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Marietta: A Maid of Venice

by F. Marion Crawford · English · Gutenberg #16100 · 651,316 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Marietta: A Maid of Venice

Author: F. Marion Crawford


        
Release date: June 21, 2005 [eBook #16100]
                Most recently updated: December 11, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIETTA: A MAID OF VENICE ***


E-text prepared by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy, Chuck Greif, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(https://www.pgdp.net)



The Novels of F. Marion Crawford
In Twenty-five Volumes--Authorized Edition

MARIETTA

A Maid of Venice

by

F. MARION CRAWFORD

With Frontispiece

P. F. Collier & Son
New York

1901







[Illustration: "I AM NOT ASLEEP."--_Marietta: A Maid of Venice_.]





CHAPTER I


Very little was known about George, the Dalmatian, and the servants in
the house of Angelo Beroviero, as well as the workmen of the latter's
glass furnace, called him Zorzi, distrusted him, suggested that he was
probably a heretic, and did not hide their suspicion that he was in love
with the master's only daughter, Marietta. All these matters were
against him, and people wondered why old Angelo kept the waif in his
service, since he would have engaged any one out of a hundred young
fellows of Murano, all belonging to the almost noble caste of the
glass-workers, all good Christians, all trustworthy, and all ready to
promise that the lovely Marietta should never make the slightest
impression upon their respectfully petrified hearts. But Angelo had not
been accustomed to consider what his neighbours might think of him or
his doings, and most of his neighbours and friends abstained with
singular unanimity from thrusting their opinions upon him. For this,
there were three reasons: he was very rich, he was the greatest living
artist in working glass, and he was of a choleric temper. He confessed
the latter fault with great humility to the curate of San Piero each
year in Lent, but he would never admit it to any one else. Indeed, if
any of his family ever suggested that he was somewhat hasty, he flew
into such an ungovernable rage in proving the contrary that it was
scarcely wise to stay in the house while the fit lasted. Marietta alone
was safe. As for her brothers, though the elder was nearly forty years
old, it was not long since his father had given him a box on the ears
which made him see simultaneously all the colours of all the glasses
ever made in Murano before or since. It is true that Giovanni had
timidly asked to be told one of the secrets for making fine red glass
which old Angelo had learned long ago from old Paolo Godi of Pergola,
the famous chemist; and these secrets were all carefully written out in
the elaborate character of the late fifteenth century, and Angelo kept
the manuscript in an iron box, under his own bed, and wore the key on a
small silver chain at his neck.

He was a big old man, with fiery brown eyes, large features, and a very
pale skin. His thick hair and short beard had once been red, and streaks
of the strong colour still ran through the faded locks. His hands were
large, but very skilful, and the long straight fingers were discoloured
by contact with the substances he used in his experiments.

He was jealous by nature, rather than suspicious. He had been jealous of
his wife while she had lived, though a more devoted woman never fell to
the lot of a lucky husband. Often, for weeks together, he had locked
the door upon her and taken the key with him every morning when he left
the house, though his furnaces were almost exactly opposite, on the
other side of the narrow canal, so that by coming to the door he could
have spoken with her at her window. But instead of doing this he used to
look through a little grated opening which he had caused to be made in
the wall of the glass-house; and when his wife was seated at her window,
at her embroidery, he could watch her unseen, for she was beautiful and
he loved her. One day he saw a stranger standing by the water's edge,
gazing at her, and he went out and threw the man into the canal. When
she died, he said little, but he would not allow his own children to
speak of her before him. After that, he became almost as jealous of his
daughter, and though he did not lock her up like her mother, he used to
take her with him to the glass-house when the weather was not too hot,
so that she should not be out of his sight all day.

Moreover, because he needed a man to help him, and because he was afraid
lest one of his own caste should fall in love with Marietta, he took
Zorzi, the Dalmatian waif, into his service; and the three were often
together all day in the room where Angelo had set up a little furnace
for making experiments. In the year 1470 it was not lawful in Murano to
teach any foreign person the art of glass-making; for the glass-blowers
were a sort of nobility, and nearly a hundred years had passed since the
Council had declared that patricians of Venice might marry the
daughters of glass-workers without affecting their own rank or that of
their children. But old Beroviero declared that he was not teaching
Zorzi anything, that the young fellow was his servant and not his
apprentice, and did nothing but keep up the fire in the furnace, and
fetch and carry, grind materials, and sweep the floor. It was quite true
that Zorzi did all these things, and he did them with a silent
regularity that made him indispensable to his master, who scarcely
noticed the growing skill with which the young man helped him at every
turn, till he could be entrusted to perform the most delicate operations
in glass-working without any especial instructions. Intent upon artistic
matters, the old man was hardly aware, either, that Marietta had learned
much of his art; or if he realised the fact he felt a sort of jealous
satisfaction in the thought that she liked to be shut up with him for
hours at a time, quite out of sight of the world and altogether out of
harm's way. He fancied that she grew more like him from day to day, and
he flattered himself that he understood her. She and Zorzi were the only
beings in his world who never irritated him, now that he had them always
under his eye and command. It was natural that he should suppose himself
to be profoundly acquainted with their two natures, though he had never
taken the smallest pains to test this imaginary knowledge. Possibly, in
their different ways, they knew him better than he knew them.

The glass-house was guarded from outsiders as carefully as a nunnery,
and somewhat resembled a convent in having no windows so situated that
curious persons might see from without what went on inside. The place
was entered by a low door from the narrow paved path that ran along the
canal. In a little vestibule, ill-lighted by one small grated window,
sat the porter, an uncouth old man who rarely answered questions, and
never opened the door until he had assured himself by a deliberate
inspection through the grating that the person who knocked had a right
to come in. Marietta remembered him in his den when she had been a
little child, and she vaguely supposed that he had always been there. He
had been old then, he was not visibly older now, he would probably never
die of old age, and if any mortal ill should carry him off, he would
surely be replaced by some one exactly like him, who would sleep in the
same box bed, sit all day in the same black chair, and eat bread,
shellfish and garlic off the same worm-eaten table. There was no other
entrance to the glass-house, and there could be no other porter to guard
it.

Beyond the vestibule a dark corridor led to a small garden that formed
the court of the building, and on one side of which were the large
windows that lighted the main furnace room, while the other side
contained the laboratory of the master. But the main furnace was entered
from the corridor, so that the workmen never passed through the garden.
There were a few shrubs in it, two or three rose-bushes and a small
plane-tree. Zorzi, who had been born and brought up in the country, had
made a couple of flower-beds, edged with refuse fragments of coloured
and iridescent slag, and he had planted such common flowers as he could
make grow in such a place, watering them from a disused rain-water
cistern that was supposed to have been poisoned long ago. Here Marietta
often sat in the shade, when the laboratory was too close and hot, and
when the time was at hand during which even the men would not be able to
work on account of the heat, and the furnace would be put out and
repaired, and every one would be set to making the delicate clay pots in
which the glass was to be melted. Marietta could sit silent and
motionless in her seat under the plane-tree for a long time when she was
thinking, and she never told any one her thoughts.


She was not unlike her father in looks, and that was doubtless the
reason why he assumed that she must be like him in character. No one
would have said that she was handsome, but sometimes, when she smiled,
those who saw that rare expression in her face thought she was
beautiful. When it was gone, they said she was cold. Fortunately, her
hair was not red, as her father's had been or she might sometimes have
seemed positively ugly; it was of that deep ruddy, golden brown that one
may often see in Venice still, and there was an abundance of it, though
it was drawn straight back from her white forehead and braided into the
smallest possible space, in the fashion of that time. There was often a
little colour in her face, though never much, and it was faint, yet
very fresh, like the tint within certain delicate shells; her lips were
of the same hue, but stronger and brighter, and they were very well
shaped and generally closed, like her father's. But her eyes were not
like his, and the lids and lashes shaded them in such a way that it was
hard to guess their colour, and they had an inscrutable, reserved look
that was hard to meet for many seconds. Zorzi believed that they were
grey, but when he saw them in his dreams they were violet; and one day
she opened them wide for an instant, at something old Beroviero said to
her, and then Zorzi fancied that they were like sapphires, but before he
could be sure, the lids and lashes shaded them again, and he only knew
that they were there, and longed to see them, for her father had spoken
of her marriage, and she had not answered a single word.

When they were alone together for a moment, while the old man was
searching for more materials in the next room, she spoke to Zorzi.

"My father did not mean you to hear that," she said.

"Nevertheless, I heard," answered Zorzi, pushing a small piece of beech
wood into the fire through a narrow slit on one side of the brick
furnace. "It was not my fault."

"Forget that you heard it," said Marietta quietly, and as her father
entered the room again she passed him and went out into the garden.

But Zorzi did not even try to forget the name of the man whom Beroviero
appeared to have chosen for his daughter. He tried instead, to
understand why Marietta wished him not to remember that the name was
Jacopo Contarini. He glanced sideways at the girl's figure as she
disappeared through the door, and he thoughtfully pushed another piece
of wood into the fire. Some day, perhaps before long, she would marry
this man who had been mentioned, and then Zorzi would be alone with old
Beroviero in the laboratory. He set his teeth, and poked the fire with,
an iron rod.

It happened now and then that Marietta did not come to the glass-house.
Those days were long, and when night came Zorzi felt as if his heart
were turning into a hot stone in his breast, and his sight was dull, and
he ached from his work and felt scorched by the heat of the furnace. For
he was not very strong of limb, though he was quick with his hands and
of a very tenacious nature, able to endure pain as well as weariness
when he was determined to finish what he had begun. But while Marietta
was in the laboratory, nothing could tire him nor hurt him, nor make him
wish that the hours were less long. He thought therefore of what must
happen to him if Jacopo Contarini took Marietta away from Murano to live
in a palace in Venice, and he determined at least to find out what sort
of man this might be who was to receive for his own the only woman in
the world for whose sake it would be perfect happiness to be burned with
slow fire. He did not mean to do Contarini any harm. Perhaps Marietta
already loved the man, and was glad she was to marry him. No one could
have told what she felt, even from that one flashing look she had given
her father. Zorzi did not try to understand her yet; he only loved her,
and she was his master's daughter, and if his master found out his
secret it would be a very evil day for him. So he poked the fire with
his iron rod, and set his teeth, and said nothing, while old Beroviero
moved about the room.

"Zorzi," said the master presently, "I meant you to hear what I said to
my daughter."

"I heard, sir," answered the young man, rising respectfully, and waiting
for more.

"Remember the name you heard," said Beroviero.

If the matter had been any other in the world, Zorzi would have smiled
at the master's words, because they bade him do just what Marietta had
forbidden. The one said "forget," the other "remember." For the first
time in his life Zorzi found it easier to obey his lady's father than
herself. He bent his head respectfully.

