But even for the most impatient, time may not tarry indefinitely, and the lagging moments had at last brought round that festa of San Marco which meant so much for Venice, with its splendid pageants for the Church, its festivities for the people, its fluttering of doves in the Piazza, and of timid, eager maiden hearts, waiting in a sort of shy assurance for that earliest Venetian love-token, the boccolo—­the rosebud which breathed the secret of many a young Venetian lover to his inamorata under those April skies, on the festa of this patron saint of Venice.

And the next morning the stately lady of the Giustiniani stood quite alone on the balcony of the great palace at the bend of the Canal Grande, leaning upon her gold-embroidered cushions to watch the gondola that was just landing at the step of the Piazzetta; the restless movements of her tapering jeweled fingers were the only sign of an emotion she rarely betrayed, though doubtless, under the faultless dignity of her bearing, there were often currents of feeling and thwartings hard to be endured.

She was thinking of her boy with a great and sudden tenderness, now that the moment had come in which she would be less to him and the world of men must be more, as from the distance she saw the gondola touch the landing and watched him until he passed out of sight, after pausing with his father for a moment before the great columns of San Marco and San Teodoro, looking up perhaps with a keener sense of the dread scenes they had witnessed than had ever before possessed him, though the sunshine streamed brilliantly over the water and life seemed full of promise for this only son of the Ca’ Giustiniani, on his way to take the oath of “Silence and Allegiance to the Republic,” as a “Nobile di Gran’ Consiglio.”

Marcantonio had entered the gondola gaily, with a full, pleasurable sense of the beauty of life, and well content with that portion which had fallen to his lot; for he was easily affected, and the air of the palace was full of the excitement of his fete.  The only forebodings that shadowed his sunshine were connected with Marina and the gift which he should offer to his mother upon his return from the Ducal Palace.  But the day was one to banish every hint of failure, making him more conscious of his power than he had ever been before, and he felt himself floating toward attainment—­whatever the difficulties might be.  But with his first step upon the Piazzetta he forgot the glory of the sunshine flashing over the blue waters, and a sudden sense of fate possessed him, as his father made an almost imperceptible pause in his grave progress toward the Ducal Palace, and with the slightest possible movement of his hand seemed to direct his son’s attention to the great granite columns which bore the emblems of the patron saints of Venice.