"I hope not," said Marietta, but so low that the woman did not hear.

"I will ask you a riddle," continued Nella presently.

"Oh no!" laughed Marietta. "I could no more guess a riddle to-day than I could give a dissertation on theology. Riddles are for rainy days in winter, when we sit by the fire in the evening wishing it were morning again. I know the great riddle at last—I have found it out. It is the most beautiful thing in the world."

"Then it is true," observed Nella, looking at her with satisfaction.

"What?" asked the young girl carelessly.

"That you are to be married."

"I hope so," answered Marietta. "Some day, but there is time yet—perhaps a very long time."

"As long as it will take to make a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls. Not a day longer than that." Nella looked very wise and watched her mistress's face.

"What do you mean?"

"The master has ordered just such a gown. That is what I mean. Do you think I would talk of such a beautiful thing, just to make you unhappy, if you were not to have one? But you will not forget poor Nella, my little lady? You will take me with you to Venice?"

"Then you think I am to marry some one from the city? What is his name?"

"The master knows. That is enough. But it must be the Doge's son, or at least the son of the Admiral of Venice. It will take two months to embroider the gown. That means that you are to be married in August, of course."

"Do you think so?" asked Marietta indifferently.

"I know it." And Nella gave a discontented little snort, for she did not like to have her conclusions questioned. "Am I half-witted? Am I in my dotage? Am I an imbecile? The gown is ordered, and that is the truth. Do you think the master has ordered a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls for himself?"

Marietta tossed her hair back and shook it down her shoulders, laughing gaily at the idea.

"Ah!" cried Nella indignantly. "Now you are mocking me! You are making a laughing-stock of your poor Nella! It is too bad! But you will be sorry that you laughed at me, when I am not here to bring you melons and cherries and tell you the news in the morning! You will say: 'Poor Nella! She was not such an ignorant person after all!' That is what you will say. I tell you that if your father orders a wedding gown, you are the only person in the house who can wear it, and he would not order it just to see how beautiful you would be as a bride! He is a serious man, the master, he is grave, he is wise! He does nothing without much reflection, and what he does is well done. He says, 'My daughter is to be married, therefore I will order a splendid dress for her.' That is what he says, and he orders it."

"That has an air of reason," said Marietta gravely. "I did not mean to laugh at you."

"Oh, very well! If you thought your father unreasonable, what should I say? He does not say one thing and do another, your father. And I will tell you something. They will make the gown even handsomer than he ordered it, because he is very rich, and he will grumble and scold, but in the end he will pay, for the honour of the house. Then you will wear the gown, and all Venice will see you in it on your wedding day."

"That will be a great thing for the Venetians," observed the young girl, trying not to smile.

"They will see that there are rich men in Murano, too. It will be a lesson for their intolerable vanity."

"Are the Venetians so very vain?"

"Well! Was not my husband a Venetian, blessed soul? It seems to me that I should know. Have I forgotten how he would fasten a cock's feather in his cap, almost like a gentleman, and hang his cloak over one shoulder, and pull up his hose till they almost cracked, so as to show off his leg? Ah, he had handsome legs, my poor Vito, and he never would use anything but pure beeswax to stiffen his mustaches. No, he never would use tallow. He was almost like a gentleman!"

Nella's little brown eyes were moist as she recalled her husband's small vanities; his dislike of tallow as a cosmetic seemed to affect her particularly.

"That is why I say that it will be a lesson to the pride of those Venetians to see your marriage," she resumed, after drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "And the people of Murano will be there, and all the glass-blowers in their guild, since the master is the head of it. I suppose Zorzi will manage to be there, too."

Nella spoke the last words in a tone of disapproval.

"Why should Zorzi not be at my wedding?" asked Marietta carelessly.

"Why should he?" asked the serving-woman with unusual bluntness. "But I daresay the master will find something for him to do. He is clever enough at doing anything."

"Yes—he is clever," assented the young girl. "Why do you not like him? Give me some more water—you are always afraid that I shall use too much!"

"I have a conscience," grumbled Nella. "The water is brought from far, it is paid for, it costs money, we must not use too much of it. Every day the boats come with it, and the row of earthen jars in the court is filled, and your father pays—he always pays, and pays, and pays, till I wonder where the money all comes from. They say he makes gold, over there in the furnace."

"He makes glass," answered Marietta. "And if he orders gowns for me with pearls and gold, he will not grudge me a jug of water. Why do you dislike Zorzi?"

"He is as proud as a marble lion, and as obstinate as a Lombardy mule," explained Nella, with fine imagery. "If that is not enough to make one dislike a young man, you shall tell me so! But one of those days he will fall. There is trouble for the proud."

"How does his great pride show itself?" asked Marietta. "I have not noticed it."

"That would indeed be the end of everything, if he showed his pride to you!" Nella was much displeased by the mere suggestion. "But with us it is different. He never speaks to the other workmen."

"They never speak to him."

"And quite right, too, since he holds his head so high, with no reason at all! But it will not last for ever! I wonder what the master would think, for instance, if he knew that Zorzi takes the skiff in the evening, and rows himself over to Venice, all alone, and comes back long after midnight, and sleeps in the glass-house across the way because he cannot get into the house. Zorzi! Zorzi! The master cannot move without Zorzi! And where is Zorzi at night? At home and in bed, like a decent young man? No. Zorzi is away in Venice, heaven knows where, doing heaven knows what! Do you wonder that he is so pale and tired in the morning? It seems to me quite natural. Eh? What do you think, my pretty lady?"

Marietta was silent for a moment. It was only a servant's spiteful gossip, but it hurt her.

"Are you sure that he goes to Venice alone at night?" she asked, after a little pause.

"Am I sure that I live, that I belong to you, and that my name is Nella? Is not the boat moored under my window? Did I not hear the chain rattling softly last night? I got up and looked out, and I saw Zorzi, as I see you, taking the padlock off. I am not blind—praise be to heaven, I see. He turned the boat to the left, so he must have been going to Venice, and it was at least an hour after the midnight bells when I heard the chain again, and I looked out, and there he was. But he did not come into the house. And this morning I saw him coming out of the glass-house, just as the men went in. He was as pale as a boiled chicken."

Marietta had seen him, too, and the coincidence gave colour to the rest of the woman's tale, as would have happened if the whole story had been an invention instead of being quite true. Nella was combing the girl's thick hair, an operation peculiarly conducive to a maid's chattering, for she has the certainty that her mistress cannot get away, and must therefore listen patiently.

A shadow had fallen on the brightness of Marietta's morning. She was paler, too, but she said nothing.

"Of course he was tired," continued Nella. "Did you suppose that he would come back with pink cheeks and bright eyes, like a baby from baptism, after being out half the night?"

"He is always pale," said Marietta.

"Because he goes to Venice every night," retorted Nella viciously. "That is the good reason! Oh, I am sure of it! And besides, I shall watch him, now that I know. I shall see him whenever he takes the boat."

"It is none of your business where he goes," answered Marietta. "It does not concern any one but himself."

"Oh, indeed!" sneered Nella. "Then the honour of the house does not matter! It is no concern of ours! And your father need never know that his trusty servant, his clever assistant, his faithful confidant, who shares all his secrets, is a good-for-nothing fellow who spends his nights in gambling, or drinking, or perhaps in making love to some Venetian girl as honourable and well behaved as himself!"

Marietta had grown steadily more angry while Nella was talking. She had her father's temper, though she could control it better than he.

"I will find out whether this story is true," she said coldly. "If it is not, it will be the worse for you. You shall not serve me any longer, unless you can be more careful in what you say."

Nella's jaw dropped and her hands stood still and trembled, the one holding the comb upraised, the other gathering a quantity of her mistress's hair. Marietta had never spoken to her like this in her life.

"Send me away?" faltered the woman in utter amazement. "Send me away!" she repeated, still quite dazed. "But it is impossible—" her voice began to break, as if some one were shaking her violently by the shoulders. "Oh no, no! You w-ill n-ot—no-o-o!"

The sound grew more piercing as she went on, and the words were soon lost, as she broke into a violent fit of hysterical crying.

Marietta's anger subsided as her pity for the poor creature increased. She had made a great effort to speak quietly and not to say more than she meant, and she had certainly not expected to produce such a tremendous commotion. Nella tore her hair, drew her nails down her cheeks, as if she would tear them with scratches, rocked herself forwards and backwards and from side to side, the tears poured down her brown cheeks, she screamed and blubbered and whimpered in quick alternation, and in a few moments tumbled into the corner of a big chair, a sobbing and convulsed little heap of womanhood.

Marietta tried to quiet her, and was so sorry for her that she could almost have cried too, until she remembered the detestable things which Nella had said about Zorzi, and which the woman's screams had driven out of her memory for an instant. Then she longed to beat her for saying them, and still Nella alternately moaned and howled, and twisted herself in the corner of the big chair. Marietta wondered whether her servant were going mad, and whether this might not be a judgment of heaven for telling such atrocious lies about poor Zorzi. In that case it was of course deserved, thought she, watching Nella's contortions; but it was very sudden.

She made up her mind to call the other women, and turned to go to the door. As she did so her skirt caught a comb that lay on the edge of the table and swept it off, so that it fell upon the pavement with a dry rap. Instantly Nella sat up straight and rubbed her eyes, looking about for the cause of the sound. When she saw the comb, the serving-woman's instinct returned, and with it her normal condition of mind. She picked up the comb with a quick movement, shook her head and began combing Marietta's hair again before the girl could sit down.