"I trust you, Zorzi," continued Beroviero, slowly mixing some materials
in a little wooden trough on the table. "I trust you, because I must
trust some one in order to have a safe means of communicating with Casa
Contarini."

Again Zorzi bent his head, but still he said nothing.

"These five years you have worked with me in private," the old man went
on, "and I know that you have not told what you have seen me do, though
there are many who would pay you good money to know what I have been
about."

"That is true," answered Zorzi.

"Yes. I therefore judge that you are one of those unusual beings whom
God has sent into the world to be of use to their fellow-creatures
instead of a hindrance. For you possess the power of holding your
tongue, which I had almost believed to be extinct in the human race. I
am going to send you on an errand to Venice, to Jacopo Cantarini. If I
sent any one from my house, all Murano would know it to-morrow morning,
but I wish no one here to guess where you have been."

"No one shall see me," answered Zorzi. "Tell me only where I am to go."

"You know Venice well by this time. You must have often passed the house
of the Agnus Dei."

"By the Baker's Bridge?"

"Yes. Go there alone, to-night and ask for Messer Jacopo; and if the
porter inquires your business, say that you have a message and a token
from a certain Angelo. When you are admitted and are alone with Messer
Jacopo, tell him from me to go and stand by the second pillar on the
left in Saint Mark's, on Sunday next, an hour before noon, until he sees
me; and within a week after that, he shall have the answer; and bid him
be silent, if he would succeed."

"Is that all, sir?"

"That is all. If he gives you any message in answer, deliver it to me
to-morrow, when my daughter is not here."

"And the token?" inquired Zorzi.

"This glass seal, of which he already has an impression in wax, in case
he should doubt you."

Zorzi took the little leathern bag which contained the seal. He tied a
piece of string to it, and hung it round his neck, so that it was hidden
in his doublet like a charm or a scapulary. Beroviero watched him and
nodded in approval.

"Do not start before it is quite dark," he said. "Take the little skiff.
The water will be high two hours before midnight, so you will have no
trouble in getting across. When you come back, come here, and tell the
porter that I have ordered you to see that my fire is properly kept up.
Then go to sleep in the coolest place you can find."

After Beroviero had given him these orders, Zorzi had plenty of time for
reflection, for his master said nothing more, and became absorbed in his
work, weighing out portions of different ingredients and slowly mixing
each with the coloured earths and chemicals that were already in the
wooden trough. There was nothing to do but to tend the fire, and Zorzi
pushed in the pieces of Istrian beech wood with his usual industrious
regularity. It was the only part of his work which he hated, and when he
was obliged to do nothing else, he usually sought consolation in
dreaming of a time when he himself should be a master glass-blower and
artist whom it would be almost an honour for a young man to serve, even
in such a humble way. He did not know how that was to happen, since
there were strict laws against teaching the art to foreigners, and also
against allowing any foreign person to establish a furnace at Murano;
and the glass works had long been altogether banished from Venice on
account of the danger of fire, at a time when two-thirds of the houses
were of wood. But meanwhile Zorzi had learned the art, in spite of the
law, and he hoped in time to overcome the other obstacles that opposed
him.

There was strength of purpose in every line of his keen young face,
strength to endure, to forego, to suffer in silence for an end ardently
desired. The dark brown hair grew somewhat far back from the pale
forehead, the features were youthfully sharp and clearly drawn, and deep
neutral shadows gave a look of almost passionate sadness to the black
eyes. There was quick perception, imagination, love of art for its own
sake in the upper part of the face; its strength lay in the well-built
jaw and firm lips, and a little in the graceful and assured poise of the
head. Zorzi was not tall, but he was shapely, and moved without effort.

His eyes were sadder than usual just now, as he tended the fire in the
silence that was broken only by the low roar of the flames within the
brick furnace, and the irregular sound of the master's wooden instrument
as he crushed and stirred the materials together. Zorzi had longed to
see Contarini as soon as he had heard his name; and having unexpectedly
obtained the certainty of seeing him that very night, he wished that
the moment could be put off, he felt cold and hot, he wondered how he
should behave, and whether after all he might not be tempted to do his
enemy some bodily harm.

For in a few minutes the aspect of his world had changed, and
Contarini's unknown figure filled the future. Until to-day, he had never
seriously thought of Marietta's marriage, nor of what would happen to
him afterwards; but now, he was to be one of the instruments for
bringing the marriage about. He knew well enough what the appointment in
Saint Mark's meant: Marietta was to have an opportunity of seeing
Contarini before accepting him. Even that was something of a concession
in those times, but Beroviero fancied that he loved his child too much
to marry her against her will. This was probably a great match for the
glass-worker's daughter, however, and she would not refuse it. Contarini
had never seen her either; he might have heard that she was a pretty
girl, but there were famous beauties in Venice, and if he wanted
Marietta Beroviero it could only be for her dowry. The marriage was
therefore a mere bargain between the two men, in which a name was
bartered for a fortune and a fortune for a name. Zorzi saw how absurd it
was to suppose that Marietta could care for a man whom she had never
even seen; and worse than that, he guessed in a flash of loving
intuition how wretchedly unhappy she might be with him, and he hated and
despised the errand he was to perform. The future seemed to reveal
itself to him with the long martyrdom of the woman he loved, and he felt
an almost irresistible desire to go to her and implore her to refuse to
be sold.

Nine-tenths of the marriages he had ever heard of in Murano or Venice
had been made in this way, and in a moment's reflection he realised the
folly of appealing even to the girl herself, who doubtless looked upon
the whole proceeding as perfectly natural. She had of course expected
such an event ever since she had been a child, she was prepared to
accept it, and she only hoped that her husband might turn out to be
young, handsome and noble, since she did not want money. A moment later,
Zorzi included all marriageable young women in one sweeping
condemnation: they were all hard-hearted, mercenary, vain,
deceitful--anything that suggested itself to his headlong resentment.
Art was the only thing worth living and dying for; the world was full of
women, and they were all alike, old, young, ugly, handsome--all a pack
of heartless jades; but art was one, beautiful, true, deathless and
unchanging.

He looked up from the furnace door, and he felt the blood rush to his
face. Marietta was standing near and watching him with her strangely
veiled eyes.

"Poor Zorzi!" she exclaimed in a soft voice. "How hot you look!"

He did not remember that he had ever cared a straw whether any one
noticed that he was hot or not, until that moment; but for some
complicated reason connected with his own thoughts the remark stung him
like an insult, and fully confirmed his recent verdict concerning women
in general and their total lack of all human kindness where men were
concerned. He rose to his feet suddenly and turned away without a word.

"Come out into the garden," said Marietta. "Do you need Zorzi just now?"
she asked, turning to her father, who only shook his head by way of
answer, for he was very busy.

"But I assure you that I am not too hot," answered Zorzi. "Why should I
go out?"

"Because I want you to fasten up one of the branches of the red rose. It
catches in my skirt every time I pass. You will need a hammer and a
little nail."

She had not been thinking of his comfort after all, thought Zorzi as he
got the hammer. She had only wanted something done for herself. He might
have known it. But for the rose that caught in her skirt, he might have
roasted alive at the furnace before she would have noticed that he was
hot. He followed her out. She led him to the end of the walk farthest
from the door of the laboratory; the sun was low and all the little
garden was in deep shade. A branch of the rose-bush lay across the path,
and Zorzi thought it looked very much as if it had been pulled down on
purpose. She pointed to it, and as he carefully lifted it from the
ground she spoke quickly, in a low tone.

"What was my father saying to you a while ago?" she asked.

Zorzi held up the branch in his hand, ready to fasten it against the
wall, and looked at her. He saw at a glance that she had brought him out
to ask the question.

"The master was giving me certain orders," he said.

"He rarely makes such long speeches when he gives orders," observed the
girl.

"His instructions were very particular."

"Will you not tell me what they were?"

Zorzi turned slowly from her and let the long branch rest on the bush
while he began to drive a nail into the wall. Marietta watched him.

"Why do you not answer me?" she asked.

"Because I cannot," he said briefly.

"Because you will not, you mean."

"As you choose." Zorzi went on striking the nail.

"I am sorry," answered the young girl. "I really wish to know very much.
Besides, if you will tell me, I will give you something."

Zorzi turned upon her suddenly with angry eyes.

"If money could buy your father's secrets from me, I should be a rich
man by this time."

"I think I know as much of my father's secrets as you do," answered
Marietta more coldly, "and I did not mean to offer you money."

"What then?" But as he asked the question Zorzi turned away again and
began to fasten the branch.

Marietta did not answer at once, but she idly picked a rose from the
bush and put it to her lips to breathe in its freshness.

"Why should you think that I meant to insult you?" she asked gently.

"I am only a servant, after all," answered Zorzi, with unnecessary
bitterness. "Why should you not insult your servants, if you please? It
would be quite natural."

"Would it? Even if you were really a servant?"

"It seems quite natural to you that I should betray your father's
confidence. I do not see much difference between taking it for granted
that a man is a traitor and offering him money to act as one."

"No," said Marietta, smelling the rose from time to time as she spoke,
"there is not much difference. But I did not mean to hurt your
feelings."

"You did not realise that I could have any, I fancy," retorted Zorzi,
still angry.

"Perhaps I did not understand that you would consider what my father was
telling you in the same light as a secret of the art," said Marietta
slowly, "nor that you would look upon what I meant to offer you as a
bribe. The matter concerned me, did it not?"

"Your name was not spoken. I have fastened the branch. Is there anything
else for me to do?"

"Have you no curiosity to know what I would have given you?" asked
Marietta.

"I should be ashamed to want anything at such a price," returned Zorzi
proudly.

"You hold your honour high, even in trifles."

"It is all I have--my honour and my art."

"You care for nothing else? Nothing else in the whole world?"

"Nothing," said Zorzi.

"You must be very lonely in your thoughts," she said, and turned away.

As she went slowly along the path her hand hung by her side, and the
rose she held fell from her fingers. Following her at a short distance,
on his way back to the laboratory, Zorzi stooped and picked up the
flower, not thinking that she would turn her head. But at that moment
she had reached the door, and she looked back and saw what he had done.
She stood still and held out her hand, expecting him to come up with
her.

"My rose!" she exclaimed, as if surprised. "Give it back to me."

Zorzi gave it to her, and the colour came to his face a second time. She
fastened it in her bodice, looking down at it as she did so.

"I am so fond of roses," she said, smiling a little. "Are you?"

"I planted all those you have here," he answered.

"Yes--I know."

