey to Venice.