Peace was restored, for she did not speak again, as she helped her mistress to finish dressing; but though Marietta tried to look kindly at her once or twice, Nella quite refused to see it, and did her duty without ever raising her eyes.

It was soon finished, for the pleasure the young girl had taken in making much of the first details of the day that was to be so happy was all gone. She did not believe her woman, but there was a cloud over everything and she was in haste to get an answer to the question which it would not be easy to ask. She must know if Zorzi had been to Venice during the night, for until she knew that, all hope of peace was at an end. Nella had meant no harm, but she had played the fatal little part in which destiny loves to go masking through life's endless play.



CHAPTER V

Zorzi had slept but little after he had at last lain down upon the long bench in the laboratory, for the scene in which he had been the chief actor that night had made a profound impression upon him. There are some men who would not make good soldiers but who can face sudden and desperate danger with a calmness which few soldiers really possess, and which is generally accompanied by some marked superiority of mind; but such exceptional natures feel the reaction that follows the perilous moment far more than the average fighting man. They are those who sometimes stem the rush of panic and turn back whole armies from ruin to victorious battle; they are those who spring forward from the crowd to save life when some terrible accident has happened, as if they were risking nothing, and who generally succeed in what they attempt; but they are not men who learn to fight every day as carelessly and naturally as they eat, drink or sleep. Their chance of action may come but once or twice in a lifetime; yet when it comes it finds them far more ready and cool than the average good soldier could ever be. Like strength in some men, their courage seems to depend on quality and very little on quantity, training or experience.

Zorzi knew very well that although the young gentlemen who were playing at conspiracy in Jacopo's house did not constitute a serious danger to the Republic, they were fully aware of their own peril, and would not have hesitated to take his life if it had not occurred to them that he might be useful. His intrepid manner had saved him, but now that the night was over he felt such a weariness and lassitude as he had never known before.

The adventure had its amusing side, of course. To Zorzi, who knew the people well, it was very laughable to think that a score of dissolute young patricians should first fancy themselves able to raise a revolution against the most firmly established government in Europe, and should then squander the privacy which they had bought at a frightful risk in mere gambling and dice-playing. But there was nothing humorous about the oath he had taken. In the first place, it had been sworn in solemn earnest, and was therefore binding upon him; secondly, if he broke it, his life would not be worth a day's purchase. He was brave enough to have scorned the second consideration, but he was far too honourable to try and escape the first. He had made the promises to save his life, it was true, and under great pressure, but he would have despised himself as a coward if he had not meant to keep them.

And he had solemnly bound himself to respect "the betrothed brides" of all the brethren of the company. Marietta was not betrothed to Jacopo Contarini yet, but there was no doubt that she would be before many days; to "respect" undoubtedly meant that he must not try to win her away from her affianced husband; if he had ever dreamt that in some fair, fantastically improbable future, Marietta could be his wife, he had parted with the right to dream the like again. Therefore, when he had stood awhile looking up at her window that morning, he sighed heavily and went away.

He had never had any hope that she would love him, much less that he could ever marry her, yet he felt that he was parting with the only thing in life which he held higher than his art, and that the parting was final. For months, perhaps for years, he had never closed his eyes to sleep without calling up her face and repeating her name, he had never got up in the morning without looking forward to seeing her and hearing her voice before he should lie down again. A man more like others would have said to himself that no promise could bind him to anything more than the performance of an action, or the abstention from one, and that the right of dreaming was his own for ever. But Zorzi judged differently. He had a sensitiveness that was rather manly than masculine; he had scruples of which he was not ashamed, but which most men would laugh at; he had delicacies of conscience in his most private thoughts such as would have been more natural in a cloistered nun, living in ignorance of the world, than in a waif who had faced it at its worst, and almost from childhood. Innocent as his dream had been, he resolved to part with it, and never to dream it again. He was glad that Marietta had taken back the rose he had picked up yesterday; if she had not, he would have forced himself to throw it away, and that would have hurt him.

So he began his day in a melancholy mood, as having buried out of sight for ever something that was very dear to him. In time, his love of his art would fill the place of the other love, but on this first day he went about in silence, with hungry eyes and tightened lips, like a man who is starving and is too proud to ask a charity.

He waited for Beroviero at the door of his house, as he did every morning, to attend him to the laboratory. The old man looked at him inquiringly, and Zorzi bent his head a little to explain that he had done what had been required of him, and he followed his master across the wooden bridge. When they were alone in the laboratory, he told as much of his story as was necessary.

He had found the lord Jacopo Contarini at his house with a party of friends, he said, and he added at once that they were all men. Contarini had bidden him speak before them all, but he had whispered his message so that only Contarini should hear it. After a time he had been allowed to come away. No—Contarini had given no direct answer, he had sent no reply; he had only said aloud to his friends that the message he received was expected. That was all. The friends who were there? Zorzi answered with perfect truth that he did not remember to have seen, any of them before.

Beroviero was silent for a while, considering the story.

"He would have thought it discourteous to leave his friends," he said at last, "or to whisper an answer to a messenger in their presence. He said that he had expected the message, he will therefore come."

To this Zorzi answered nothing, for he was glad not to be questioned further about what had happened. Presently Beroviero settled to his work with his usual concentration. For many months he had been experimenting in the making of fine red glass of a certain tone, of which he had brought home a small fragment from one of his journeys. Hitherto he had failed in every attempt. He had tried one mixture after another, and had produced a score of different specimens, but not one of them had that marvellous light in it, like sunshine striking through bright blood, which he was striving to obtain. It was nearly three weeks since his small furnace had been allowed to go out, and by this time he alone knew what the glowing pots contained, for he wrote down very carefully what he did and in characters which he believed no one could understand but himself.

As usual every morning, he proceeded to make trial of the materials fused in the night. The furnace, though not large, held three crucibles, before each of which was the opening, still called by the Italian name 'bocca,' through which the materials are put into the pots to melt into glass, and by which the melted glass is taken out on the end of the blow-pipe, or in a copper ladle, when it is to be tested by casting it. The furnace was arched from end to end, and about the height of a tall man; the working end was like a round oven with three glowing openings; the straight part, some twenty feet long, contained the annealing oven through which the finished pieces were made to move slowly, on iron lier-pans, during many hours, till the glass had passed from extreme heat almost to the temperature of the air. The most delicate vessels ever produced in Murano have all been made in single furnaces, the materials being melted, converted into glass and finally annealed, by one fire. At least one old furnace is standing and still in use, which has existed for centuries, and those made nowadays are substantially like it in every important respect.

Zorzi stood holding a long-handled copper ladle, ready to take out a specimen of the glass containing the ingredients most lately added. A few steps from the furnace a thick and smooth plate of iron was placed on a heavy wooden table, and upon this the liquid glass was to be poured out to cool.

"It must be time," said Beroviero, "unless the boys forgot to turn the sand-glass at one of the watches. The hour is all but run out, and it must be the twelfth since I put in the materials."

"I turned it myself, an hour after midnight," said Zorzi, "and also the next time, when it was dawn. It runs three hours. Judging by the time of sunrise it is running right."

"Then make the trial."

Beroviero stood opposite Zorzi, his face pale with heat and excitement, his fiery eyes reflecting the fierce light from the 'bocca' as he bent down to watch the copper ladle go in. Zorzi had wrapped a cloth round his right hand, against the heat, and he thrust the great spoon through the round orifice. Though it was the hundredth time of testing, the old man watched his movements with intensest interest.

"Quickly, quickly!" he cried, quite unconscious that he was speaking.

There was no need of hurrying Zorzi. In two steps he had reached the table, and the white hot stuff spread out over the iron plate, instantly turning to a greenish yellow, then to a pale rose-colour, then to a deep and glowing red, as it felt the cool metal. The two men stood watching it closely, for it was thin and would soon cool. Zorzi was too wise to say anything. Beroviero's look of interest gradually turned into an expression of disappointment.

"Another failure," he said, with a resignation which no one would have expected in such a man.

His practised eyes had guessed the exact hue of the glass, while it still lay on the iron, half cooled and far too hot to touch. Zorzi took a short rod and pushed the round sheet till a part of it was over the edge of the table.

"It is the best we have had yet," he observed, looking at it.

"Is it?" asked Beroviero with little interest, and without giving the glass another glance. "It is not what I am trying to get. It is the colour of wine, not of blood. Make something, Zorzi, while I write down the result of the experiment."

He took big pen and the sheet of rough paper on which he had already noted the proportions of the materials, and he began to write, sitting at the large table before the open window. Zorzi took the long iron blow-pipe, cleaned it with a cloth and pushed the end through the orifice from which he had taken the specimen. He drew it back with a little lump of melted glass sticking to it.

Holding the blow-pipe to his lips, he blew a little, and the lump swelled, and he swung the pipe sharply in a circle, so that the glass lengthened to the shape of a pear, and he blew again and it grew. At the 'bocca' of the furnace he heated it, for it was cooling quickly; and he had his iron pontil ready, as there was no one to help him, and he easily performed the feat of taking a little hot glass on it from the pot and attaching it to the further end of the fast-cooling pear. If Beroviero had been watching him he would have been astonished at the skill with which the young man accomplished what it requires two persons to do; but Zorzi had tricks of his own, and the pontil supported itself on a board while he cracked the pear from the blow-pipe with a wet iron, as well as if a boy had held it in place for him; and then heating and reheating the piece, he fashioned it and cut it with tongs and shears, rolling the pontil on the flat arms of his stool with his left hand, and modelling the glass with his right, till at last he let it cool to its natural colour, holding it straight downward, and then swinging it slowly, so that it should fan itself in the air. It was a graceful calix now, of a deep wine red, clear and transparent as claret.