She looked up as she spoke, and met his eyes, and all at once she
laughed, not unkindly, nor as if at him, nor at what he had said, but
quietly and happily, as women do when they have got what they want.
Zorzi did not understand.

"You are gay," he said coldly.

"Do you wonder?" she asked. "If you knew what I know, you would
understand."

"But I do not."

Zorzi went back to his furnace, Marietta exchanged a few words with her
father and left the room again to go home.

In the garden she paused a moment by the rose-bush, where she had talked
with Zorzi, but there was not even the shadow of a smile in her face
now. She went down the dark corridor and called the porter, who roused
himself, opened the door and hailed the house opposite. A woman looked
out in the evening light, nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later
she came out of the house, a quiet little middle-aged creature in brown,
with intelligent eyes, and she crossed the shaky wooden bridge over the
canal to come and bring Marietta home. It would have been a scandalous
thing if the daughter of Angelo Beroviero had been seen by the
neighbours to walk a score of paces in the street without an attendant.
She had thrown a hood of dark green cloth over her head, and the folds
hung below her shoulders, half hiding her graceful figure. Her step was
smooth and deliberate, while the little brown serving-woman trotted
beside her across the wooden bridge.

The house of Angelo Beroviero hung over the paved way, above the edge of
the water, the upper story being supported by six stone columns and
massive wooden beams, forming a sort of portico which was at the same
time a public thoroughfare; but as the house was not far from the end
of the canal of San Piero which opens towards Venice, few people passed
that way.

Marietta paused a moment while the woman held the door open for her. The
sun had just set and the salt freshness that comes with the rising tide
was already in the air.

"I wish I were in Venice this evening," she said, almost to herself.

The serving-woman looked at her suspiciously.




CHAPTER II


The June night was dark and warm as Zorzi pushed off from the steps
before his master's house and guided his skiff through the canal,
scarcely moving the single oar, as the rising tide took his boat
silently along. It was not until he had passed the last of the
glass-houses on his right, and was already in the lagoon that separates
Murano from Venice, that he began to row, gently at first, for fear of
being heard by some one ashore, and then more quickly, swinging his oar
in the curved crutch with that skilful, serpentine stroke which is
neither rowing nor sculling, but which has all the advantages of both,
for it is swift and silent, and needs scarcely to be slackened even in a
channel so narrow that the boat itself can barely pass.

Now that he was away from the houses, the stars came out and he felt the
pleasant land breeze in his face, meeting the rising tide. Not a boat
was out upon the shallow lagoon but his own, not a sound came from the
town behind him; but as the flat bow of the skiff gently slapped the
water, it plashed and purled with every stroke of the oar, and a faint
murmur of voices in song was borne to him on the wind from the still
waking city.

He stood upright on the high stern of the shadowy craft, himself but a
moving shadow in the starlight, thrown forward now, and now once more
erect, in changing motion; and as he moved the same thought came back
and back again in a sort of halting and painful rhythm. He was out that
night on a bad errand, it said, helping to sell the life of the woman he
loved, and what he was doing could never be undone. Again and again the
words said themselves, the far-off voices said them, the lapping water
took them up and repeated them, the breeze whispered them quickly as it
passed, the oar pronounced them as it creaked softly in the crutch
rowlock, the stars spelled out the sentences in the sky, the lights of
Venice wrote them in the water in broken reflections. He was not alone
any more, for everything in heaven and earth was crying to him to go
back.

That was folly, and he knew it. The master who had trusted him would
drive him out of his house, and out of Venetian land and water, too, if
he chose, and he should never see Marietta again; and she would be
married to Contarini just as if Zorzi had taken the message. Besides, it
was the custom of the world everywhere, so far as he knew, that marriage
and money should be spoken of in the same breath, and there was no
reason why his master should make an exception and be different from
other men.

He could put some hindrance in the way, of course, if he chose to
interfere, for he could deliver the message wrong, and Contarini would
go to the church in the afternoon instead of in the morning. He smiled
grimly in the dark as he thought of the young nobleman waiting for an
hour or two beside the pillar, to be looked at by some one who never
came, then catching sight at last of some ugly old maid of forty,
protected by her servant, ogling him, while she said her prayers and
filling him with horror at the thought that she must be Marietta
Beroviero. All that might happen, but it must inevitably be found out,
the misunderstanding would be cleared away and the marriage would be
arranged after all.

He had rested on his oar to think, and now he struck it deep into the
black water and the skiff shot ahead. He would have a far better chance
of serving Marietta in the future if he obeyed his master and delivered
his message exactly; for he should see Contarini himself and judge of
him, in the first place, and that alone was worth much, and afterwards
there would be time enough for desperate resolutions. He hastened his
stroke, and when he ran under the shadow of the overhanging houses his
mood changed and he grew hopeful, as many young men do, out of sheer
curiosity as to what was before him, and out of the wish to meet
something or somebody that should put his own strength to the test.

It was not far now. With infinite caution he threaded the dark canals,
thanking fortune for the faint starlight that showed him the turnings.
Here and there a small oil lamp burned before the image of a saint; from
a narrow lane on one side, the light streamed across the water, and with
it came sounds of ringing glasses, and the tinkling of a lute, and
laughing voices; then it was dark again as his skiff shot by, and he
made haste, for he wished not to be seen.

Presently, and somewhat to his surprise, he saw a gondola before him in
a narrow place, rowed slowly by a man who seemed to be in black like
himself. He did not try to pass it, but kept a little astern, trying not
to attract attention and hoping that it would turn aside into another
canal. But it went steadily on before him, turning wherever he must
turn, till it stopped where he was to stop, at the water-gate of the
house of the Agnus Dei. Instantly he brought to in the shadow, with the
instinctive caution of every one who is used to the water. Gondolas were
few in those days and belonged only to the rich, who had just begun to
use them as a means of getting about quickly, much more convenient than
horses or mules; for when riding a man often had to go far out of his
way to reach a bridge, and there were many canals that had no bridle
path at all and where the wooden houses were built straight down into
the water as the stone ones are to-day. Zorzi peered through the
darkness and listened. The occupant of the gondola might be Contarini
himself, coming home. Whoever it was tapped softly upon the door, which
was instantly opened, but to Zorzi's surprise no light shone from the
entrance. All the house above was still and dark, and he could barely
make out by the starlight the piece of white marble bearing the
sculptured Agnus Dei whence the house takes its name. He knew that above
the high balcony there were graceful columns bearing pointed stone
arches, between which are the symbols of the four Evangelists; but he
could see nothing of them. Only on the balcony, he fancied he saw
something less dark than the wall or the sky, and which might be a
woman's dress.

Some one got out of the gondola and went in after speaking a few words
in a low tone, and the door was then shut without noise. The gondola
glided on, under the Baker's Bridge, but Zorzi could not see whether it
went further or not; he thought he heard the sound of the oar, as if it
were going away. Coming alongside the step, he knocked gently as the
last comer had done, and the door opened again. He had already made his
skiff fast to the step.

"Your business here?" asked a muffled voice out of the dark.

Zorzi felt that a number of persons were in the hall immediately behind
the speaker.

"For the Lord Jacopo Contarini," he answered. "I have a message and a
token to deliver."

"From whom?"

"I will tell that to his lordship," replied Zorzi.

"I am Contarini," replied the voice, and the speaker felt for Zorzi's
face in the darkness, and brought it near his ear.

"From Angelo," whispered Zorzi, so softly that Contarini only heard the
last word.

The door was now shut as noiselessly as before, but not by Contarini
himself. He still kept his hold on Zorzi's arm.

"The token," he whispered impatiently.

Zorzi pulled the little leathern bag out of his doublet, slipped the
string over his head and thrust the token into Contarini's hand. The
latter uttered a low exclamation of surprise.

"What is this?" he asked.

"The token," answered Zorzi.

He had scarcely spoken when he felt Contarini's arms round him, holding
him fast. He was wise enough to make no attempt to escape from them.

"Friends," said Contarini quickly, "the man who just came in is a spy. I
am holding him. Help me!"

It seemed to Zorzi that a hundred hands seized him in the dark; by the
arms, by the legs, by the body, by the head. He knew that resistance was
worse than useless. There were hands at his throat, too.

"Let us do nothing hastily," said Contarini's voice, close beside him.
"We must find out what he knows first. We can make him speak, I
daresay."

"We are not hangmen to torture a prisoner till he confesses," observed
some one in a quiet and rather indolent tone. "Strangle him quickly and
throw him into the canal. It is late already."

"No," answered Contarini. "Let us at least see his face. We may know
him. If you cry out," he said to Zorzi, "you will be killed instantly."

"Jacopo is right," said some one who had not spoken yet.

Almost at the same instant a door was opened and a broad bar of light
shot across the hall from an inner room. Zorzi was roughly dragged
towards it, and he saw that he was surrounded by about twenty masked
men. His face was held to the light, and Contarini's hold on his throat
relaxed.

"Not even a mask!" exclaimed Jacopo. "A fool, or a madman. Speak, man I
Who are you? Who sent you here?"

"My name is Zorzi," answered the glass-blower with difficulty, for he
had been almost choked. "My business is with the Lord Jacopo alone. It
is very private."

"I have no secrets from my friends," said Contarini. "Speak as if we
were alone."

"I have promised my master to deliver the message in secret. I will not
speak here."

"Strangle him and throw him out," suggested the man with the indolent
voice. "His master is the devil, I have no doubt. He can take the
message back with him."

Two or three laughed.

"These spies seldom hunt alone," remarked another. "While we are wasting
time a dozen more may be guarding the entrance to the house."

"I am no spy," said Zorzi.

"What are you, then?"

"A glass-worker of Murano."

Contarini's hands relaxed altogether, now, and he bent his ear to
Zorzi's lips.

"Whisper your message," he said quickly.

Zorzi obeyed.

"Angelo Beroviero bids you wait by the second pillar on the left in
Saint Mark's church, next Sunday morning, at one hour before noon, till
you shall see him, and in a week from that time you shall have an
answer; and be silent, if you would succeed."

"Very well," answered Contarini. "Friends," he said, standing erect, "it
is a message I have expected. The name of the man who sends it is
'Angelo'--you understand. It is not this fellow's fault that he came
here this evening."

"I suppose there is a woman in the case," said the indolent man. "We
will respect your secret. Put the poor devil out of his misery and let
us come to our business."

"Kill an innocent man!" exclaimed Contarini.

"Yes, since a word from him can send us all to die between the two red
columns."

"His master is powerful and rich," said Jacopo. "If the fellow does not
go back to-night, there will be trouble to-morrow, and since he was sent
to my house, the inquiry will begin here."

"That is true," said more than one voice, in a tone of hesitation.

