ir eyes were drawn
from all this painted and riotous wonder by the long arresting frieze
of portraits of serene, masterful and subtle faces.

"The common factor--that's what we want, isn't it?"

"Yes," she breathed.

And as they stood, hand in hand, the unspoken thought vibrating between
them, the memory came to him of a day long ago when he had stood with
another woman--a girl then--before the photographs in the window of the
London Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, and he had scanned faces
of successful men. He laughed--he could not help it--and drew his
Princess closer to him. Between the analogous then and the wonderful
now, how immense a difference! As he laughed she looked swiftly up into
his face.

"I know why you laugh."

"No, my Princess. Impossible."

"Mais oui. Tell me. All these great princes"--she swept her little
gloved hand toward the frieze. "What is their common factor?"

Paul, forgetful of his mirth, looked round. "'Indomitable will," said
be seriously. "Unconquerable ambition, illimitable faith. They all seem
to be saying their creed. 'I believe in myself almighty, and in Venice
under my control, and in God who made us both, and in the inferiority
of the remnant of the habitable globe.' Or else: 'In the beginning God
created Venice. Then He created the rest of the world. Then He created
Me. Then He retired and left me to deal with the situation.' Or else:
'I am an earthly Trinity. I am myself. I am Venice. I am God.'"

"It is magnificent!" she cried. "How you understand them! How you
understand the true aristocratic spirit! They are all, what you call,
leaders of men. I did not expect an analysis so swift and so true. But,
Paul"--her voice sank adorably--"all these men lack
something--something that you have. And that is why I thought you
laughed."

He smiled down on her. "Do you think I was measuring myself with these
men?"

"Naturally. Why should you not?" she asked proudly.

"And what have I got that they lack?"

"Happiness," said the Princess.

Paul was silent for a while, as they moved slowly away to the balcony
which overlooks the lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore glowing warm in the
sunshine, and then he said: "Yet most of those men loved passionately
in their time, and were loved by beautiful women."

"Their love was a thing of the passions, not of the spirit. You cannot
see a woman, that is to say happiness, behind any of their faces."

He whispered: "Can you see a woma