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The novel theatre set up by Ruzzante in the Sala del Cavallo was prospering. Increasing patrician patronage was elbowing out the vulgar throngs that at first had flocked to it, and daily its benches were being occupied more and more by all that was best and noblest in Venice.

Among its most assiduous patrons was that very splendid, carnal gentleman Don Ramon de Aguilar, Count of Arias, envoy of Castile and Aragon to the Most Serene Republic. Careless of opinions, in a Castilian pride which included Venetians in the contempt of all who were not Spanish, he went there openly and, unlike Sarasin, unmasked, making no secret of the fact that La Gitanilla was the magnet that drew him thither. Once her interlude had been performed he would depart, indifferent even to Ruzzante’s funambulist who drew such exquisite shudders from the crowd. The very charitable may have opined that he was drawn by the songs of his native land, those languorous Andalusian laments, rather than by the singer. But if all the truth is to be told, Don Ramon had no ear for music. Of beauty he knew only that which his eyes could appraise, and to those dark, hot eyes of his a feast was spread by La Gitanilla’s incomparable sinuous grace.

It was natural that he should wish to reward the delight she gave a fellow-countryman, and so he would send her flowers procured from the mainland, boxes of exotic comfits and even a trinket or two. Imposing himself by virtue of his rank and office upon Ruzzante, he was supplied occasion to visit her behind the scenes, but only to find her here as circumspect and formal as upon the stage she could be reckless and abandoned.

It was at an early interview that, misconceiving her reticences and anxious to set her at her ease, he protested: “Child, you are not to stand in awe of me.”

“Why should I?” she had coolly answered him. “You are a great hidalgo, a great lord, to be sure. But you are not God, and I go in awe of none other.”

It would have been disconcerting to one who was by no means persuaded that he was without attributes of divinity, had he not been reassured by the reflexion that this was a mere trick of the trade of a minx who knew how to spur desire. So the poor man parried the artful stroke with a laugh.

“I would I were as sure that you are not a goddess.”

But her persistent insensibility began to irritate a vanity swollen by too many easy conquests.

She continued to receive his visits in her dressing-room because, as Ruzzante informed her, it would be perilous to deny so great a gentleman. But not all his arts, nor the splendour and still youthful beauty of his person, could pierce the wall she raised about her.

Don Ramon grew impatient. Coyness may be suffered and humoured to a point; but beyond that point it becomes tiresome. He was considering peremptory ways of ending it when, one morning, as he was putting the last touches to a careful toilet, his personal body-servant, a young Moor still named Yakoub although he had been baptized, brought him word that a lady calling herself La Gitanilla was begging to be received by his excellency.

There was a twitch of his excellency’s vilely loose mouth, deplorable feature of an otherwise darkly handsome, narrow face. Then with a slow, sly smile at his image in the mirror, he went to greet his unexpected visitor.

She awaited him in the long room of the mezzanine, whose balcony overlooked the Canal Grande, agleam in the sunshine of that February morning. She advanced to meet his splendour—he was all in sulphur yellow—eagerness breaking through the veil of her timidity.

“It is kind of your excellency to receive me.”

“Kind?” He was deprecatory. “Adorable Beatriz, have you ever found me other?”

“That is what emboldens me.”

“It asks little boldness to perform what is welcomed. Will you not put off your cloak?”

Obediently she doffed the brown hooded mantle that shrouded her from head to heel, and stood forth in a sheathing gown of a lighter brown that revealed her supple grace. Her more than moderate height was increased in appearance by the high waist from which was hung the long tongue of a scarlet, gold-edged girdle. Her head was bare save for the net of fine gold thread that confined the coils of her lustrous chestnut hair.

Don Ramon contemplated her with discriminating eyes. He considered the fine texture of her skin on face and throat, of a warm ivory pallor, flushed now on the cheekbones by a quickened stirring of her blood. He pondered the lissom shape and the swell of her breast that was heaving gently under the stress of an emotion which he found flattering. Above all he admired the easy proud grace of her carriage and the splendid poise with which the dancer’s art had endowed her perfect body. This was no common slut of the trestles, no gipsy wench such as her theatre-name implied. There must be, he thought, good Castilian blood in veins that looked so delicately blue against the whiteness of her throat. How else should she come by that air of pride, that placid self-command, that almost patrician dignity. Here, indeed, was a woman worthy of his fastidious discernment.