Zorzi turned to the window to show it to his master, not for the sake of the workmanship but of the colour. The old man's head was bent over his writing; Marietta was standing outside, and her eyes met Zorzi's. He did not blush as he had blushed yesterday, when he looked up from the fire and saw her; he merely inclined his head respectfully, to acknowledge her presence, and then he stood by the table waiting for the master to notice him, and not bestowing another glance on the young girl.

Beroviero turned to him at last. He was so used to Marietta's presence that he paid no attention to her.

"What is that thing?" he asked contemptuously.

"A specimen of the glass we tried," answered the young man. "I have blown it thin to show the colour."

"A man who can have such execrable taste as to make a drinking-cup of coloured glass does not deserve to know as much as you do."

"But it is very pretty," said Marietta through the window, and bending forward she rested her white hands on the table, among the little heaps of chemicals. "Anneal it, and give it to me," she added.

"Keep such a thing in my house?" asked Beroviero scornfully. "Break up that rubbish!" he added roughly, speaking to Zorzi.

Without a word Zorzi smashed the calix off the iron into an old earthen jar already half full of broken glass. Then he put the pontil in its place and went to tend the fire. Marietta left the window and entered the room.

"Am I disturbing you?" she asked gently, as she stood by her father.

"No. I have finished writing." He laid down his pen.

"Another failure?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps I do not bring you good luck with your experiments," suggested the girl, leaning down and looking over his shoulder at the crabbed writing, so that her cheek almost touched his. "Is that why you wish to send me away?"

Beroviero turned in his chair, raised his heavy brows and looked up into her face, but said nothing.

"Nella has just told me that you have ordered my wedding gown," continued Marietta.

"We are not alone," said her father in a low voice.

"Zorzi probably knows what is the gossip of the house, and what I have been the last to hear," answered the young girl. "Besides, you trust him with all your secrets."

"Yes, I trust him," assented Beroviero. "But these are private matters."

"So private, that my serving-woman knows more of them than I do."

"You encourage her to talk."

Marietta laughed, for she was determined to be good-humoured, in spite of what she said.

"If I did, that would not teach her things which I do not know myself! Is it true that you have ordered the gown to be embroidered with pearls?"

"You like pearls, do you not?" asked Beroviero with a little anxiety.

"You see!" cried Marietta triumphantly. "Nella knows all about it."

"I was going to tell you this morning," said her father in a tone of annoyance. "By my faith, one can keep nothing secret! One cannot even give you a surprise."

"Nella knows everything," returned the girl, sitting on the corner of the table and looking from her father to Zorzi. "That must be why you chose her for my serving-woman when I was a little girl. She knows all that happens in the house by day and night, so that I sometimes think she never sleeps."

Zorzi looked furtively towards the table, for he could not help hearing all that was said.

"For instance," continued Marietta, watching him, "she knows that last night some one unlocked the chain that moors the skiff, and rowed away towards Venice."

To her surprise Zorzi showed no embarrassment. He had made up the fire and now sat down at a little distance, on one of the flat arms of the glass-blower's working-stool. His face was pale and quiet, and his eyes did not avoid hers.

"If I caught any one using my boat without my leave, I would make him pay dear," said Beroviero, but without anger, as if he were stating a general truth.

"Whoever it was who took the boat brought it back an hour after midnight, locked the padlock again and went away," said Marietta.

"Tell Nella that I am much indebted to her for her watchfulness. She is as good as a house-dog. Tell her to come and wake me if she sees any one taking the boat again."

"She says she knows who took it last night," observed Marietta, who was puzzled by the attitude of the two men; she had now decided that it had not been Zorzi who had used the boat, but on the other hand the story did not rouse her father's anger as she had expected.

"Did she tell you the man's name?"

"Yes."

"Who was it?"

"She said it was Zorzi." Marietta laughed incredulously as she spoke, and Zorzi smiled quietly.

Beroviero was silent for a moment and looked out of the window.

"Listen to me," he said at last. "Tell your graceless gossip of a serving-woman that I will answer for Zorzi, and that the next time she hears any one taking the boat at night she had better come and call me, and open her eyes a little wider. Tell her also that I entertain proper persons to take care of my property without any help from her. Tell her furthermore that she talks too much. You should not listen to a servant's miserable chatter."

"I will tell her," replied Marietta meekly. "Did you say that the gown was to be embroidered with pearls and silver, father, or with pearls and gold?"

"I believe I said gold," answered the old man discontentedly.

"And when will it be ready? In about two months?"

"I daresay."

"So you mean to marry me in two months," concluded Marietta. "That is not a long time."

"Should you prefer two years?" inquired Beroviero with increasing annoyance. Marietta slipped from the table to her feet.

"It depends on the bridegroom," she answered. "Perhaps I may prefer to wait a lifetime!" She moved towards the door.

"Oh, you shall be satisfied with the bridegroom! I promise you that." The old man looked after her. At the door she turned her head, smiling.

"I may be hard to please," she said quietly, and she went out into the garden.

When she was gone Beroviero shut the window carefully, and though the round bull's-eye panes let in the light plentifully, they effectually prevented any one from seeing into the room. The door was already closed.

"You should have been more careful," he said to Zorzi in a tone of reproach. "You should not have let any one see you, when you took the boat."

"If the woman spent half the night looking out of her window, sir, I do not understand how I could have taken the boat without being seen by her."

"Well, well, there is no harm done, and you could not help it, I daresay. I have something else to say. You saw the lord Jacopo last night; what do you think of him? He is a fine-looking young man. Should not any girl be glad to get such a handsome husband? What do you think? And his name, too! one of the best in the Great Council. They say he has a few debts, but his father is very rich, and has promised me that he will pay everything if only his son can be brought to marry and lead a graver life. What do you think?"

"He is a very handsome young man," said Zorzi loyally. "What should I think? It is a most honourable marriage for your house."

"I hear no great harm of Jacopo," continued Beroviero more familiarly. "His father is miserly. We have spent much time in the preliminary arrangements, without the knowledge of the son, and the old man is very grasping! He would take all my fortune for the dowry if he could. But he has to do with a glass-blower!"

Beroviero smiled thoughtfully. Zorzi was silent, for he was suffering.

"You may wonder why I sent that message last night," began the master again, "since matters are already so far settled with Jacopo's father. You would suppose that nothing more remained but to marry the couple in the presence of both families, should you not?"

"I know little of such affairs, sir," answered Zorzi.

"That would be the usual way," continued Beroviero. "But I will not marry Marietta against her will. I have always told her so. She shall see her future husband before she is betrothed, and persuade herself with her own eyes that she is not being deceived into marrying a hunchback."

"But supposing that after all the lord Jacopo should not be to her taste," suggested Zorzi, "would you break off the match?"

"Break off the match?" cried Beroviero indignantly. "Never! Not to her taste? The handsomest man in Venice, with a great name and a fortune to come? It would not be my fault if the girl went mad and refused! I would make her like him if she dared to hesitate a moment!"

"Even against her will?"

"She has no will in the matter," retorted Beroviero angrily.

"But you have always told her that you would not marry her against her will—"

"Do not anger me, Zorzi! Do not try your specious logic with me! Invent no absurd arguments, man! Against her will, indeed? How should she know any will but mine in the matter? I shall certainly not marry her against her will! She shall will what I please, neither more nor less."

"If that is your point of view," said Zorzi, "there is no room for argument."

"Of course not. Any reasonable person would laugh at the idea that a girl in her senses should not be glad to marry Jacopo Contarini, especially after having seen him. If she were not glad, she would not be in her senses, in other words she would not be sane, and should be treated as a lunatic, for her own good. Would you let a lunatic do as he liked, if he tried to jump out of the window? The mere thought is absurd."

"Quite," said Zorzi.

Sad as he was, he could almost have laughed at the old man's inconsequent speeches.

"I am glad that you so heartily agree with me," answered Beroviero in perfect sincerity. "I do not mean to say that I would ask your opinion about my daughter's marriage. You would not expect that. But I know that I can trust you, for we have worked together a long time, and I am used to hearing what you have to say."

"You have always been very good to me," replied Zorzi gratefully.

"You have always been faithful to me," said the old man, laying his hand gently on Zorzi's shoulder. "I know what that means in this world."

As soon as there was no question of opposing his despotic will, his kindly nature asserted itself, for he was a man subject to quick changes of humour, but in reality affectionate.

"I am going to trust you much more than hitherto," he continued. "My sons are grown men, independent of me, but willing to get from me all they can. If they were true artists, if I could trust their taste, they should have had my secrets long ago. But they are mere money-makers, and it is better that they should enrich themselves with the tasteless rubbish they make in their furnaces, than degrade our art by cheapening what should be rare and costly. Am I right?"

"Indeed you are!" Zorzi now spoke in a tone of real conviction.

"If I thought you were really capable of making coloured drinking-cups like that abominable object you made this morning, with the idea that they could ever be used, you should not stay on Venetian soil a day," resumed the old man energetically. "You would be as bad as my sons, or worse. Even they have enough sense to know that half the beauty of a cup, when it is used, lies in the colour of the wine itself, which must be seen through it. But I forgive you, because you were only anxious to blow the glass thin, in order to show me the tint. You know better. That is why I mean to trust you in a very grave matter."