Zorzi was very pale, but he held his head high, facing the light of the
tall wax candles on the table around which his captors were standing. He
was hopelessly at their mercy, for they were twenty to one; the door had
been shut and barred and the only window in the room was high above the
floor and covered by a thick curtain. He understood perfectly that, by
the accident of Angelo's name, "Angel" being the password of the
company, he had been accidentally admitted to the meeting of some secret
society, and from what had been said, he guessed that its object was a
conspiracy against the Republic. It was clear that in self-defence they
would most probably kill him, since they could not reasonably run the
risk of trusting their lives in his hands. They looked at each other, as
if silently debating what they should do.

"At first you suggested that we should torture him," sneered the
indolent man, "and now you tremble like a girl at the idea of killing
him! Listen to me, Jacopo; if you think that I will leave this house
while this fellow is alive, you are most egregiously mistaken."

He had drawn his dagger while he was speaking, and before he had
finished it was dangerously near Zorzi's throat. Contarini retired a
step as if not daring to defend the prisoner, whose assailant, in spite
of his careless and almost womanish tone, was clearly a man of action.
Zorzi looked fearlessly into the eyes that peered at him through the
holes in the mask.

"It is curious," observed the other. "He does not seem to be afraid. I
am sorry for you, my man, for you appear to be a fine fellow, and I like
your face, but we cannot possibly let you go out of the house alive."

"If you choose to trust me," said Zorzi calmly, "I will not betray you.
But of course it must seem safer for you to kill me. I quite
understand."

"If anything, he is cooler than Venier," observed one of the company.

"He does not believe that we are in earnest," said Contarini.

"I am," answered Venier. "Now, my man," he said, addressing Zorzi again,
"if there is anything I can do for you or your family after your death,
without risking my neck, I will do it with pleasure."

"I have no family, but I thank you for your offer. In return for your
courtesy, I warn you that my master's skiff is fast to the step of the
house. It might be recognised. When you have killed me, you had better
cast it off--it will drift away with the tide."

Venier, who had let the point of his long dagger rest against Zorzi's
collar, suddenly dropped it.

"Contarini," he said, "I take back what I said. It would be an
abominable shame to murder a man as brave as he is."

A murmur of approval came from all the company; but Contarini, whose
vacillating nature showed itself at every turn, was now inclined to take
the other side.

"He may ruin us all," he said. "One word--"

"It seems to me," interrupted a big man who had not yet spoken, and
whose beard was as black as his mask, "that we could make use of just
such a man as this, and of more like him if they are to be found."

"You are right," said Venier. "If he will take the oath, and bear the
tests, let him be one of us. My friend," he said to Zorzi, "you see how
it is. You have proved yourself a brave man, and if you are willing to
join our company we shall be glad to receive you among us. Do you
agree?"

"I must know what the purpose of your society is," answered Zorzi as
calmly as before.

"That is well said, my friend, and I like you the better for it. Now
listen to me. We are a brotherhood of gentlemen of Venice sworn together
to restore the original freedom of our city. That is our main purpose.
What Tiepolo and Faliero failed to do, we hope to accomplish. Are you
with us in that?"

"Sirs," answered Zorzi, "I am a Dalmatian by birth, and not a Venetian.
The Republic forbids me to learn the art of glass-working. I have
learned it. The Republic forbids me to set up a furnace of my own. I
hope to do so. I owe Venice neither allegiance nor gratitude. If your
revolution is to give freedom to art as well as to men, I am with you."

"We shall have freedom for all," said Venier. "We take, moreover, an
oath of fellowship which binds us to help each other in all
circumstances, to the utmost of our ability and fortune, within the
bounds of reason, to risk life and limb for each other's safety, and
most especially to respect the wives, the daughters and the betrothed
brides of all who belong to our fellowship. These are promises which
every true and honest man can make to his friends, and we agree that
whoso breaks any one of them, shall die by the hands of the company. And
by God in heaven, it were better that you should lose your life now,
before taking the oath, than that you should be false to it."

"I will take that oath, and keep it," said Zorzi.

"That is well. We have few signs and no ceremonies, but our promises
are binding, and the forfeit is a painful death--so painful that even
you might flinch before it. Indeed, we usually make some test of a man's
courage before receiving him among us, though most of us have known each
other since we were children. But you have shown us that you are
fearless and honourable, and we ask nothing more of you, except to take
the oath and then to keep it."

He turned to the company, still speaking in his languid way.

"If any man here knows good reason why this new companion should not be
one of us, let him show it now."

Then all were silent, and uncovered their heads, but they still kept
their masks on their faces. Zorzi stood out before them, and Venier was
close beside him.

"Make the sign of the Cross," said Venier in a solemn tone, quite
different from his ordinary voice, "and repeat the words after me."

And Zorzi repeated them steadily and precisely, holding his hand
stretched out before him.

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, I promise and swear to give life and
fortune in the good cause of restoring the original liberty of the
people of Venice, obeying to that end the decisions of this honourable
society, and to bear all sufferings rather than betray it, or any of its
members. And I promise to help each one of my companions also in the
ordinary affairs of life, to the best of my ability and fortune, within
the bounds of reason, risking life and limb for the safety of each and
all. And I promise most especially to honour and respect the wives, the
daughters and the betrothed brides of all who belong to this fellowship,
and to defend them from harm and insult, even as my own mother. And if I
break any promise of this oath, may my flesh be torn from my limbs and
my limbs from my body, one by one, to be burned with fire and the ashes
thereof scattered abroad. Amen."

When Zorzi had said the last word, Venier grasped his hand, at the same
time taking off the mask he wore, and he looked into the young man's
face.

"I am Zuan Venier," he said, his indolent manner returning as he spoke.

"I am Jacopo Contarini," said the master of the house, offering his hand
next.

Zorzi looked first at one, and then at the other; the first was a very
pale young man, with bright blue eyes and delicate features that were
prematurely weary and even worn; Contarini was called the handsomest
Venetian of his day. Yet of the two, most men and women would have been
more attracted to Venier at first sight. For Contarini's silken beard
hardly concealed a weak and feminine mouth, with lips too red and too
curving for a man, and his soft brown eyes had an unmanly tendency to
look away while he was speaking. He was tall, broad shouldered, and well
proportioned, with beautiful hands and shapely feet, yet he did not give
an impression of strength, whereas Venier's languid manner, assumed as
it doubtless was, could not hide the restless energy that lay in his
lean frame.

One by one the other companions came up to Zorzi, took off their masks
and grasped his hand, and he heard their lips pronounce names famous in
Venetian history, Loredan, Mocenigo, Foscari and many others. But he saw
that not one of them all was over five-and-twenty years of age, and with
the keenness of the waif who had fought his own way in the world he
judged that these were not men who could overturn the great Republic and
build up a new government. Whatever they might prove to be in danger and
revolution, however, he had saved his life by casting his lot with
theirs, and he was profoundly grateful to them for having accepted him
as one of themselves. But for their generosity, his weighted body would
have been already lying at the bottom of the canal, and he was not just
now inclined to criticise the mental gifts of those would-be
conspirators who had so unexpectedly forgiven him for discovering their
secret meeting.

"Sirs," he said, when he had grasped the hand of each, "I hope that in
return for my life, for which I thank you, I may be of some service to
the cause of liberty, and to each of you in singular, though I have but
little hope of this, seeing that I am but an artist and you are all
patricians. I pray you, inform me by what sign I may know you if we
chance to meet outside this house, and how I may make myself known."

"We have little need of signs," answered Contarini, "for we meet often,
and we know each other well. But our password is 'the Angel'--meaning
the Angel that freed Saint Peter from his bonds, as we hope to free
Venice from hers, and the token we give is the grip of the hand we have
each given you."

Being thus instructed, Zorzi held his peace, for he felt that he was in
the presence of men far above him in station, in whose conversation it
would not be easy for him to join, and of whose daily lives he knew
nothing, except that most of them lived in palaces and many were the
sons of Councillors of the Ten, and of Senators, and Procurators and of
others high in office, whereat he wondered much. But presently, as the
excitement of what had happened wore off, and they sat about the table,
they began to speak of the news of the day, and especially of the unjust
and cruel acts of the Ten, each contributing some detail learned in his
own home or among intimate friends. Zorzi sat silent in his place,
listening, and he soon understood that as yet they had no definite plan
for bringing on a revolution, and that they knew nothing of the populace
upon whose support they reckoned, and of whom Zorzi knew much by
experience. Yet, though they told each other things which seemed foolish
to him, he said nothing on that first night, and all the time he watched
Contarini very closely, and listened with especial attention to what he
said, trying to discern his character and judge his understanding.

The splendid young Venetian was not displeased by Zorzi's attitude
towards him, and presently came and sat beside him.

"I should have explained to you," he said, "that as it would be
impossible for us to meet here without the knowledge of my servants, we
come together on pretence of playing games of chance. My father lives in
our palace near Saint Mark's, and I live here alone."

At this Foscari, the tall man with the black beard, looked at Contarini
and laughed a little. Contarini glanced at him and smiled with some
constraint.

"On such evenings," he continued, "I admit my guests myself, and they
wear masks when they come, for though my servants are dismissed to their
quarters, and would certainly not betray me for a dice-player, they
might let drop the names of my friends if they saw them from an upper
window."

At this juncture Zorzi heard the rattling of dice, and looking down the
table he saw that two of the company were already throwing against each
other. In a few minutes he found himself sitting alone near Zuan Venier,
all the others having either begun to play themselves, or being engaged
in wagering on the play of others.

"And you, sir?" inquired Zorzi of his neighbour.

"I am tired of games of chance," answered the pale nobleman wearily.

"But our host says it is a mere pretence, to hide the purpose of these
meetings."

"It is more than that," said Venier with a contemptuous smile. "Do you
play?"

"I am a poor artist, sir. I cannot."

"Ah, I had forgotten. That is very interesting. But pray do not call me
'sir' nor use any formality, unless we meet in public. At the 'Sign of
the Angel' we are all brothers. Yes--yes--of course! You are a poor
artist. When I expected to be obliged to cut your throat awhile ago, I
really hoped that I might be able to fulfil some last wish of yours."

"I appreciated your goodness." Zorzi laughed a little nervously, now
that the danger was over.

"I meant it, my friend, I do assure you. And I mean it now. One
advantage of the fellowship is that one may offer to help a brother in
any way without insulting him. I am not as rich as I was--I was too fond
of those things once"--he pointed to the dice--"but if my purse can
serve you, such as it is, I hope you will use it rather than that of
another."

It was impossible to be offended, sensitive though Zorzi was.

"I thank you heartily," he answered.

"It would be a curiosity to see money do good for once," said Venier,
languidly looking towards the players. "Contarini is losing again," he
remarked.

