treated them with more civility than they bestowed on him, but it was
the courtesy of a superior who would not assert himself, who would scorn
to thrust himself forward or in any way to claim what was his by right,
if it were not freely offered. Marietta drew back a little, so that she
could just see him between the flowers, without being seen.

He stood still, looking down at the canal till the last of the men had
passed in. Then, before he went on, he raised his eyes slowly to
Marietta's window, not guessing that her own were answering his from
behind the rosemary and the geranium. His pale face was very sad and
thoughtful as he looked up. She had never seen him look so tired. The
porter had shut the door, which he never allowed to remain open one
moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and Zorzi stood quite alone
on the footway. As he looked, his face softened and grew so tender that
the girl who watched him unseen stretched out her arms towards him with
unconscious yearning, and her heart beat very fast, so that she felt the
pulses in her throat almost choking her; yet her face was pale and her
soft lips were dry and cold. For it was not all happiness that she
felt; there was a sweet mysterious pain with it, which was nowhere, and
yet all through her, that was weakness and yet might turn to strength, a
hunger of longing for something dear and unknown and divine, without
which all else was an empty shadow. Then her eyes opened to him, as he
had never seen them, blue as the depth of sapphires and dewy with love
mists of youth's early spring; it was impossible that he should stand
there, just beyond the narrow water, and not feel that she saw him and
loved him, and that her heart was crying out the true words he never
hoped to hear.

But he did not know. And all at once his eyes fell, and she could almost
see that he sighed as he turned wearily away and walked with bent head