Zorzi bent his head respectfully, but said nothing.

"I am obliged to make a journey before my daughter's marriage takes place," continued Beroviero. "I shall entrust to you the manuscript secrets I possess. They are in a sealed package so that you cannot read them, but they will be in your care. If I leave them with any one else, my sons will try to get possession of them while I am away. During my last journey I carried them with me, but I am growing old, life is uncertain, especially when a man is travelling, and I would rather leave the packet with you. It will be safer."

"It shall be altogether safe," said Zorzi. "No one shall guess that I have it."

"No one must know. I would take you with me on this journey, but I wish you to go on with the experiments I have been making. We shall save time, if you try some of the mixtures while I am away. When it is too hot, let the furnace go out."

"But who will take charge of your daughter, sir?" asked Zorzi. "You cannot leave her alone in the house."

"My son Giovanni and his wife will live in my house while I am away. I have thought of everything. If you choose, you may bring your belongings here, and sleep and eat in the glass-house."

"I should prefer it."

"So should I. I do not want my sons to pry into what we are doing. You can hide the packet here, where they will not think of looking for it. When you go out, lock the door. When you are in, Giovanni will not come. You will have the place to yourself, and the boys who feed the fire at night will not disturb you. Of course my daughter will never come here while I am away. You will be quite alone."

"When do you go?" asked Zorzi.

"On Monday morning. On Sunday I shall take Marietta to Saint Mark's. When she has seen her husband the betrothal can take place at once."

Zorzi was silent, for the future looked black enough. He already saw himself shut up in the glass-house for two long months, or not much less, as effectually separated from Marietta by the narrow canal as if an ocean were between them. She would never cross over and spend an hour in the little garden then, and she would be under the care of Giovanni Beroviero, who hated him, as he well knew.



CHAPTER VI

Aristarchi rose early, though it had been broad dawn when he had entered his home. He lived not far from the house of the Agnus Dei, on the opposite side of the same canal but beyond the Baker's Bridge. His house was small and unpretentious, a little wooden building in two stories, with a small door opening to the water and another at the back, giving access to a patch of dilapidated and overgrown garden, whence a second door opened upon a dismal and unsavoury alley. One faithful man, who had followed him through many adventures, rendered him such services as he needed, prepared the food he liked and guarded the house in his absence. The fellow was far too much in awe of his terrible master to play the spy or to ask inopportune questions.

The Greek put on the rich dress of a merchant captain of his own people, the black coat, thickly embroidered with gold, the breeches of dark blue cloth, the almost transparent linen shirt, open at the throat. A large blue cap of silk and cloth was set far back on his head, showing all the bony forehead, and his coal-black beard and shaggy hair had been combed as smooth as their shaggy nature would allow. He wore a magnificent belt fully two hands wide, in which were stuck three knives of formidable length and breadth, in finely chased silver sheaths. His muscular legs were encased in leathern gaiters, ornamented with gold and silver, and on his feet he wore broad turned-up slippers from Constantinople. The dress was much the same as that which the Turks had found there a few years earlier, and which they soon amalgamated with their own. It set off the captain's vast breadth of shoulder and massive limbs, and as he stepped into his hired boat the idlers at the water-stairs gazed upon him with an admiration of which he was well aware, for besides being very splendidly dressed he looked as if he could have swept them all into the canal with a turn of his hand.

Without saying whither he was bound he directed the oarsman through the narrow channels until he reached the shallow lagoon. The boatman asked whither he should go.

"To Murano," answered the Greek. "And keep over by Saint Michael's, for the tide is low."

The boatman had already understood that his passenger knew Venice almost as well as he. The boat shot forward at a good rate under the bending oar, and in twenty minutes Aristarchi was at the entrance to the canal of San Piero and within sight of Beroviero's house.

"Easy there," said the Greek, holding up his hand. "Do you know Murano well, my man?"

"As well as Venice, sir."

"Whose house is that, which has the upper story built on columns over the footway?"

"It belongs to Messer Angelo Beroviero. His glass-house takes up all the left aide of the canal as far as the bridge."

"And beyond the bridge I can see two new houses, on the same side. Whose are they?"

"They belong to the two sons of Messer Angelo Beroviero, who have furnaces of their own, all the way to the corner of the Grand Canal."

"Is there a Grand Canal in Murano?" asked Aristarchi.

"They call it so," answered the boatman with some contempt. "The Beroviero have several houses on it, too."

"It seems to me that Beroviero owns most of Murano," observed the Greek. "He must be very rich."

"He is by far the richest. But there is Alvise Trevisan, a rich man, too, and there are two or three others. The island and all the glass-works are theirs, amongst them."

"I have business with Messer Angelo," said Aristarchi. "But if he is such a great man he will hardly be in the glass-house."

"I will ask," answered the boatman.

In a few minutes he made his boat fast to the steps before the glass-house, went ashore and knocked at the door. Aristarchi leaned back in his seat, chewing pistachio nuts, which he carried in an embroidered leathern bag at his belt. His right hand played mechanically with the short string of thick amber beads which he used for counting. The June sun blazed down upon his swarthy face.

At the grating beside the door the porter's head appeared, partially visible behind the bars.

"Is Messer Angelo Beroviero within?" inquired the boatman civilly.

"What is your business?" asked the porter in a tone of surly contempt, instead of answering the question.

"There is a rich foreign gentleman here, who desires to speak with him," answered the boatman.

"Is he the Pope?" asked the porter, with fine irony.

"No, sir," said the other, intimidated by the fellow's manner. "He is a rich—"

"Tell him to wait, then." And the surly head disappeared.

The boatman supposed that the man was gone to speak with his master, and waited patiently by the door. Aristarchi chewed his pistachio nut till there was nothing left, at which time he reached the end of his patience. He argued that it was a good sign if Angelo Beroviero kept rich strangers waiting at his gate, for it showed that he had no need of their custom. On the other hand the Greek's dignity was offended now that he had been made to wait too long, for he was hasty by nature. Once, in a fit of irritation with a Candiot who stammered out of sheer fright, the captain had ordered him to be hanged. Having finished his nut, he stood up in the boat and stepped ashore.

"Knock again," he said to the boatman, who obeyed.

There was no answer this time.

"I can hear the fellow inside," said the boatman.

The grating was too high for a man to look through it from outside. Aristarchi laid his knotty hands on the stone sill and pulled himself up till his face was against the grating. He now looked in and saw the porter sitting in his chair.

"Have you taken my message to your master?" inquired the Greek.

The porter looked up in surprise, which increased when he caught sight of the ferocious face of the speaker. But he was not to be intimidated so easily.

"Messer Angelo is not to be disturbed at his studies," he said. "If you wait till noon, perhaps he will come out to go to dinner."

"Perhaps!" repeated Aristarchi, still hanging by his hands. "Do you think I shall wait all day?"

"I do not know. That is your affair."

"Precisely. And I do not mean to wait."

"Then go away."

But the Greek had come on an exploring expedition in which he had nothing to lose. Hauling himself up a little higher, till his mouth was close to the grating, he hailed the house as he would have hailed a ship at sea, in a voice of thunder.

"Ahoy there! Is any one within? Ahoy! Ahoy!"

This was more than the porter's equanimity could bear. He looked about for a weapon with which to attack the Greek's face through the bars, heaping, upon him a torrent of abuse in the meantime.

"Son of dogs and mules!" he cried in a rising growl. "Ill befall the foul souls of thy dead and of their dead before them."

"Ahoy—oh! Ahoy!" bellowed the Greek, who now thoroughly enjoyed the situation.

The boatman, anxious for drink money, and convinced that his huge employer would get the better of the porter, had obligingly gone down upon his hands and knees, thrusting his broad back under the captain's feet, so that Aristarchi stood upon him and was now prepared to prolong the interview without any further effort. His terrific shouts rang through the corridor to the garden.

The first person to enter the little lodge was Marietta herself, and the Greek broke off short in the middle of another tremendous yell as soon as he saw her. She turned her face up to him, quite fearlessly, and was very much inclined to laugh as she saw the sudden change in his expression.

"Madam," he said with great politeness, "I beg you to forgive my manner of announcing myself. If your porter were more obliging, I should have been admitted in the ordinary way."

"What is this atrocious disturbance?" asked Zorzi, entering before Marietta could answer. "Pray leave the fellow to me," he added, speaking to Marietta, who cast one more glance at Aristarchi and went out.

"Sir," said the captain blandly, "I admit that my behaviour may give you some right to call me 'fellow,' but I trust that my apology will make you consider me a gentleman like yourself. Your porter altogether refused to take a message to Messer Angelo Beroviero. May I ask whether you are his son, sir?"

"No, sir. You say that you wish to speak with the master. I can take a message to him, but I am not sure that he will see any one to-day."

Aristarchi imagined that Beroviero made himself inaccessible, in order to increase the general idea of his wealth and importance. He resolved to convey a strong impression of his own standing.

"I am the chief partner in a great house of Greek merchants settled in Palermo," he said. "My name is Charalambos Aristarchi, and I desire the honour of speaking with Messer Angelo about the purchase of several cargoes of glass for the King of Sicily."

"I will deliver your message, sir," said Zorzi. "Pray wait a minute, I will open the door."

Aristarchi's big head disappeared at last.

"Yes!" growled the porter to Zorzi. "Open the door yourself, and take the blame. The man has the face of a Turkish pirate, and his voice is like the bellowing of several bulls."