"Does he generally lose much at play?" Zorzi asked, trying to seem
indifferent.

Venier laughed softly.

"It is proverbial, 'to lose like Jacopo Contarini'!" he answered.

"Tell me, I beg of you, are all the meetings of the brotherhood like
this one?"

"In what way?" asked Venier indifferently.

"Do you merely tell each other the news of the day, and then play at
dice all night?"

"Some play cards." Venier laughed scornfully. "This is only the third of
our secret sittings, I believe, but many of us meet elsewhere, during
the day."

"Our host said that the society made a pretence of play in order to
conspire against the State," said Zorzi. "It seems to me that this is
making a pretence of conspiracy, with the chance of death on the
scaffold, for the sake of dice-playing."

"To tell the truth, I think so too," answered the patrician, leaning
back in his chair and looking thoughtfully at the young glass-blower.
"It is more interesting to break a law when you may lose your head for
it than if you only risk a fine or a year's banishment. I daresay that
seems complicated to you."

Zorzi laughed.

"If it is only for the sake of the danger," he said, "why not go and
fight the Turks?"

"I have tried to do my share of that," replied Venier quietly. "So have
some of the others."

"Contarini?" asked Zorzi.

"No. I believe he has never seen any fighting."

While the two were talking the play had proceeded steadily, and almost
in silence. Contarini had lost heavily at first and had then won back
his losses and twice as much more.

"That does not happen often," he said, pushing away the dice and leaning
back.

Zorzi watched him. The yellow light of the wax candles fell softly upon
his silky beard and too perfect features, and made splendid shadows in
the scarlet silk of his coat, and flashed in the precious ruby of the
ring he wore on his white hand. He seemed a true incarnation of his
magnificent city, a century before the rest of all Italy in luxury, in
extravagance, in the art of wasteful trifling with great things which is
a rich man's way of loving art itself; and there were many others of the
company who were of the same stamp as he, but whose faces had no
interest for Zorzi compared with Contarini's. Beside him they were but
ordinary men in the presence of a young god.

No woman could resist such a man as that, thought the poor waif. It
would be enough that Marietta's eyes should rest on him one moment, next
Sunday, when he should be standing by the great pillar in the church,
and her fate would be sealed then and there, irrevocably. It was not
because she was only a glass-maker's daughter, brought up in Murano.
What girl who was human would hesitate to accept such a husband?
Contarini might choose his wife as he pleased, among the noblest and
most beautiful in Italy. One or both of two reasons would explain why
his choice had fallen upon Marietta. It was possible that he had seen
her, and Zorzi firmly believed that no man could see her without loving
her; and Angelo Beroviero might have offered such an immense dowry for
the alliance as to tempt Jacopo's father. No one knew how rich old
Angelo was since he had returned from Florence and Naples, and many said
that he possessed the secret of making gold; but Zorzi knew better than
that.




CHAPTER III


It was past midnight when Jacopo Contarini barred the door of his house
and was alone. He took one of the candles from the inner room, put out
all the others and was already in the hall, when he remembered that he
had left his winnings on the table. Going back he opened the embroidered
wallet he wore at his belt and swept the heap of heavy yellow coins into
it. As the last disappeared into the bag and rang upon the others he
distinctly heard a sound in the room. He started and looked about him.

It was not exactly the sound of a soft footfall, nor of breathing, but
it might have been either. It was short and distinct, such a slight
noise as might be made by drawing the palm of the hand quickly over a
piece of stuff, or by a short breath checked almost instantly, or by a
shoeless foot slipping a few inches on a thick carpet. Contarini stood
still and listened, for though he had heard it distinctly he had no
impression of the direction whence it had come. It was not repeated, and
he began to search the room carefully.

He could find nothing. The single window, high above the floor, was
carefully closed and covered by a heavy curtain which could not
possibly have moved in the stillness. The tapestry was smoothly drawn
and fastened upon the four walls. There was no furniture in the room but
a big table and the benches and chairs. Above the tapestries the bare
walls were painted, up to the carved ceiling. There was nothing to
account for the noise. Contarini looked nervously over his shoulder as
he left the room, and more than once again as he went up the marble
staircase, candle in hand. There is probably nothing more disturbing to
people of ordinary nerves than a sound heard in a lonely place and for
which it is impossible to find a reason.

When he reached the broad landing he smiled at himself and looked back a
last time, shading the candle with his hand, so as to throw the light
down the staircase. Then he entered the apartment and locked himself in.
Having passed through the large square vestibule and through a small
room that led from it, he raised the latch of the next door very
cautiously, shaded the candle again and looked in. A cool breeze almost
put out the light.

"I am not asleep," said a sweet young voice. "I am here by the window."

He smiled happily at the words. The candle-light fell upon a woman's
face, as he went forward--such a face as men may see in dreams, but
rarely in waking life.

Half sitting, half lying, she rested in Eastern fashion among the silken
cushions of a low divan. The open windows of the balcony overlooked the
low houses opposite, and the night breeze played with the little
ringlets of her glorious hair. Her soft eyes looked up to her lover's
face with infinite trustfulness, and their violet depths were like clear
crystal and as tender as the twilight of a perfect day. She looked at
him, her head thrown back, one ivory arm between it and the cushion, the
other hand stretched out to welcome his. Her mouth was like a southern
rose when there is dew on the smooth red leaves. In a maze of creamy
shadows, the fine web of her garment followed the lines of her resting
limbs in delicate folds, and one small white foot was quite uncovered.
Her fan of ostrich feathers lay idle on the Persian carpet.

"Come, my beloved," she said. "I have waited long."

Contarini knelt down, and first he kissed the arching instep, and then
her hand, that felt like a young dove just stirring under his touch, and
his lips caressed the satin of her arm, and at last, with a fierce
little choking cry, they found her own that waited for them, and there
was no more room for words. In the silence of the June night one kiss
answered another, and breath mingled with breath, and sigh with sigh.

At last the young man's head rested against her shoulder among the
cushions. Then the Georgian woman opened her eyes slowly and glanced
down at his face, while her hand stroked and smoothed his hair, and he
could not see the strange smile on her wonderful lips. For she knew that
he could not see it, and she let it come and go as it would, half in
pity and half in scorn.

"I knew you would come," she said, bending her head a little nearer to
his.

"When I do not, you will know that I am dead," he answered almost
faintly, and he sighed.

"And then I shall go to you," she said, but as she spoke, she smiled
again to herself. "I have heard that in old times, when the lords of the
earth died, their most favourite slaves were killed upon the funeral
pile, that their souls might wait upon their master's in the world
beyond."

"Yes. It is true."

"And so I will be your slave there, as I am here, and the night that
lasts for ever shall seem no longer than this summer night, that is too
short for us."

"You must not call yourself a slave, Arisa," answered Jacopo.

"What am I, then? You bought me with your good gold from Aristarchi the
Greek captain, in the slave market. Your steward has the receipt for the
money among his accounts! And there is the Greek's written guarantee,
too, I am sure, promising to take me back and return the money if I was
not all he told you I was. Those are my documents of nobility, my
patents of rank, preserved in your archives with your own!"

She spoke playfully, smiling to herself as she stroked his hair. But he
caught her hand tenderly and brought it to his lips, holding it there.

"You are more free than I," he said. "Which of us two is the slave? You
who hold me, or I who am held? This little hand will never let me go."

"I think you would come back to me," she answered. "But if I ran away,
would you follow me?"

"You will not run away." He spoke quietly and confidently, still holding
her hand, as if he were talking to it, while he felt the breath of her
winds upon his forehead.

"No," she said, and there was a little silence.

"I have but one fear," he began, at last. "If I were ruined, what would
become of you?"

"Have you lost at play again to-night?" she asked, and in her tone there
was a note of anxiety.

Contarini laughed low, and felt for the wallet at his aide. He held it
up to show how heavy it was with the gold, and made her take it. She
only kept it a moment, but while it was in her hand her eyelids were
half closed as if she were guessing at the weight, for he could not see
her face.

"I won all that," he said. "To-morrow you shall have the pearls."

"How good you are to me! But should you not keep the money? You may need
it. Why do you talk of ruin?"

She knew that he would give her all he had, she almost guessed that he
would commit a crime rather than lack gold to give her.

"You do not know my father!" he answered. "When he is displeased he
threatens to let me starve. He will cut me off some day, and I shall
have to turn soldier for a living. Would that not be ruin? You know his
last scheme--he wishes me to marry the daughter of a rich glass-maker."

"I know." Arisa laughed contemptuously, "Great joy may your bride have
of you! Is she really rich?"

"Yes. But you know that I will not marry her."

"Why not?" asked Arisa quite simply.

Contarini started and looked up at her face in the dim light. She was
bending down to him with a very loving look.

"Why should you not marry?" she asked again. "Why do you start and look
at me so strangely? Do you think I should care? Or that I am afraid of
another woman for you?"

"Yes. I should have thought that you would be jealous." He still gazed
at her in astonishment.

"Jealous!" she cried, and as she laughed she shook her beautiful head,
and the gold of her hair glittered in the flickering candle-light.
"Jealous? I? Look at me! Is she younger than I? I was eighteen years old
the other day. If she is younger than I, she is a child--shall I be
jealous of children? Is she taller, straighter, handsomer than I am?
Show her to me, and I will laugh in her face! Can she sing to you, as I
sing, in the summer nights, the songs you like and those I learned by
the Kura in the shadow of Kasbek? Is her hair brighter than mine, is her
hand softer, is her step lighter? Jealous? Not I! Will your rich wife be
your slave? Will she wake for you, sing for you, dance for you, rise up
and lie down at your bidding, work for you, live for you, die for you,
as I will? Will she love you as I can love, caress you to sleep, or wake
you with kisses at your dear will?"

"No--ah no! There is no woman in the world but you."

"Then I am not jealous of the rest, least of all, of your young bride. I
will wager with myself against all her gold for your life, and I shall
win--I have won already! Am I not trying to persuade you that you should
marry?"

"I have not even seen her. Her father sent me a message to-night,
bidding me go to church on Sunday and stand beside a certain pillar."

"To see and be seen," laughed Arisa. "It is not a fair exchange! She
will look at the handsomest man in the world--hush! That is the truth.
And you will see a little, pale, red-haired girl with silly blue eyes,
staring at you, her wide mouth open and her clumsy hands hanging down.
She will look like the wooden dolls they dress in the latest Venetian
fashion to send to Paris every year, that the French courtiers may know
what to wear! And her father will hurry her along, for fear that you
should look too long at her and refuse to marry such a thing, even for
Marco Polo's millions!"

Contarini laughed carelessly at the description.

