"Giustinian! She will be our daughter, and none need question her
dignity and grace."
"My Lady Laura, none knoweth better of her beauty and none so proud of
her as I, who had thought to hide my head for the disgrace of it! But
the daring of this son of ours doth make me gay! I am ready to give thee
a compliment on thy bringing up, which often I had feared was over
frivolous. And now, he hath the Republic before him, where to choose."
"Giustinian?"
She rested both hands on his shoulders and looked full in his eyes with
the gravity of her question which was the dream of his life, and was
often tacitly touched, when they conferred together in confidence.
"Ay," he answered, "even that, the highest--by favor of San Marco--he
may win. For the grace of him maketh his head seem less."
But the shadow of the coveted Lion's paw had suddenly overclouded him
and changed his mood.
XIII
When the first faint flush of dawn was waking in the east, the fair,
sweet face of Marina of Murano was outlined for the last time, vague as
some dream memory, against the deep shadows of the interior, between the
quaint columns that framed her window.
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