Zorzi unbarred the door, which opened inward, and Aristarchi turned a little sideways in order to enter, for his shoulders would have touched the two door-posts. The slight and gracefully built Dalmatian looked at him with some curiosity, standing aside to let him pass, before barring the door again. Aristarchi, though not much taller than himself, was the biggest man he had ever seen. He thanked Zorzi, who pushed forward the porter's only chair for him to sit on while he waited.

"I will bring you an answer immediately," said Zorzi, and disappeared down the corridor.

Aristarchi sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and took a pistachio nut from his pouch.

"Master porter," he began in a friendly tone, "can you tell me who that beautiful lady is, who came here a moment ago?"

"There is no reason why I should," snarled the porter, beginning to strip the outer leaves from a large onion which he pulled from a string of them hanging by the wall.

Aristarchi said nothing for a few moments, but watched the man with an air of interest.

"Were you ever a pirate?" he inquired presently.

"No, I never served in your crew."

The porter was not often at a loss for a surly answer. The Greek laughed outright, in genuine amusement.

"I like your company, my friend," he said. "I should like to spend the day here."

"As the devil said to Saint Anthony," concluded the porter.

Aristarchi laughed again. It was long since he had enjoyed such amusing conversation, and there was a certain novelty in not being feared. He repeated his first question, however, remembering that he had not come in search of diversion, but to gather information.

"Who was the beautiful lady?" he asked. "She is Messer Angelo's daughter, is she not?"

"A man who asks a question when he knows the answer is either a fool or a knave. Choose as you please."

"Thanks, friend," answered Aristarchi, still grinning and showing his jagged teeth. "I leave the first choice to you. Whichever you take, I will take the other. For if you call me a knave, I shall call you a fool, but if you think me a fool, I am quite satisfied that you should be the knave."

The porter snarled, vaguely feeling that the Greek had the better of him. At that moment Zorzi returned, and his coming put an end to the exchange of amenities.

"My master has no long leisure," he said, "but he begs you to come in."

They left the lodge together, and the porter watched them as they went down the dark corridor, muttering unholy things about the visitor who had disturbed him, and bestowing a few curses on Zorzi. Then he went back to peeling his onions.

As Aristarchi went through the garden, he saw Marietta sitting under the plane-tree, making a little net of coloured beads. Her face was turned from him and bent down, but when he had passed she glanced furtively after him, wondering at his size. But her eyes followed Zorzi, till the two reached the door and went in. A moment later Zorzi came out again, leaving his master and the Greek together. Marietta looked down at once, lest her eyes should betray her gladness, for she knew that Zorzi would not go back and could not leave the glass-house, so that site should necessarily be alone with him while the interview in the laboratory lasted.

He came a little way down the path, then stopped, took a short knife from his wallet and began to trim away a few withered sprigs from a rose-bush. She waited a moment, but he showed no signs of coming nearer, so she spoke to him.

"Will you come here?" she asked softly, looking towards him with half-closed eyes.

He slipped the knife back into his pouch and walked quickly to her side. She looked down again, threading the coloured beads that half filled a small basket in her lap.

"May I ask you a question?" Her voice had a little persuasive hesitation in it, as if she wished him to understand that the answer would be a favour of which she was anything but certain.

"Anything you will," said Zorzi.

"Provided I do not ask about my father's secret!" A little laughter trembled in the words. "You were so severe yesterday, you know. I am almost afraid ever to ask you anything again."

"I will answer as well as I can."

"Well—tell me this. Did you really take the boat and go to Venice last night?"

"Yes."

Marietta's hand moved with the needle among the beads, but she did not thread one. Nella had been right, after all.

"Why did you go, Zorzi?" The question came in a lower tone that was full of regret.

"The master sent me," answered Zorzi, looking down at her hair, and wishing that he could see her face.

His wish was almost instantly fulfilled. After the slightest pause she looked up at him with a lovely smile; yet when he saw that rare look in her face, his heart sank suddenly, instead of swelling and standing still with happiness, and when she saw how sad he was, she was grave with the instant longing to feel whatever he felt of pain or sorrow. That is one of the truest signs of love, but Zorzi had not learned much of love's sign-language yet, and did not understand.

"What is it?" she asked almost tenderly.

He turned his eyes from her and rested one hand against the trunk of the plane-tree.

"I do not understand," he said slowly.

"Why are you so sad? What is it that is always making you suffer?"

"How could I tell you?" The words were spoken almost under his breath.

"It would be very easy to tell me," she said. "Perhaps I could help you—"

"Oh no, no, no!" he cried with an accent of real pain. "You could not help me!"

"Who knows? Perhaps I am the best friend you have in the world, Zorzi."

"Indeed I believe you are! No one has ever been so good to me."

"And you have not many friends," continued Marietta. "The workmen are jealous of you, because you are always with my father. My brothers do not like you, for the same reason, and they think that you will get my father's secret from him some day, and outdo them all. No—you have not many friends."

"I have none, but you and the master. The men would kill me if they dared."

Marietta started a little, remembering how the workmen had looked at him in the morning, when he came out.

"You need not be afraid," he added, seeing her movement. "They will not touch me."

"Does my father know what your trouble is?" asked Marietta suddenly.

"No! That is—I have no trouble, I assure you. I am of a melancholy nature."

"I am glad it has nothing to do with the secrets," said the young girl, quietly ignoring the last part of his speech. "If it had, I could not help you at all. Could I?"

That morning it had seemed an easy thing to wait even two years before giving him a sign, before dropping in his path the rose which she would not ask of him again. The minutes seemed years now. For she knew well enough what his trouble was, since yesterday; he loved her, and he thought it infinitely impossible, in his modesty, that she should ever stoop to him. After she had spoken, she looked at him with half-closed eyes for a while, but he stared stonily at the trunk of the tree beside his hand. Gradually, as she gazed, her lids opened wider, and the morning sunlight sparkled in the deep blue, and her fresh lips parted. Before she was aware of it he was looking at her with a strange expression she had never seen. Then she faintly blushed and looked down at her beads once more. She felt as if she had told him that she loved him. But he had not understood. He had only seen the transfiguration of her face, and it had been for a moment as he had never seen it before. Again his heart sank suddenly, and he uttered a little sound that was more than a sigh and less than a groan.

"There are remedies for almost every kind of pain," said Marietta wisely, as she threaded several beads.

"Give me one for mine," he cried almost bitterly. "Bid that which is to cease from being, and that to be which is not earthly possible! Turn the world back, and undo truth, and make it all a dream! Then I shall find the remedy and forget that it was needed."

"There are magicians who pretend to do such things," she answered softly.

"I would there were!" he sighed.

"But those who come to them for help tell all, else the magician has no power. Would you call a physician, if you were ill, and tell him that the pain you felt was in your head, if it was really—in your heart?"

She had paused an instant before speaking the last words, and they came with a little effort.

"How could the physician cure you, if you would not tell him the truth?" she asked, as he said nothing. "How can the wizard work miracles for you, unless he knows what miracle you ask? How can your best friend help you if—if she does not know what help you need?"

Still he was silent, leaning against the tree, with bent head. The pain was growing worse, and harder to bear. She spoke so softly and kindly that it would have been easy to tell her the truth, he thought, for though she could never love him, she would understand, and would forgive him. He had not dreamed that friendship could be so kind.

"Am I right?" she asked, after a pause.

"Yes," he answered. "When I cannot bear it any longer, I will tell you, and you will help me."

"Why not now?"

The little question might have been ruinous to all his resolution, if Zorzi had not been almost like a child in his simplicity—or like a saint in his determination to be loyal. For he thought it loyalty to be silent, not only for the sake of the promise he had given in return for his life, but in respect of his master also, who put such great trust in him.

"Pray do not press me with the question," he said. "You tempt me very much, and I do not wish to speak of what I feel. Be my friend in real truth, if you can, and do not ask me to say what I shall ever after wish unsaid. That will be the best friendship."

Marietta looked across the garden thoughtfully, and suddenly a chilling doubt fell upon her heart. She could not have been mistaken yesterday, she could not be deceived in him now; and yet, if he loved her as she believed, she had said all that a maiden could to show him that she would listen willingly. She had said too much, and she felt ashamed and hurt, almost resentful. He was not a boy. If he loved her, he could find words to tell her so, and should have found them, for she had helped him to her utmost. Suddenly, she almost hated him, for what his silence made her feel, and she told herself that she was glad he had not dared to speak, for she did not love him at all. It was all a sickening mistake, it was all a miserable little dream; she wished that he would go away and leave her to herself. Not that she should shed a single tear! She was far too angry for that, but his presence, so near her, reminded her of what she had done. He must have seen, all through their talk, that she was trying to make him tell his love, and there was nothing to tell. Of course he would despise her. That was natural, but she had a right to hate him for it, and she would, with all her heart! Her thoughts all came together in a tumult of disgust and resentment. If Zorzi did not go away presently, she would go away herself. She was almost resolved to get up and leave the garden, when the door opened.

"Zorzi!" It was Beroviero's voice.

Aristarchi already stood in the doorway taking leave of Beroviero with, many oily protestations of satisfaction in having made his acquaintance. Zorzi went forward to accompany the Greek to the door.

"I shall never forget that I have had the honour of being received by the great artist himself," said Aristarchi, who held his big cap in his hand and was bowing low on the threshold.

"The pleasure has been all on my side," returned Beroviero courteously.

"On the contrary, quite on the contrary," protested his guest, backing away and then turning to go.

