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