Clear hazel eyes regarded him steadily from under fine dark brows.

“I come to you as a suppliant.” Her voice was low and veiled by a seductive huskiness.

“Not here,” he answered gallantly. “Never here. Here you may command.”

Her glance fell away from the glow of his eyes. “It is to the envoy of the Spanish Sovereigns that I make my prayer.”

“Then I thank God that I am the Spanish envoy. Will you not sit?”

He led her by the hand to a divan that faced the windows. With studied artificial deference he remained standing, his own shoulders to the light.

Some of her calm was being lost in anxiety. “It is a matter of your excellency’s office. It concerns a Spaniard, a subject of our Sovereigns; in fact, my brother.”

“You have a brother? Here in Venice? Well, well, tell me the case.”

She told it as smoothly as her anxieties permitted. A week ago, at Gennaro’s tavern in the Merceria, there had been a brawl in which daggers had been drawn, and a gentleman of the House of Morosini had been stabbed. In the confusion, as they were carrying him out, her brother who was present had picked up a poniard from the floor. It was a rich weapon, with jewels in the hilt, and her brother—she faltered here in shame—had been tempted to keep it. Two days ago he had sold it to a Hebrew goldsmith near San Moisè. It had been recognized as Morosini’s, and as a consequence last night her brother had been arrested.

Don Ramon looked grave. “In so clear a case I do not see what we can do. Your unfortunate brother, standing convicted of theft, is beyond an ambassador’s protection.”

The flush vanished from her face. In its pallor her eyes became deep pools of fear. “It ... it is hardly a theft,” she pleaded weakly. “He found the dagger on the ground.”

“But he sold it. A madness. Doesn’t he know the severity of the Republic’s laws?”

“How should he, being a Castilian?”

“But theft is theft, in Venice or Castile. Was he in need that he should have run this dreadful risk?”

“Scarcely that, since I have worked for both of us.” There was a hint of bitterness in the reply. “But perhaps I stinted him. He has been softly bred, and he craved more than I was able to supply from my poor earnings.”

“You move me deeply,” Don Ramon commiserated, and then asked: “What was it brought you to Italy?”

To hold his sympathy, since she must cling to the hope that out of it he might yet be moved to help her, she used an utter frankness. She had left Spain at her brother’s urgent pleadings. He was in trouble there. He had killed a man in Cordoba. Oh, but quite honourably, in a fair encounter. But the man was of a powerful family, and the alcalde had been made active. His alguaziles were hunting her brother. So he must go. Because she loved him, knew him weak and shiftless, feared for him if he went alone, and also because there was nothing in Spain to hold her, she had consented to go with him. She counted upon such arts as she possessed to earn a livelihood for both. They had landed at Genoa a year ago, and thence through Milan, Pavia and Bergamo, she had sung and danced her way to Venice. “And now,” she ended her lamentable tale, “unless your excellency can help us, Pablo will ...” She broke off with a little shiver of sheer wretchedness.

He was as unmoved by the peril of a worthless brother who, in his view, deserved the worst that might befall him, as he was stirred by the spectacle of her distressed loveliness. “A way must be found. He must not be left to the mercies of the Most Serene.”

Don Ramon sank, as he spoke, to the divan beside her, and his fine jewelled hand came to rest lightly and soothingly upon her shoulder. “Officially I am without power to intervene. But personally it is another matter. After all, I have some weight. Depend that every ounce of it shall be employed.”

“I bless you for the hope you give me.” Her breath had quickened, the flush was creeping back into her cheeks.

“Oh, I give you more than hope. I give you certainty. It will matter less—far less—to the Serene Republic to punish an obscure offender than to gratify the envoy of Spain even when he is unofficial. So shed no tears, child, from those heavenly eyes. Your brother will be restored to you very soon. My word on it. His name is Pablo, is it?”