Zorzi walked beside him, on his left. As they reached the entrance to the corridor Aristarchi turned once more, and made an elaborate bow, sweeping the ground with his cap, for Beroviero had remained at the door till he should be out of sight. He bent his head, making a gracious gesture with his hand, and went in as the Greek disappeared. Zorzi followed the latter, showing him out.

Marietta saw the door close after her father, and she knew that Zorzi must come back through the garden in a few moments. She bent her head over her beads as she heard his step, and pretended not to see him. When he came near her he stood still a moment, but she would not look up, and between annoyance and disappointment and confusion she felt that she was blushing, which she would not have had Zorzi see for anything. She wondered why he did not go on.

"Have I offended you?" he asked, in a low voice.

Oddly enough, her embarrassment disappeared as soon as he spoke, and the blush faded away.

"No," she answered, coldly enough. "I am not angry—I am only sorry."

"But I am glad that I would not answer your question," returned Zorzi.

"I doubt whether you had any answer to give," retorted Marietta with a touch of scorn.

Zorzi's brows contracted sharply and he made a movement to go on. So her proffered friendship was worth no more than that, he thought. She was angry and scornful because her curiosity was disappointed. She could not have guessed his secret, he was sure, though that might account for her temper, for she would of course be angry if she knew that he loved her. And she was angry now because he had refused to tell her so. That was a woman's logic, he thought, quite regardless of the defect in his own. It was just like a woman! He sincerely wished that he might tell her so.

In the presence of Marietta the man who had confronted sudden death less than twenty-four hours ago, with a coolness that had seemed imposing to other men, was little better than a girl himself. He turned to go on, without saying more. But she stopped him.

"I am sorry that you do not care for my friendship," she said, in a hurt tone. She could not have said anything which he would have found it harder to answer just then.

"What makes you think that?" he asked, hoping to gain time.

"Many things. It is quite true, so it does not matter what makes me think it!"

She tried to laugh scornfully, but there was a quaver in her voice which she herself had not expected and was very far from understanding. Why should she suddenly feel that she was going to cry? It had seemed so ridiculous in poor Nella that morning. Yet there was a most unmistakable something in her throat, which frightened her. It would be dreadful if she should burst into tears over her beads before Zorzi's eyes. She tried to gulp the something: down, and suddenly, as she bent over the basket, she saw the beautiful, hateful drops falling fast upon the little dry glass things; and even then, in her shame at being seen, she wondered why the beads looked, bigger through the glistening tears—she remembered afterwards how they looked, so she must have noticed them at the time.

Zorzi knew too little of women to have any idea of what he ought to do under the circumstances. He did not know whether to turn his back or to go away, so he stood still and looked at her, which was the very worst thing he could have done. Worse still, he tried to reason with her.

"I assure you that you are mistaken," he said in a soothing tone. "I wish for your friendship with all my heart! Only, when you ask me—"

"Oh, go away! For heaven's sake go away!" cried Marietta, almost choking, and turning her face quite away, so that he could only see the back of her head.

At the same time, she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot, and to make matters worse, the little basket of beads began to slip off her knees at the same moment. She caught at it desperately, trying not to look round and half blinded by her tears, but she missed it, and but for Zorzi it would have fallen. He put it into her hands very gently, but she was not in the least grateful.

"Oh, please go away!" she repeated. "Can you not understand?"

He did not understand, but he obeyed her and turned away, very grave, very much puzzled by this new development of affairs, and sincerely wishing that some wise familiar spirit would whisper the explanation in his ear, since he could not possibly consult any living person.

She heard him go and she listened for the shutting of the laboratory door. Then she knew that she was quite alone in the garden, and she let the tears flow as they would, bending her head till it touched the trunk of the tree, and they wet the smooth bark and ran down to the dry earth.

Zorzi went in, and began to tend the fire as usual, until it should please the master to give him other orders. Old Beroviero was sitting in the big chair in which he sometimes rested himself, his elbow on one of its arms, and his hand grasping his beard below his chin.

"Zorzi," he said at last, "I have seen that man before."

Zorzi looked at him, expecting more, but for some time Beroviero said nothing. The young man selected his pieces of beech wood, laying them ready before the little opening just above the floor.

"It is very strange," said Beroviero at last. "He seems to be a rich merchant now, but I am almost quite sure that I saw him in Naples."

"Did you know him there, sir?" asked Zorzi.

"No," answered his master thoughtfully. "I saw him in a cart with his hands tied behind him, on his way to be hanged."

"He looks as if one hanging would not be enough for him," observed Zorzi.

Beroviero was silent for a moment. Then he laughed, and he laughed very rarely.

"Yes," he said. "It is not a face one could forget easily," he added.

Then he rose and went back to his table.



CHAPTER VII

The sun was high over Venice, gleaming on the blue lagoons that lightly rippled under a southerly breeze, filling the vast square of Saint Mark's with blinding light, casting deep shadows behind the church and in the narrow alleys and canals to northward, about the Merceria. The morning haze had long since blown away, and the outlines of the old church and monastery on Saint George's island, and of the buildings on the Guidecca, and on the low-lying Lido, were hard and clear against the cloudless sky, mere designs cut out in rich colours, as if with a sharp knife, and reared up against a background of violent light. In Venice only the melancholy drenching rain of a winter's day brings rest to the eye, when water meets water and sky is washed into sea and the city lies soaking and dripping between two floods. But soon the wind shifts to the northeast, out breaks the sun again, and all Venice is instantly in a glare of light and colour and startling distinctness, like the sails and rigging of a ship at sea on a clear day.

It was Sunday morning and high mass was over in Saint Mark's. The crowd had streamed out of the central door, spreading like a bright fan over the square, the men in gay costumes, red, green, blue, yellow, purple, brown, and white, their legs particoloured in halves and quarters, so that when looking at a group it was mere guesswork to match the pair that belonged to one man; women in dresses of one tone, mostly rich and dark, and often heavily embroidered, for no sumptuary laws could effectually limit outward display, and the insolent vanity of an age still almost mediaeval made it natural that the rich should attire themselves as richly as they could, and that the poor should be despised for wearing poor clothes.

Angelo Beroviero had a true Venetian's taste for splendour, but he was also deeply imbued with the Venetian love of secrecy in all matters that concerned his private life. When he bade Marietta accompany him to Venice on that Sunday morning, he was equally anxious that she should be as finely dressed as was becoming for the daughter of a wealthy citizen, and that she should be in ignorance of the object of the trip. She was not to know that Jacopo Contarini would be standing beside the second column on the left, watching her with lazily critical eyes; she was merely told that she and her father were to dine in the house of a certain Messer Luigi Foscarini, Procurator of Saint Mark, who was an old and valued friend, though a near connection of Alvise Trevisan, a rival glass-maker of Murano. All this had been carefully planned in order that during their absence Beroviero's house might be suitably prepared for the solemn family meeting which was to take place late in the afternoon, and at which her betrothal was to be announced, but of which Marietta knew nothing. Her father counted upon surprising her and perhaps dazzling her, so as to avoid all discussion and all possibility of resistance on her part. She should see Contarini in the church, and while still under the first impression of his beauty and magnificence, she should be told before her assembled family that she was solemnly bound to marry him in two months' time.

Beroviero never expected opposition in anything he wished to do, but he had always heard that young girls could find a thousand reasons for not marrying the man their parents chose for them, and he believed that he could make all argument and hesitation impossible. Marietta doubtless expected to have a week in which to make up her mind. She should have five hours, and even that was too much, thought Beroviero. He would have preferred to march her to the altar without any preliminaries and marry her to Contarini without giving her a chance of seeing him before the ceremony. After all, that was the custom of the day.

The fortunes of love were in his favour, for Marietta had spent three miserably unhappy days and nights since she had last talked with Zorzi in the garden. From that time he had avoided her moat carefully, never coming out of the laboratory when she was under the tree with her work, never raising his eyes to look at her when she came in and talked with her father. When she entered the big room, he made a solemn bow and occupied himself in the farthest corner so long as she remained. There is a stage in which even the truest and purest love of boy and maiden feeds on misunderstandings. In a burst of tears, and ashamed that she should be seen crying, Marietta had bidden him go away; in the folly of his young heart he took her at her word, and avoided her consistently. He had been hurt by the words, but by a kind of unconscious selfishness his pain helped him to do what he believed to be his duty.

And Marietta forgot that he had picked up the rose dropped by her in the path, she forgot that she had seen him stand gazing up at her window, with a look that could mean only love, she forgot how tenderly and softly he had answered her in the garden; she only remembered that she had done her utmost, and too much, to make him tell her that he loved her, and in vain. She could not forgive him that, for even after three days her cheeks burned fiercely whenever she thought of it. After that, it mattered nothing what became of her, whether she were betrothed, or whether she were married, or whether she went mad, or even whether she died—that would be the best of all.

In this mood Marietta entered the gondola and seated herself by her father on Sunday morning. She wore an embroidered gown of olive green, a little open at her dazzling throat, and a silk mantle of a darker tone hung from her shoulders, to protect her from the sun rather than from the air. Her russet hair was plaited in a thick flat braid, and brought round her head like a broad coronet of red gold, and a point lace veil, pinned upon it with stoat gold pins, hang down behind and was brought forward carelessly upon one shoulder.

Beside her, Angelo Beroviero was splendid in dark red cloth and purple silk. He was proud of his daughter, who was betrothed to the heir of a great Venetian house, he was proud of his own achievements, of his wealth, of the richly furnished gondola, of his two big young oarsmen in quartered yellow and blue hose and snowy shirts, and of his liveried man in blue and gold, who sat outside the low 'felse' on a little stool, staff in hand, ready to attend upon his master and young mistress whenever they should please to go on foot.

