"
"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.
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