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