Marietta had got into the gondola without so much as glancing across the canal to see whether Zorzi were standing there to see them push off, as he often did when she and her father went out together. If he were there, she meant to show him that she could be more indifferent than he; if he were not, she would show herself that she did not care enough even to look for him. But when the gondola was out of sight of the house she wished she knew whether he had looked out or not.

Her father had told her that they were going to dine with the Procurator Foscarini and his wife. The pair had one daughter, of Marietta's age, and she was a cripple from birth. Marietta was fond of her, and it was a relief to get away from Murano, even for half a day. The visit explained well enough why her father had desired her to put on her best gown and most valuable lace. She really had not the slightest idea that anything more important was on foot.

Beroviero looked at her in silence as they sped along with the gently rocking motion of the gondola, which is not exactly like any other movement in the world. He had already noticed that she was paler than usual, but the extraordinary whiteness of her skin made her pallor becoming to her, and it was set off by the colour of her hair, as ivory by rough gold. He wondered whether she had guessed whither he was taking her.

"It is a long time since we were in Saint Mark's together," he said at last.

"It must be more than a year," answered Marietta. "We pass it often, but we hardly ever go in."

"It is early," observed Beroviero, speaking as indifferently as he could. "When we left home it lacked an hour and a half of noon by the dial. Shall we go into the church for a while?"

"If you like," replied Marietta mechanically.

Nothing made much difference that morning, but she knew that the high mass would be over and that the church would be quiet and cool. It was not at that time the cathedral of Venice, though it had always been the church in which the doges worshipped in state.

They landed at the low steps in the Rio del Palazzo, and the servant held out his bent elbow for Marietta to steady herself, though he knew that she would not touch it, for she was light and sure-footed as a fawn; but Beroviero leaned heavily on his man's arm. They came round the Patriarch's palace into the open square, whence the crowd had nearly all disappeared, dispersing in different directions. Just as they were within sight of the great doors of the church, Beroviero saw a very tall man in a purple silk mantle going in alone. It was Contarini, and Beroviero drew a little sigh of relief. The intended bridegroom was punctual, but Beroviero thought that he might have shown such anxiety to see his bride as should have brought him to the door a few minutes before the time.

Marietta had drawn her veil across her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered, according to custom.

"It is hot," she complained.

"It will be cool in the church," answered her father. "Throw your veil back, my dear—there is no one to see you."

"There is the sun," she said, for she had been taught that one of a Venetian lady's chief beauties is her complexion.

"Well, well—there will be no sun in the church." And the old man hurried her in, without bestowing a glance upon the bronze horses over the door, to admire which he generally stopped a few moments in passing.

They entered the great church, and the servant went before them, dipped his fingers in the basin and offered them holy water. They crossed themselves, and Marietta bent one knee, looking towards the high altar. A score of people were scattered about, kneeling and standing in the nave.

Contarini was leaning against the second pillar on the left, and had been watching the door when Marietta and her father entered. Beroviero saw him at once, but led his daughter up the opposite side of the nave, knelt down beside her a moment at the screen, then crossed and came down the aisle, and at last turned into the nave again by the second pillar, so as to come upon Contarini as it were unawares. This all seemed necessary to him in order that Marietta should receive a very strong and sudden impression, which should leave no doubt in her mind. Contarini himself was too thoroughly Venetian not to understand what Beroviero was doing, and when the two came upon him, he was drawn up to his full height, one gloved hand holding his cap and resting on his hip; the other, gloveless, and white as a woman's, was twisting his silky mustache. Beroviero had manoeuvred so cleverly that Marietta almost jostled the young patrician as she turned the pillar.

Contarini drew back with quick grace and a slight inclination of his body, and then pretended the utmost surprise on seeing his valued friend Messer Angelo Beroviero.

"My most dear sir!" he exclaimed. "This is indeed good fortune!"

"Mine, Messer Jacopo!" returned Beroviero with equally well-feigned astonishment.

Marietta had looked Contarini full in the face before she had time to draw her veil across her own. She stepped back and placed herself behind her father, protected as it were by their serving-man, who stood beside her with his staff. She understood instantly that the magnificent patrician was the man of whom her father had spoken as her future husband. Seen, as she had seen him, in the glowing church, in the most splendid surroundings that could be imagined, he was certainly a man at whom any woman would look twice, even out of curiosity, and through her veil Marietta looked again, till she saw his soft brown eyes scrutinising her appearance; then she turned quickly away, for she had looked long enough. She saw that a woman in black was kneeling by the next pillar, watching her intently with a sort of cold stare that almost made her shudder. Yet the woman was exceedingly beautiful. It was easy to see that, though the dark veil hid half her face and its folds concealed most of her figure. The mysterious, almond-shaped eyes were those of another race, the marble cheek was more perfectly modelled and turned than an Italian's, the curling golden hair was more glorious than any Venetian's. Arisa had come to see her master's bride, and he knew that she was there looking on. Why should he care? It was a bargain, and he was not going to give up Arisa and the house of the Agnus Dei because he meant to marry the rich glass-blower's daughter.

Marietta imagined no connection between the woman and the man, who thus insolently came to the same place to look at her, pretending not to know one another; and when she looked back at Contarini she felt a miserable little thrill of vanity as she noticed that he was looking fixedly at her, and that his eyes did not wander to the face of that other woman, who was so much more beautiful than herself. Perhaps, after all, he would really prefer her to that matchless creature close beside her! Nothing mattered, of course, since Zorzi did not love her, but after all it was flattering to be admired by Jacopo Contarini, who could choose his wife where he pleased, through the whole world.

It all happened in a few seconds. The two men exchanged a few words, to which she paid no attention, and took leave of each other with great ceremony and much bowing on both sides. When her father turned at last, Marietta was already walking towards the door, the servant by her left side. Beroviero had scarcely joined her when she started a little, and laid her hand upon his arm.

"The Greek merchant!" she whispered.

Beroviero looked where she was looking. By the first pillar, gazing intently at Arisa's kneeling figure, stood Aristarchi, his hands folded over his broad chest, his shaggy head bent forward, his sturdy legs a little apart. He, too, had come to see the promised bride, and to be a witness of the bargain whereby he also was to be enriched.

As Marietta came out of the church, she covered her face closely and drew her silk mantle quite round her, bending her head a little. The servant walked a few paces in front.

"You have seen your future husband, my child," said Beroviero.

"I suppose that the young noble was Messer Jacopo Contarini," answered Marietta coldly.

"You are hard to please, if you are not satisfied with my choice for you," observed her father.

To this Marietta said nothing. She only bent her head a little lower, looking down as she trod delicately over the hot and dusty ground.

"And you are a most ungrateful daughter," continued Beroviero, "if you do not appreciate my kindness and liberality of mind in allowing you to see him before you are formally betrothed."

"Perhaps he is even more pleased by your liberality of mind than I could possibly be," retorted the young girl with unbending coldness. "He has probably not seen many Venetian girls of our class face to face and unveiled. He is to be congratulated on his good fortune!"

"By my faith!" exclaimed Beroviero, "it is hard to satisfy you!"

"I have asked nothing."

"Do you mean to say that you have any objections to allege against such a marriage?"

"Have I said that I should oppose it? One may obey without enthusiasm." She laughed coldly.

"Like the unprofitable servant! I had expected something more of you, my child. I have been at infinite pains and I am making great sacrifices to procure you a suitable husband, and there are scores of noble girls in Venice who would give ten years of their lives to marry Jacopo Contarini! And you say that you obey my commands without enthusiasm! You are an ungrateful—"

"No, I am not!" interrupted Marietta firmly. "I would rather not marry at all—"

"Not marry!" repeated Beroviero, interrupting her in a tone of profound stupefaction, and standing still in the sun as he spoke. "Why—what is the matter?"

"Is it so strange that I should be contented with my girl's life?" asked Marietta. "Should I not be ungrateful indeed, if I wished to leave you and become the wife of a man I have just seen for the first time?"

"You use most extraordinary arguments, my dear," replied Beroviero, quite at a loss for a suitable retort. "Of course, I have done my best to make you happy."

He paused, for she had placed him in the awkward position of being angry because she did not wish to leave him.

"I really do not know what to say," he added, after a moment's reflection.

"Perhaps there is nothing to be said," answered Marietta, in a tone of irritating superiority, for she certainly had the best of the discussion.

They had reached the gondola by this time, and as the servant sat within hearing at the open door of the 'felse,' they could not continue talking about such a matter. Beroviero was glad of it, for he regarded the affair as settled, and considered that it should be hastened to its conclusion without any further reasoning about it. If he had sent word to young Contarini that the answer should be given him in a week, that was merely an imaginary formality invented to cover his own dignity, since he had so far derogated from it as to allow the young man to see Marietta. In reality the marriage had been determined and settled between Beroviero and Contarini's father before anything had been said to either of the young people. The meeting in the church might have been dispensed with, if the patrician had been able to answer with certainty for his wild son's conduct. Jacopo had demanded it, and his father was so anxious for the marriage that he had communicated the request to Beroviero. The latter, always for his dignity's sake, had pretended to refuse, and had then secretly arranged the matter for Jacopo, as has been seen, without old Contarini's knowledge.