"Give me some wine," he said. "We will drink her health."

Arisa rose with the grace of a young goddess, her hair tumbling over her
bare shoulders in a splendid golden confusion. Contarini watched her
with possessive eyes, as she went and came back, bringing him the drink.
She brought him yellow wine of Chios in a glass calix of Murano, blown
air-thin upon a slender stem and just touched here and there with drops
of tender blue.

"A health to the bride of Jacopo Contarini!" she said, with a ringing
little laugh.

Then she set the wine to her lips, so that they were wet with it, and
gave him the glass; and as she stooped to give it, her hair fell forward
and almost hid her from him.

"A health to the shower of gold!" he said, and he drank.

She sat down beside him, crossing her feet like an Eastern woman, and he
set the empty glass carelessly upon the marble floor, as though it had
been a thing of no price.

"That glass was made at her father's furnace," he said.

"A pity he could not have made his daughter of glass too," answered
Arisa.

"Graceful and silent?"

"And easily destroyed! But if I say that, you will think me jealous, and
I am not. She will bring you wealth. I wish her a long life, long enough
to understand that she has been sold to you for your good name, like a
slave, as I was sold, but that you gave gold for me because you wanted
me for myself, whereas you want nothing of her but her gold."

"But for that--" Contarini seemed to be hesitating. "I never meant to
marry her," he added.

"And but for that, you would not! But for that! But for the only thing
which I have not to give you! I wish the world were mine, with all the
rich secret things in it, the myriads of millions of diamonds in the
earth, the thousand rivers of gold that lie deep in the mountain rocks,
and all mankind, and all that mankind has, from end to end of it! Then
you should have it all for your own, and you would not need to marry the
little red-haired girl with the fish's mouth!"

Contarini laughed again.

"Have you seen her, that you can describe her so well? She may have
black hair. Who knows?"

"Yes. Perhaps it is black, thin and coarse like the hair on a mule's
tail; and she has black eyes, like ripe olives set in the white of a
hard-boiled egg; and she has a dark skin like Spanish leather which
shines when she is hot and is grey when she is cold; and a black down on
her upper lip; and teeth like a young horse. I hate those dark women!"

"But you have never seen her! She may be very pretty."

"Pretty, then! She shall be as you choose. She shall have a round face,
round eyes, a round nose and a round mouth! Her face shall be pink and
white, her eyes shall be of blue glass and her hair shall be as smooth
and yellow as fresh butter. She shall have little fat white hands like a
healthy baby, a double chin and a short waist. Then she will be what
people call pretty."

"Yes," assented Jacopo. "That is very amusing. But just suppose, for the
sake of discussion--it is impossible, of course, but suppose it--that
instead of there being only one perfectly beautiful woman in the world,
whose name is Arisa, there should be two, and that the name of the other
chanced to be Marietta Beroviero."

Arisa raised her eyes and gazed steadily at Jacopo.

"You have seen her," she said in a tone of conviction. "She is
beautiful."

"No. I give you my word that I have not seen her. I only wanted to know
what you would do then."

"I do not believe that any woman is as beautiful as I am," answered the
Georgian, with the quiet simplicity of a savage.

"But if there were one, and you saw her?" insisted the man, to see what
she would say.

"We could not both live. One of us would kill the other."

"I believe you would," said Jacopo, watching her face.

She had forgotten his presence while she spoke; a fierce hardness had
come into her eyes, and her upper lip was a little raised, in a cruel
expression, just showing her teeth. He was surprised.

"I never saw you like that," he said.

"You should not make me think of killing," she answered, suddenly
leaving her seat and kneeling beside him on the divan. "It is not good
to think too much of killing--it makes one wish to do it."

"Then try and kill me with kisses," he said, looking into her eyes, that
were growing tender again.

"You would not know you were dying," she whispered, her lips quite close
to his.

As she kissed him, she loosened the collar from his white throat, and
smoothed his thick hair back from his forehead upon the pillow, and she
saw how pale he was, under her touch.

But by and by he fell asleep, and then she very softly drew her arm from
beneath his tired head, and slipped from his side, and stood up, with a
little sigh of relief. The candle had burned to the socket; she blew it
out.

It was still an hour before dawn when she left the room, lifting the
heavy curtain that hung before the door of her inner chamber. There, a
faint light was burning before a shrine in a silver cup filled with oil.
As she fastened the door noiselessly behind her, a man caught her in his
arms, lifting her off her feet like a child.

Shaggy black hair grew low upon his bossy forehead, his dark eyes were
fierce and bloodshot, a rough beard only half concealed the huge jaw and
iron lips. He was half clad, in shirt and hose, and the muscles of his
neck and arms stood out like brown ropes as he pressed the beautiful
creature to his broad chest.

"I thought he would never sleep to-night," she whispered.

Her eyelids drooped, and her cheeks grew deadly white, and the strong
man felt the furious beating of her heart against his own breast. He was
Aristarchi, the Greek captain who had sold her for a slave, and she
loved him.

In the wild days of sea-fighting among the Greek islands he had taken a
small trading galley that had been driven out of her course. He left not
a man of her crew alive to tell whether she had been Turkish or
Christian, and he took all that was worth taking of her poor cargo. The
only prize of any price was the captive Georgian girl who was being
brought westward to be sold, like thousands of others in those days,
with little concealment and no mystery, in one of the slave markets of
northern Italy. Aristarchi claimed her for himself, as his share of the
booty, but his men knew her value. Standing shoulder to shoulder between
him and her, they drew their knives and threatened to cut her to pieces,
if he would not promise to sell her as she was, when they should come to
land, and share the price with them. They judged that she must be worth
a thousand or fifteen hundred pieces of gold, for she was more beautiful
than any woman they had ever seen, and they had already heard her
singing most sweetly to herself, as if she were quite sure that she was
in no danger, because she knew her own value. So Aristarchi was forced
to consent, cursing them; and night and day they guarded her door
against him, till they had brought her safe to Venice, and delivered her
to the slave-dealers.

Then Aristarchi sold all that he had, except his ship, and it all
brought far too little to buy such a slave. She would have gone with
him, for she had seen that he was stronger than other men and feared
neither God nor man, but she was well guarded, and he was only allowed
to talk with her through a grated window, like those at convent gates.

She was not long in the dealers' house, for word was brought to all the
young patricians of Venice, and many of them bid against each other for
her, in the dealers' inner room, till Contarini outbid them all, saying
that he could not live without her, though the price should ruin him,
and because he had not enough gold he gave the dealers, besides money, a
marvellous sword with a jewelled hilt, which one of his forefathers had
taken at the siege of Constantinople, and which some said had belonged
to the Emperor Justinian himself, nine hundred years ago.

Then Aristarchi and his men paid the dealers their commission and took
the money and the sword. But before he went from the house, the Greek
captain begged leave to see Arisa once more at the grating, and he told
her that come what might he should steal her away. She bade him not to
be in too great haste, and she promised that if he would wait, he should
have with her more gold than her new master had given for her, for she
would take all he had from him, little by little; and when they had
enough they would leave Venice secretly, and live in a grand manner in
Florence, or in Rome, or in Sicily. For she never doubted but that he
would find some way of coming to her, though she were guarded more
closely than in the slave-dealers' house, where the windows were grated
and armed men slept before the door, and one of the dealers watched all
night.

More than a year had passed since then; the strong Greek knew every
corner of the house of the Agnus Dei, and every foothold under Arisa's
windows, from the water to the stone sill, by which he could help
himself a little as he went up hand over hand by the knotted silk rope
that would have cut to the bone any hands but his. She kept it hidden in
a cushioned footstool in her inner room. Many a risk he had run, and
more than once in winter he had slipped down the rope with haste to let
himself gently into the icy water, and he had swum far down the dark
canal to a landing-place. For he was a man of iron.

So it came about that Jacopo Contarini lived in a fool's paradise, in
which he was not only the chief fool himself, but was moreover in bodily
danger more often than he knew. For though Aristarchi had hitherto
managed to escape being seen, he would have killed Jacopo with his naked
hands if the latter had ever caught him, as easily as a boy wrings a
bird's neck, and with as little scruple of conscience.

The Georgian loved him for his hirsute strength, for his fearlessness,
even his violence and dangerous temper. He dominated her as naturally as
she controlled her master, whose vacillating nature and love of idle
ease filled her with contempt. It was for the sake of gold that she
acted her part daily and nightly, with a wisdom and unwavering skill
that were almost superhuman; and the Greek ruffian agreed to the
bargain, and had been in no haste to carry her off, as he might have
done at any time. She hoarded the money she got from Jacopo, to give it
by stealth to Aristarchi, who hid their growing wealth in a safe place
where it was always ready; but she kept her jewels always together, in
case of an unexpected flight, since she dared not sell them nor give
them to the Greek, lest they should be missed.

Of late it had seemed to them both that the time for their final action
was at hand, for it had been clear to Arisa that Jacopo was near the end
of his resources, and that his father was resolved to force him to
change his life. There were days when he was reduced to borrowing money
for his actual needs, and though an occasional stroke of good fortune at
play temporarily relieved him, Arisa was sure that he was constantly
sinking deeper into debt. But within the week, the aspect of his affairs
had changed. The marriage with Marietta had been proposed, and Arisa had
made a discovery. She told Aristarchi everything, as naturally as she
would have concealed everything from Contarini.

"We shall be rich," she said, twining her white arms round his swarthy
neck and looking up into his murderous eyes with something like genuine
adoration. "We shall get the wife's dowry for ourselves, by degrees,
every farthing of it, and it shall be the dower of Aristarchi's bride
instead. I shall not be portionless. You shall not be ashamed of me when
you meet your old friends."

"Ashamed!" His arm pressed her to him till she longed to cry out for
pain, yet she would not have had him less rough.

"You are so strong!" she gasped in a broken whisper. "Yes--a little
looser--so! I can speak now. You must go to Murano to-morrow and find
out all about this Angelo Beroviero and his daughter. Try to see her,
and tell me whether she is pretty, but most of all learn whether she is
really rich."

"That is easy enough. I will go to the furnace and offer to buy a cargo
of glass for Sicily."

"But you will not take it?" asked Arisa in sudden anxiety lest he should
leave her to make the voyage.

"No, no! I will make inquiries. I will ask for a sort of glass that does
not exist."

"Yes," she said, reassured. "Do that. I must know if the girl is rich
before I marry him to her."

"But can you make him marry her at all?" asked Aristarchi.

"I can make him do anything I please. We drank to the health of the
bride to-night, in a goblet made by her father! The wine was strong, and
I put a little syrup of poppies into it. He will not wake for hours.
What is the matter?"

