people well, it was very laughable to think that a score of dissolute
young patricians should first fancy themselves able to raise a
revolution against the most firmly established government in Europe, and
should then squander the privacy which they had bought at a frightful
risk in mere gambling and dice-playing. But there was nothing humorous
about the oath he had taken. In the first place, it had been sworn in
solemn earnest, and was therefore binding upon him; secondly, if he
broke it, his life would not be worth a day's purchase. He was brave
enough to have scorned the second consideration, but he was far too
honourable to try and escape the first. He had made the promises to save
his life, it was true, and under great pressure, but he would have
despised himself as a coward if he had not meant to keep them.

And he had solemnly bound himself to respect "the betrothed brides" of
all the brethren of the company. Marietta was not betrothed to Jacopo
Contarini yet, but there was no doubt that she would be before many
days; to "respect" undoubtedly meant that he must not try to win her
away from her affianced husband; if he had ever dreamt that in some
fair, fantastically improbable future, Marietta could be his wife, he
had parted with the right to dream the like again. Therefore, when he
had stood awhile looking up at her window that morning, he sighed
heavily and went away.

He had never had any hope that she would love him, much less that he
could ever marry her, yet he felt that he was parting with the only
thing in life which he held higher than his art, and that the parting
was final. For months, perhaps for years, he had never closed his eyes
to sleep without calling up her face and repeating her name, he had
never got up in the morning without looking forward to seeing her and
hearing her voice before he should lie down again. A man more like