Marietta leaned back under the cool, dark 'felse,' and her hands lay idly in her lap. She felt that she was helpless, because she was indifferent, and that she could even now have changed the course of her destiny if she had cared to make the effort. There was no reason for making any. She did not believe that she had really loved Zorzi after all, and if she had, it seemed to-day quite impossible that she should ever have married him. He was nothing but a waif, a half-nameless servant, a stranger predestined to a poor and obscure life. As she inwardly repeated some of these considerations, she felt a little thrust of remorse for trying to look down on him as impossibly far below her own station, and a small voice told her that he was an artist, and that if he had chanced to be born in Venice he would have been as good as her brothers.

The future stretched out before her in a sort of dull magnificence that did not in the least appeal to her simple nature. She could not tell why she had despised Jacopo Contarini from the moment she looked into his beautiful eyes. Happily women are not expected to explain why they sometimes judge rightly at first sight, when a wise man is absurdly deceived. Marietta did not understand Jacopo, and she easily fancied that because her own character was the stronger she should rule him as easily as she managed Nella. It did not occur to her that he was already under the domination of another woman, who might prove to be quite as strong as she. What she saw was the weakness in his eyes and mouth. With such a man, she thought, there was little to fear; but there was nothing to love. If she asked, he would give, if she opposed him, he would surrender, if she lost her temper and commanded, he would obey with petulant docility. She should be obliged to take refuge in vanity in order to get any satisfaction out of her life, and she was not naturally vain. The luxuries of those days were familiar to her from her childhood. Though she had not lived in a palace, she had been brought up in a house that was not unlike one, she ate off silver plates and drank from glasses that were masterpieces of her father's art, she had coffers full of silks and satins, and fine linen embroidered with gold thread, there was always gold and silver in her little wallet-purse when she wanted anything or wished to give to the poor, she was waited on by a maid of her own like any fine lady of Venice, and there were a score of idle servants in a house where there were only two masters—there was nothing which Contarini could give her that would be more than a little useless exaggeration of what she had already. She had no particular desire to show herself unveiled to the world, as married women did, and she was not especially attracted by the idea of becoming one of them. She had been brought up alone, she had acquired tastes which other women had not, and which would no longer be satisfied in her married life, she loved the glass-house, she delighted in taking a blow-pipe herself and making small objects which she decorated as she pleased, she felt a lively interest in her father's experiments, she enjoyed the atmosphere of his wisdom though it was occasionally disturbed by the foolish little storms of his hot temper. And until now, she had liked to be often with Zorzi.

That was past, of course, but the rest remained, and it was much to sacrifice for the sake of becoming a Contarini, and living on the Grand Canal with a man she should always despise.

It was clearly not the idea of marriage that surprised or repelled her, not even of a marriage with a man she did not know and had seen but once. Girls were brought up to regard marriage as the greatest thing in life, as the natural goal to which all their girlhood should tend, and at the same time they were taught from childhood that it was all to be arranged for them, and that they would in due course grow fond of the man their parents chose for them. Until Marietta had begun to love Zorzi, she had accepted all these things quite naturally, as a part of every woman's life, and it would have seemed as absurd, and perhaps as impossible, to rebel against them as to repudiate the religion in which she had been born. Such beliefs turn into prejudices, and assert themselves as soon as whatever momentarily retards them is removed. By the time the gondola drew alongside of the steps of the Foscarini palace, Marietta was convinced that there was nothing for her but to submit to her fate.

"Then I am to be married in two months?" she said, in a tone of interrogation, and regardless of the servant.

Beroviero bent his head in answer and smiled kindly; for after all, he was grateful to her for accepting his decision so quietly. But Marietta was very pale after she had spoken, for the audible words somehow made it all seem dreadfully real, and out of the shadows of the great entrance hall that opened upon the canal she could fancy Zorzi's face looking at her sadly and reproachfully. The bargain was made, and the woman he loved was sold for life. For one moment, instinctive womanhood felt the accursed humiliation, and the flushing blood rose in the girl's cool cheeks.

She would have blushed deeper had she guessed who had been witnesses of her first meeting with Contarini, and old Beroviero's temper would have broken out furiously if he could have imagined that the Greek pirate who had somehow miraculously escaped the hangman in Naples had been contemplating with satisfaction the progress of the marriage negotiations, sure that he himself should before long be enjoying the better part of Marietta's rich dowry. If the old man could have had vision of Jacopo's life, and could have suddenly known what the beautiful woman in black was to the patrician, Contarini's chance of going home alive that day would have been small indeed, for Beroviero might have strangled him where he stood, and perhaps Aristarchi would have discreetly turned his back while he was doing it. For a few minutes they had all been very near together, the deceivers and the deceived, and it was not likely that they should ever all be so near again.

Contarini had never seen the Greek, and Arisa was not aware that he was in the church. When Beroviero and Marietta were gone, Jacopo turned his back on the slave for a moment as if he meant to walk further up the church. Aristarchi watched them both, for in spite of all he did not quite trust the Georgian woman, and he had never seen her alone with Jacopo when she was unaware of his own presence. Yet he was afraid to go nearer, now, lest Arisa should accidentally see him and betray by her manner that she knew him.

Jacopo turned suddenly, when he judged that he could leave the church without overtaking Beroviero, and he walked quietly down the nave. He passed close to Arisa, and Aristarchi guessed that their eyes met for a moment. He almost fancied that Contarini's lips moved, and he was sure that he smiled. But that was all, and Arisa remained on her knees, not even turning her head a little as her lover went by.

"Not so ugly after all," Contarini had said, under his breath, and the careless smile went with the words.

Arisa's lip curled contemptuously as she heard. She had drawn back her veil, her face was raised, as if she were sending up a prayer to heaven, and the light fell full upon the magnificent whiteness of her throat, that showed in strong relief against the black velvet and lace. She needed no other answer to what he said, but in the scorn of her curving mouth, which seemed all meant for Marietta, there was contempt for him, too, that would have cut him to the quick of his vanity.

Aristarchi walked deliberately by the pillar to the aisle, as he passed, and listened for the flapping of the heavy leathern curtain at the door. Then he stole nearer to the place where Arisa was still kneeling, and came noiselessly behind her and leaned against the column, and watched her, not caring if he surprised her now.

But she did not turn round. Listening intently, Aristarchi heard a soft quick whispering, and he saw that it was punctuated by a very slight occasional movement of her head.

He had not believed her when she had told him that she said her prayers at night, but she was undoubtedly praying now, and Aristarchi watched her with interest, as he might have looked at some rare foreign animal whose habits he did not understand. She was very intently bent on what she was saying, for he stayed there some time, scarcely breathing, before he turned away and disappeared in the shadows with noiseless steps.



CHAPTER VIII

All through the long Sunday afternoon Zorzi sat in the laboratory alone. From time to time, he tended the fire, which must not be allowed to go down lest the quality of the glass should be injured, or at least changed. Then he went back to the master's great chair, and allowed himself to think of what was happening in the house opposite.

In those days there was no formal betrothal before marriage, at which the intended bride and bridegroom joined hands or exchanged the rings which were to be again exchanged at the wedding. When a marriage had been arranged, the parents or guardians of the young couple signed the contract before a notary, a strictly commercial and legal formality, and the two families then announced the match to their respective relatives who were invited for the purpose, and were hospitably entertained. The announcement was final, and to break off a marriage after it had been announced was a deadly offence and was generally an irreparable injury to the bride.

In Beroviero's house the richest carpets were taken from the storerooms and spread upon the pavement and the stairs, tapestries of great worth and beauty were hung upon the walls, the servants were arrayed in their high-day liveries and spoke in whispers when they spoke at all, the silver dishes were piled with sweetmeats and early fruits, and the silver plates had been not only scoured, but had been polished with leather, which was not done every day. In all the rooms that were opened, silken curtains had been hung before the windows, in place of those used at other times. In a word, the house had been prepared in a few hours for a great family festivity, and when Marietta got out of the gondola, she set her foot upon a thick carpet that covered the steps and was even allowed to hang down and dip itself in the water of the canal by way of showing what little value was set upon it by the rich man.

Zorzi had known that the preparations were going forward, and he knew what they meant. He would rather see nothing of them, and when the guests were gone, old Beroviero would come over and give him some final instructions before beginning his journey; until then he could be alone in the laboratory, where only the low roar of the fire in the furnace broke the silence.

Marietta's head was aching and she felt as if the hard, hot fingers of some evil demon were pressing her eyeballs down into their sockets. She sat in an inner chamber, to which only women were admitted. There she sat, in a sort of state, a circlet of gold set upon her loosened hair, her dress all of embroidered white silk, her shoulders covered with a wide mantle of green and gold brocade that fell in heavy folds to the floor. She wore many jewels, too, such as she would not have worn in public before her marriage. They had belonged to her mother, like the mantle, and were now brought out for the first time. It was very hot, but the windows were shut lest the sound of the good ladies' voices should be heard without; for the news that Marietta was to be married had suddenly gone abroad through Murano, and all the idlers, and the men from the furnaces, where no work was done on Sunday, as well as all the poor, were assembled on the footway and the bridge, and in the narrow alleys round the house. They all pushed and jostled each other to see Beroviero's friends and relations, as they emerged from beneath the black 'felse' of their gondolas to enter the house. In the hall the guests divided, and the men gathered in a large lower chamber, while the women went upstairs to offer their congratulations to Marietta, with many set compliments upon her beauty, her clothes and her jewels, and even with occasional flattering allusions to the vast dowry her husband was to receive with her.