The Signor Gradenigo paced the room in which he had received his ward for several minutes in silence. Not a sound of any sort was audible throughout the whole of that vast abode, the stillness and cautious tread of those within, answering to the quiet town without; but a young man, in whose countenance and air were to be seen most of the usual signs of a well-bred profligacy, sauntering along the suite of chambers, at length caught the eye of the senator, who beckoned him to approach. "Thou art unhappy, as of wont, Giacomo," he said, in a tone between paternal indulgence and reproach. "The Donna Violetta has, but a minute since, departed, and thou wert absent. Some unworthy intrigue with the daughter of a jeweller, or some injurious bargain of thy hopes with the father, hath occupied the time that might have been devoted more honorably, and to far better profit." "You do me little justice," returned the youth. "Neither Jew nor Jewess hath this day greeted my eye." "The calendar should mark the time for its singularity! I would know, Giacomo, if thou turnest to a right advantage the occasion of my guardianship, and if thou thinkest with sufficient gravity of the importance of what I urge?" "Doubt it not, father. He who hath so much suffered for the want of that which the Donna Violetta possesses in so great a profusion, needeth little prompting on such a subject. By refusing to supply my wants, you have made certain of my consent. There is not a fool in Venice who sighs more loudly beneath his mistress's window, than I utter my pathetic wishes to the lady--when there is opportunity, and I am in the humor." "Thou knowest the danger of alarming the senate?" "Fear me not. My progress is by secret and gradual means. Neither my countenance nor my mind is unused to a mask--thanks to necessity! My spirits have been too buoyant not to have made me acquainted with duplicity!" "Thou speakest, ungrateful boy, as if I denied thy youth the usual indulgences of thy years and rank. It is thy excesses, and not thy spirits, I would check. But I would not now harden thee with reproof. Giacomo, thou hast a rival in the stranger. His act in the Giudecca has won upon the fancy of the girl; and like all of generous and ardent natures, ignorant as she is of his merits, she supplies his character with all necessary qualities by her own ingenuity." "I would she did the same by me!" "With thee, Sirrah, my ward might be required to forget, rather than invent. Hast thou bethought thee of turning the eyes of the council on the danger which besets their heiress?" "I have." "And the means?" "The plainest and the most certain--the lion's mouth." "Ha! that, indeed, is a bold adventure." "And, like all bold adventures, it is the more likely to succeed. For once, fortune hath not been a niggard with me. I have given them the Neapolitan's signet by way of proof."