His Holiness would have us on
our knees, weeping like naughty infants, and abjectly craving his pardon
for daring to make our own laws and uphold our prince!"
"Giustinian, there is more to it than that."
"Ay, there _is_ more, if it setteth the women up to preach to us and to
expound the laws of the Republic--a knowledge in which I knew not that
they held the mastery! Take not the tone of Marina, who hath come near
to killing herself and making half a fool of Marcantonio."
"Nay, Marco is true to Venice and swerveth not. And for our
daughter--she hath suffered till it breaks my heart to look into her
face, poor child! And thou, Giustinian, wert little like thyself, when
she lay almost dying! The Signor Nani hath confessed to me that in Rome
there was much intriguing for her favor--of which she suspected naught.
It was a harm to them that they went to Rome; I would not have had it
so."
"Ay, thou would'st not have had it so; thou would'st have had it all
thine own way!" retorted Giustinian, who was becoming impossible to
please, now that the paths of government were growing more thorny and
exacting, and the Lion showed no sign of climbing to his portal.
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