But the dignified company were pressing the young secretary for his
answer, and one of them anxiously repeated the keynote, "_An examination
which prejudiced the ancient right of Venice_?"
"Courtesy and wisdom would render any other opinion inadmissible,"
Marcantonio replied,--"in Venice."
The elder Giustinian had detected the slight pause which preceded the
last two words. "Wherefore 'in Venice'?" he questioned, with some heat.
"It is a question not of locality, but of justice and judgment."
"It is a question of judgment," Marcantonio echoed suavely, "upon which,
it hath been told me, the Senate hath already passed a law that shall
keep our Most Reverend Signor Vendramin from such a fate."
"Ay, never again may our Patriarch leave the Republic for confirmation
of the see which she alone may grant. The law is just," said the Senator
Leonardo Donate.
"In the days when his Holiness was but an Eminence, it hath been said,
he gave our ambassador a chance to prove his temper?" Morosini
questioned of Donato, who had been ambassador in Rome while Paul V, who
had but just ascended the throne, was still Cardinal Borghese.
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