“Pablo de Arana.” She swung to face him in a surge of gratitude with a movement of intoxicating grace. She was radiant with relief. “May Our Lady recompense you.”

“Our Lady!” His excellency made a wry face. Then he laughed. “Must I wait, then, until I get to Heaven? I am human, faith, and look for something in this world.”

He saw the radiance perish from her countenance as she turned away, and for a moment he observed her in frowning annoyance. Abruptly he took her by the chin and turned her face again so that he could look into her eyes. He saw the mingled fear and scorn that glared from them; he sensed the sudden iciness that enveloped her; and the poor man was at a loss to understand it.

“Why, my Gitanilla, what is this? Will you shrink from me when I am ready to pawn my credit for you? May I die but I deserve better from you. Must you act the prude with me?”

“I am not acting,” she told him, a blaze of pride in her eyes. “Your excellency overlooks that I may be a virtuous woman.”

Annoyance made him brutal. “Virtue that exhibits itself in dancing! The poor pretence. Bah!” He released her chin, and rose. “I do not press myself where I am not welcome.”

It was artful enough to cast her into fresh panic. “My lord! My lord! Let yourself be noble in this, and Heaven will repay the charity you do me.”

He looked down upon her with a sneer. “Is Heaven, then, to pay your debts for you? In that case let Heaven save your brother from mutilation, or the galleys, or even death.”

She shuddered. “This is to be pitiless,” she moaned.

“What pity do you earn? What pity do you show me? Is it not pitiless to scorn the love that burns me. Do you guess nothing of the jealousy that torments me when others feast their eyes upon you in the dance? I would wrest you from all that, and wear you for my own.” He checked, and then resumed on a tone of eager cajolery. “I shall be returning soon to Spain. You shall come back with me, to live under my protection. And for your brother ... I have said what I can do, and will.”

Virtuous as she claimed to be, yet she knew her world. Bitterly had she been schooled in its evil ways in the last two years or so, in which she had depended for a livelihood upon her art and her beauty. If on the one hand they had maintained her, on the other they had made her an object for the constant insult of foul and soiling gallantries. These she had withstood, and in withstanding them her nature had hardened, so that now, mistress of the wit and guile with which to repel them, they left her indifferent. She had, in her own phrase, acquired arts that enabled her to walk undefiled through the world’s filth. Yet here, given a clear choice between her brother’s life and her own defilement, those arts could not avail her. She must stoop to baser ones if she were to save at once poor Pablo and herself. She must cheat this man with promises, to be repudiated when he had done his part. Scruples she stifled with the assurance that a vile fellow who could so seek to profit by a woman’s distress and urgent need, deserved no better than vile treatment.

With averted head, so that he might not read the shame in her eyes, she gave him his answer. “Save Pablo, my lord, and then ...” She faltered into silence.

He came close. She had a sense that he hovered over her like a vulture over the moribund. His breath fanned her cheek. “And then?”

Her senses revolted. “Oh, can’t you do it without bargaining?”

It was a shock to him, who had thought her on the point of yielding.

“So cold!” he reproached her, with a touch of bitterness. “So stony! Gitanilla! Gitanita! Are you, then, flesh; or are you granite?”

She drew away from him, her breast in tumult, dissembling her disgust.

“I am a woman in sore distress,” she cried, hoping yet to arouse his chivalry.

She took up her cloak. He strode to hold it for her, and in adjusting it to her shoulders, stooped to sear her white neck with his hot lips.

The shudder with which she tore herself from his light grip, infuriated him. “Do you hope to move me by cruelty to generosity?” he mocked her. “Come to me again when you see the folly of that.”

She fled without answering, leaving him thoughtful.

He was dissatisfied with his own conduct of the affair. Somewhere he had blundered. There had been a moment in which she had softened, and he had failed to take advantage of it. That she would come again he was persuaded. Meanwhile, he would prepare the way for her brother’s deliverance, and confronting her with the certainty of it as a result of his endeavours profit by the gratitude it must earn him. She was clearly of those with whom a man would best serve his interests by a show of disinterestedness. Thus at least he read her, and, anyway, it was worth a gamble.