She felt the rough man shaking beside her, as if he were in an ague.

"I was laughing," he said, when he could speak. "It is a good jest. But
is there no danger in all this? Is it quite impossible that he should
take a liking for his wife?"

"And leave me?" Arisa's whisper was hot with indignation at the mere
thought. "Then I suppose you would leave me for the first pretty girl
with a fortune who wanted to marry you!"

"This Contarini is such a fool!" answered Aristarchi contemptuously, by
way of explanation and apology.

Arisa was instantly pacified.

"If he should be foolish enough for that, I have means that will keep
him," she answered.

"I do not see how you can force him to do anything except by his passion
for you."

"I can. I was not going to tell you yet--you always make me tell you
everything, like a child."

"What is it?" asked the Greek. "Have you found out anything new about
him? Of course you must tell me."

"We hold his life in our hands," she said quietly, and Aristarchi knew
that she was not exaggerating the truth.

She began to tell him how this was the third time that a number of
masked men had come to the house an hour after dark, and had stayed till
midnight or later, and how Contarini had told her that they came to play
at dice where they were safe from interruption, and that on these nights
the servants were sent to their quarters at sunset on pain of dismissal
if Jacopo found them about the house, but that they also received
generous presents of money to keep them silent.

"The man is a fool!" said Aristarchi again. "He puts himself in their
power."

"He is much more completely in ours," answered Arisa. "The servants
believe that his friends come to play dice. And so they do. But they
come for something more serious."

Aristarchi moved his massive head suddenly to an attitude of profound
attention.

"They are plotting against the Republic," whispered Arisa. "I can hear
all they say."

"Are you sure?"

"I tell you I can hear every word. I can almost see them. Look here.
Come with me."

She rose and he followed her to the corner of the room where the small
silver lamp burned steadily before an image of Saint Mark, and above a
heavy kneeling-stool.

"The foot moves," she said, and she was already on her knees on the
floor, pushing the step.

It slid back with the soft sound Contarini had heard before he came
upstairs. The upper part of the woodwork was built into the wall.

"They meet in the place below this," Arisa said. "When they are there, I
can see a glimmer of light. I cannot get my head in. It is too narrow,
but I hear as if I were with them."

"How did you find this out?" asked Aristarchi on the floor beside her,
and reaching down into the dark space to explore it with his hand. "It
is deep," he continued, without waiting for an answer. "There may be
some passage by which one can get down."

"Only a child could pass. You see how narrow it is. But one can hear
every sound. They said enough to-night to send them all to the
scaffold."

"Better they than we if we ever have to make the choice," said the Greek
ominously.

He had withdrawn his arm and was planted upon his hands and knees, his
shaggy head hanging over the dark aperture. He was like some rough wild
beast that has tracked its quarry to earth and crouches before the hole,
waiting for a victim.

"How did you find this out?" he asked again, looking up.

She was standing by the corner of the stool, now, all her marvellous
beauty showing in the light of the little lamp and against the wall
behind her.

"I was saying my prayers here, the first night they met," she said, as
if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I heard voices, as it
seemed, under my feet. I tried to push away the stool, and the foot
moved. That is all."

Aristarchi's jaw dropped a little as he looked up at her.

"Do you say prayers every night?" he asked in wonder.

"Of course I do. Do you never say a prayer?"

"No." He was still staring at her.

"That is very wrong," she said, in the earnest tone a mother might use
to her little child. "Some harm will befall us, if you do not say your
prayers."

A slow smile crossed the ruffian's face as he realised that this evil
woman who was ready to commit the most atrocious deeds out of love for
him, was still half a child.




CHAPTER IV


Marietta awoke before sunrise, with a smile on her lips, and as she
opened her eyes, the world seemed suddenly gladder than ever before, and
her heart beat in time with it. She threw back the shutters wide to let
in the June morning as if it were a beautiful living thing; and it
breathed upon her face and caressed her, and took her in its spirit
arms, and filled her with itself.

Not a sound broke the stillness, as she looked out, and the glassy
waters of the canal reflected delicate tints from the sky, palest green
and faintest violet and amber with all the lovely changing colours of
the dawn. By the footway a black barge was moored, piled high with round
uncovered baskets of beads, white, blue, deep red and black, waiting to
be taken over to Venice where they would be threaded for the East, and
the colours stood out in strong contrast with the grey stones, the faint
reflections in the water and the tender sky above. There were flowers on
the window-sill, a young rose with opening buds, growing in a red
earthen jar, and a pot of lavender just bursting into flower, with a
sweet geranium beside it and some rosemary. Zorzi had planted them all
for her, and her serving-woman had helped her to fasten the pots in the
window, because it would have been out of the question that any man
except her father should enter her room, even when she was not there.
But they were Zorzi's flowers, and she bent down and smelt their
fragrance. On a table behind her a single rose hung over the edge of a
tall glass with a slender stem, almost the counterpart of the one in
which Contarini had drunk her health at midnight. Her father had given
it to her as it came from the annealing oven, still warm after long
hours of cooling with many others like it. She loved it for its grace
and lightness, and as for the rose, it was the one she had made Zorzi
give back to her yesterday. She meant to keep it in water till it faded,
and then she would press it between the first page and the binding of
her parchment missal. It would keep some of its faint scent, perhaps,
and if any one saw it, no one would ever guess whence it came.

It meant a great thing to her, for it had told her Zorzi's secret, which
he had kept so well. He should know hers some day, but not yet, and her
drooping lids could hide it if it ever came into her eyes. It was too
soon to let him know that she loved him. That was one reason for hiding
it, but she had another. If her father guessed that she loved the waif,
it would fare ill with him. She fancied she could see the old man's
fiery brown eyes and hear his angry voice. Poor Zorzi would be driven
from Murano and Venice, never to set foot again within the boundaries of
the Republic; for Beroviero was a man of weight and influence, of whom
Venice was proud.

Youth would be very sad if it counted time and labour as it is reckoned
and valued by mature age. Some day Zorzi would be no longer a mere paid
helper, calling himself a servant when his humour was bitter, tending a
fire on his knees and grinding coloured earths and salts in a mortar. He
had the understanding of the glorious art, and the true love of it, with
the magic touch; he would make a name for himself in spite of the harsh
Venetian law, and some day his master would be proud to call him son.
There would not be many months to wait. Months or years, what mattered,
since she loved him and was at last quite sure that he loved her?
To-day, that was enough. She would go over to the glass-house and sit in
the garden, by the rose he had planted, and now and then she would go
into the close furnace room where he worked with her father, or Zorzi
would come out for something; she should be near him, she should see his
face and hear his quiet voice, and she would say to herself: He loves
me, he loves me--as often as she chose, knowing that it was true.

Since she knew it, she was sure that she should see it in his face, that
had hidden it from her so long. There would be glances when he thought
she was not watching him, his colour would come and go, as yesterday,
and he would do her some little service, now and then, in which the
sweet truth, against his will, should tell itself to her again and
again. It would be a delicious and ever-remembered day, each minute a
pearl, each hour a chaplet of jewels, from golden sunrise to golden
sunset, all perfect through and through.

There were so many little things she could watch in him, now that she
knew the truth, things that had long meant nothing and would mean
volumes to-day. She would watch him, and then call him suddenly and see
him try to hide the little gladness he would feel as he turned to her;
and when they were alone a moment, she would ask him whether he had
remembered to forget Jacopo Contarini's name; and some day, but not for
a long time yet, she would drop a rose again, and she would turn as he
picked it up, but she would not make him give it back to her, and in
that way he should know that she loved him. She must not think of that,
for it was too soon, yet she could almost see his face as it would be
when he knew.

Yesterday her father had talked again of her marriage. A whole month had
passed since he had even alluded to it, but this time he had spoken of
it as a certainty; and she had opened her eyes wide in surprise. She did
not believe that it was to be. How could she marry a man she did not
love? How could she love any man but Zorzi? They might show her twenty
Venetian patricians, that she might choose among them. Meanwhile she
would show her indifference. Nothing was easier than to put on an
inscrutable expression which betrayed nothing, but which, as she knew,
sometimes irritated her father beyond endurance.

He had always promised that she should not be married against her will,
as many girls were. Then why should she marry Contarini, any more than
any other man except the one she had chosen? She need only say that
Contarini did not please her, and her father would certainly not try to
use force. There was therefore nothing to fear, and since her first
surprise was over, she felt sure of appearing quite indifferent. She
would put the thought out of her mind and begin the day with the perfect
certainty that the marriage was altogether impossible.

She looked out over her flowers. The door of the glass-house was open
now, and the burly porter was sweeping; she could hear the cypress broom
on the flagstones inside, and presently it appeared in sight while the
porter was still invisible, and it whisked out a mixture of black dust
and bread crumbs and bits of green salad leaves, and the old man came
out and swept everything across the footway into the canal. As he turned
to go back, the workmen came trooping across the bridge to the
furnaces--pale men with intent faces, very different from ordinary
working people. For each called himself an artist, and was one; and each
knew that so far as the law was concerned the proudest noble in Venice
could marry his daughter without the least derogation from patrician
dignity. The workmen differed from her own father not in station, but
only in the degree of their prosperity.

If Zorzi could ever have been one of them the rest would have been
simple enough. But he could not, any more than a black man could turn
white at will. There was no evasion of law by which a man not born a
Venetian could ever be a glass-blower, or could ever acquire the
privileges possessed from birth by one of those shabby, pale young men
who were crowding past the porter to go to their hard day's work. Yet
dexterous as they were, there was not one that had his skill, there was
not one that could compare with him as an artist, as a workman, as a
man. No Indian caste, no ancient nobility, no mystic priesthood ever set
up a barrier so impassable between itself and the outer world as that
which defended the glass-blowers of Murano for centuries against all who
wished to be initiated. Even the boys who fed the fires all night were
of the calling, and by and by would become workmen, and perhaps masters,
legally almost the equals of the splendid nobles who sat in the Grand
Council over there in Venice.

Zorzi's very existence was an anomaly. He had no social right to be what
he was, and he knew it when he called himself a servant, for the cruel
law would not allow him to be anything else so long as he helped Angelo
Beroviero.

Suddenly, while Marietta watched the men, Zorzi was there among them,
coming out as they went in. He must have risen early, she thought, for
she did not know that he had slept in the laboratory. He looked pale and
thin as he flattened himself against the door-post to let a workman
pass, and then slipped out himself. No one greeted him, even by a nod.
Marietta knew that they hated him because he was in her father's
confidence; and somehow, instead of pitying him, she was glad.

