"Was there ever a woman yet who could not make black seem white?" he cried. "It is nonsense, I tell you! It is all arrant nonsense! You are driving me out of my senses!"
And thereupon he went off down the garden path to the laboratory, apparently forgetting that his presence alone could prevent a repetition of that very offence which had at first roused his anger. The door closed sharply after him, with energetic emphasis.
At the same moment Marietta, who had been gazing into Zorzi's eyes, felt that her own sparkled with amusement, and her father might almost have heard her sweet low laugh through the open window at the other end of the garden.
"That was well done," she said. "Between us we have almost persuaded him."
Zorzi took her willing hand and drew her to him, and she was almost as near to him as before, when she straightened herself with quick and elastic grace, and laughed again.
"No, no!" she said. "If he were to look out and see us again, it would be too ridiculous! Come and sit under the plane-tree in the old place. Do you remember how you stared at the trunk and would not answer me when I tried to make you speak, ever so long ago? Do you know, it was because you would not say—what I wanted you to say—that I let myself think that I could marry Messer Jacopo. If you had only known what you were doing!"
"If I had only known!" Zorzi echoed, as they reached the place and Marietta sat down.
They were within sight of the window, but Beroviero did not heed them. He was seated in his own chair, in deep thought, his elbows resting on the wooden arms, his fingers pressing his temples on each side, thinking of his daughter, and perhaps not quite unaware that she was talking to the only man he had ever really trusted.
"I must tell you something, Zorzi," she was saying, as she looked up into the face she loved. "My father told me last night what he had done yesterday. He saw Messer Zuan Venier—"
Zorzi showed his surprise.