He would surely trust one of them to take a message, or to make a signal
which she could understand. She sat near the window, and the shutters
were half closed so as to leave a space through which she could look
out. From time to time she glanced at the white line of the footway
opposite, over which the shadow of the glass-house was beginning to
creep as the sun moved westward. But no one appeared. When it was cool
Pasquale would probably come out and look three times up and down the
canal as he always did. Giovanni would not go to the laboratory again.
Perhaps her father would go, when, he was rested. Then, if she chose,
she could take Nella and join him, and since there was to be an
explanation with him, she would rather have it in the laboratory, where
they would be quite alone.
She had fully made up her mind to tell him at the very first interview
that she would not marry Jacopo Contarini under any circumstances, but
she had not decided whether she would add that she loved Zorzi. She
hated anything like cowardice, and it would be cowardly to put off
telling the truth any longer; but what concerned Zorzi was her secret,
and she had a right to choose the most favourable moment for making a
revelation on which her whole life, and Zorzi's also, must immediately
depend.
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