It seemed natural that he should not be one of them, that he should pass
them with quiet indifference and that they should feel for him the
instinctive dislike which most inferiors feel for those above them.
Doubtless, they looked down upon him, or told themselves that they did;
but in their hearts they knew that a man with such a face was born to be
their teacher and their master, and the girl was proud of him. He
treated them with more civility than they bestowed on him, but it was
the courtesy of a superior who would not assert himself, who would scorn
to thrust himself forward or in any way to claim what was his by right,
if it were not freely offered. Marietta drew back a little, so that she
could just see him between the flowers, without being seen.

He stood still, looking down at the canal till the last of the men had
passed in. Then, before he went on, he raised his eyes slowly to
Marietta's window, not guessing that her own were answering his from
behind the rosemary and the geranium. His pale face was very sad and
thoughtful as he looked up. She had never seen him look so tired. The
porter had shut the door, which he never allowed to remain open one
moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and Zorzi stood quite alone
on the footway. As he looked, his face softened and grew so tender that
the girl who watched him unseen stretched out her arms towards him with
unconscious yearning, and her heart beat very fast, so that she felt the
pulses in her throat almost choking her; yet her face was pale and her
soft lips were dry and cold. For it was not all happiness that she
felt; there was a sweet mysterious pain with it, which was nowhere, and
yet all through her, that was weakness and yet might turn to strength, a
hunger of longing for something dear and unknown and divine, without
which all else was an empty shadow. Then her eyes opened to him, as he
had never seen them, blue as the depth of sapphires and dewy with love
mists of youth's early spring; it was impossible that he should stand
there, just beyond the narrow water, and not feel that she saw him and
loved him, and that her heart was crying out the true words he never
hoped to hear.

But he did not know. And all at once his eyes fell, and she could almost
see that he sighed as he turned wearily away and walked with bent head
towards the wooden bridge. She would have given anything to look out and
see him cross and come nearer, but she remembered that she was not yet
dressed, and she blushed as she drew further back into the room,
gathering the thin white linen up to her throat, and frightened at the
mere thought that he should catch sight of her. She would not call her
serving-woman yet, she would be alone a little while longer. She threw
back her russet hair, and bent down to smell the rose in the tall glass.
The sun was risen now and the first slanting beams shot sideways through
her window from the right. The day that was to be so sweet had begun
most sweetly. She had seen him already, far earlier than usual; she
would see him many times before the little brown maid crossed the canal
to bring her home in the evening.

The thought put an end to her meditations, and she was suddenly in haste
to be dressed, to be out of the house, to be sitting in the little
garden of the glass-house where Zorzi must soon pass again. She called
and clapped her hands, and her serving-woman entered from the outer room
in which she slept. She brought a great painted earthenware dish, on
which fruit was arranged, half of a small yellow melon fresh from the
cool storeroom, a little heap of dark red cherries and a handful of ripe
plums. There was white wheaten bread, too, and honey from Aquileia, in a
little glass jar, and there was a goblet of cold water. The maid set the
big dish on the table, beside the glass that held Zorzi's rose, and
began to make ready her mistress's clothes.

Marietta tasted the melon, and it was cool and aromatic, and she stood
eating a slice of it, just where she could look through the flowers on
the window-sill at the door of the glass-house, so that if Zorzi passed
again she should see him. He did not come, and she was a little
disappointed; but the melon was very good, and afterwards she ate a few
cherries and spread a spoonful of honey on a piece of bread, and nibbled
at it; and she drank some of the water, looking out of the window over
the glass.

"Was it always so beautiful?" she asked, speaking to herself, in a sort
of wonder at what she felt, as she set the glass upon the table.

Nella, the maid, turned quickly to her with a look of inquiry.

"What?" she asked. "What is beautiful? The weather? It is summer! Of
course it is fine. Did you expect the north wind to-day, or rain from
the southwest?"

Marietta laughed, sweet and low. The little maid always amused her.
There was something cheerful in the queer little scolding sentences,
spoken with a rising inflection on almost every word, musical and yet
always seeming to protest gently against anything Marietta said.

"I know of something much more beautiful than the weather," Nella added,
seeing that she got no answer except a laugh. "Do you wish to know what
is more beautiful than a summer's day?"

"Oh, I know the answer to that!" cried Marietta. "You used to catch me
in that way when I was a small girl."

"Well, my little lady, what is the answer? I have said nothing."

"What is more beautiful than a summer's day? Why, two summer's days, of
course! I was always dreadfully disappointed when you gave me that
answer, for I expected something wonderful."

Nella shook her head as she unfolded the fine linen things, and uttered
a sort of little clucking sound, meant to show her disapproval of such
childish jests.

"Tut, tut, tut! We are grown up now! Are we children? No, we are a young
lady, beautiful and serious! Tut, tut, tut! That you should remember
the nonsense I used to talk to make you stop crying for your mother,
blessed soul! And I myself was so full of tears that a drop of water
would have drowned me! But all passes, praise be to God!"

"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.

She listened wearily, and her head ached more and more, so that she
longed for the coolness of her own room and for Nella's soothing
chatter, to which she was so much accustomed that she missed it if the
little brown woman chanced to be silent.

The sun went down and wax candles were brought, instead of the tall oil
lamps that were used on ordinary days. It grew hotter and hotter, the
compliments of the ladies seemed more and more dull and stale, her
mantle was heavy and even the gold circlet on her hair was a burden.
Worse than all, she knew that every minute was carrying her further and
further into the dominion of the irrevocable whence she could never
return.

She had looked at the palaces she had passed in Venice that morning,
some in shadow, some in sunlight, some with gay faces and some grave,
but all so different from the big old house in Murano, that she did not
wish to live in them at all. It would have been much easier to submit if
she had been betrothed to a foreigner, a Roman, or a Florentine. She had
been told that Romans were all wicked and gloomy, and that Florentines
were all wicked and gay. That was what Nella had heard. But in a sense
they were free, for they probably did what was good in their own eyes,
as wicked people often do. Life in Venice was to be lived by rule, and
everything that tasted of freedom was repressed by law. If it pleased
women to wear long trains the Council forbade them; if they took refuge
in long sleeves, thrown back over their shoulders, a law was passed
which set a measure and a pattern for all sleeves that might ever be
worn. If a few rich men indulged their fancy in the decoration of their
gondolas, now that riding was out of fashion, the Council immediately
determined that gondolas should be black and that they should only be
gilt and adorned inside. As for freedom, if any one talked of it he was
immediately tortured until he retracted all his errors, and was then
promptly beheaded for fear that he should fall again into the same
mistake. Nella said so, and told hideous tales of the things that had
been done to innocent men in the little room behind the Council chamber
in the Palace. Besides, if one talked of justice, there was Zorzi's case
to prove that there was no justice at all in Venetian law. Marietta
suddenly wished that she were wicked, like the Romans and the
Florentines; and even when she reflected that it was a sin to wish that
one were bad, she was not properly repentant, because she had a very
vague notion of what wickedness really was. Righteousness seemed just
now to consist in being smothered in heavy clothes, in a horribly hot
room, while respectable women of all ages, fat, thin, fair, red-haired,
dark, ugly and handsome, all chattered at her and overwhelmed her with
nauseous flattery.

She thought of that morning in the garden, three days ago, when
something she did not understand had been so near, just before
disappearing for ever. Then her throat tightened and she saw
indistinctly, and her lips were suddenly dry. After that, she remembered
little of what happened on that evening, and by and by she was alone in
her own room without a light, standing at the open window with bare feet
on the cold pavement, and the night breeze stirred her hair and brought
her the scent of the rosemary and lavender, while she tried to listen to
the stars, as if they were speaking to her, and lost herself in her
thoughts for a few moments before going to sleep.

Zorzi was still sitting in the big chair against the wall when he heard
a footstep in the garden, and as he rose to look out Beroviero entered.
The master was wrapped in a long cloak that covered something which he
was carrying. There was no lamp in the laboratory, but the three fierce
eyes of the furnace shed a low red glare in different directions.
Beroviero had given orders that the night boys should not come until he
sent for them.

"I thought it wiser to bring this over at night," he said, setting a
small iron box on the table.

It contained the secrets of Paolo Godi, which were worth a great fortune
in those times.

"Of all my possessions," said the old man, laying his hands upon the
casket, "these are the most valuable. I will not hide them alone, as I
might, because if any harm befell me they would be lost, and might be
found by some unworthy person."

"Could you not leave them with some one else, sir?" asked Zorzi.

"No. I trust no one else. Let us hide them together to-night, for
to-morrow I must leave Venice. Take up one of the large flagstones
behind the annealing oven, and dig a hole underneath it in the ground.
The place will be quite dry, from the heat of the oven."

Zorzi lit a lamp with a splinter of wood which he thrust into the
'bocca' of the furnace; he took a small crowbar from the corner and set
to work. The laboratory contained all sorts of builder's tools, used
when the furnace needed repairing. He raised one of the slabs with
difficulty, turned it over, propped it with a billet of beech wood, and
began to scoop out a hole in the hard earth, using a mason's trowel.
Beroviero watched him, holding the box in his hands.

"The lock is not very good," he said, "but I thought the box might keep
the packet from dampness."

"Is the packet properly sealed?" asked Zorzi, looking up.

"You shall see," answered the master, and he set down the box beside the
lamp, on the broad stone at the mouth of the annealing oven. "It is
better that you should see for yourself."

He unlocked the box and took out what seemed to be a small book,
carefully tied up in a sheet of parchment. The ends of the silk cord
below the knot were pinched in a broad red seal. Zorzi examined the wax.

"You sealed it with a glass seal," he observed. "It would not be hard to
make another."

"Do you think it would be so easy?" asked Beroviero, who had made the
seal himself many years ago.

Zorzi held the impression nearer to the lamp and scrutinised it closely.

"No one will have a chance to try," he said, with a slight gesture of
indifference. "It might not be so easy."

The old man looked at him a moment, as if hesitating, and then put the
packet back into the box and locked the latter with the key that hung
from his neck by a small silver chain.

"I trust you," he said, and he gave the box to Zorzi, to be deposited in
the hole.

Zorzi stood up, and taking a little tow from the supply used for
cleaning the blow-pipes, he dipped it into the oil of the lamp and
proceeded to grease the box carefully before hiding it.

"It would rust," he explained.

He laid the box in the hole and covered it with earth before placing the
stone over it.

"Be careful to make the stone lie quite flat," said Angelo, bending down
and gathering his gown off the floor in a bunch at his knees. "If it
does not lie flat, the stone will move when the boys tread on it, and
they may think of taking it up."

"It is very heavy," answered the young man. "It was as much as I could
do to heave it up. You need not be afraid of the boys."

"It is not a very safe place, I fear, after all," returned Beroviero
doubtfully. "Be sure to leave no marks of t

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