espeare says:
'Love lends a precious seeing to the eye.'"

"That--that's very pretty," said the Princess in French. "I love much
your Shakespeare."

Whereupon Paul recognized her admission of the correctness of his
conjecture; and so, with the precious vision they had borrowed, they
went about tourist-wise to familiar churches and palaces, and
everything they saw was lit with exceeding loveliness. And they saw the
great pictures of the world, and Paul, with his expert knowledge,
pointed out beauties she had not dreamed of hitherto, and told her
tales of the painters and discoursed picturesquely on Venetian history,
and she marvelled at his insight and learning and thought him the most
wonderful man that had ever dropped, ready-made, from heaven. And he,
in the flush of his new love, was thrilled by her touch and the low
tones of her voice when she plucked him by the sleeve and murmured:
"Ah, Paul, regardez-moi ca. It is so beautiful one wants to weep with
joy."

They spoke now half in French, half in English, and she no longer
protested against his murderous accent, which, however, lie strove to
improve. Love must have lent its precious hearing too, for she vowed
she loved to hear him speak her language.

In the great Council Chamber of the Ducal Palace they looked at the
seventy-six portraits of the illustrious succession of Doges--with the
one tragic vacant space, the missing portrait of Marino Faliero, the
Rienzi of Venice, the man before his time.

"It seizes one's heart, doesn't it?" said the Princess, with her
impulsive touch on his sleeve. "All these men were kings--sovereigns of
a mighty nation. And how like they are to one another--in this
essential quality one would say they were brothers of a great family."

"Why, yes," he cried, scanning the rows of severe and subtle faces.
"It's true. Illuminatingly true."

He slid up his wrist quickly so that his hand met hers; he held it.
"How swift your perception is! And what is that quality--that quality
common to them all--that quality of leadership? Let us try to find it."

Unconsciously he gripped her hand, and she returned his pressure; and
they stood, as chance willed it, alone, free from circumambulant
tourists, in the vast chamber, vivid with Paul Veronese's colour on
wall and ceilings, with Tintoretto and Bassano' with the arrogant
splendour of the battles and the pomp and circumstance of victorious
armies of the proud and conquering republic, and the