“There is no question of your consent,” replied Beroviero with conviction.  “If girls were consulted as to the men they were to marry, the world would soon come to an end.  This is only a passing madness, of which you should be heartily ashamed.  Say no more about it.  On the appointed day, the wedding will take place.”

“It will not,” said Marietta firmly; “and you will do better to let it be known at once.  It is of no use to take heaven to witness, and to make a solemn oath.  I merely say that I will not marry Jacopo Contarini.  You may carry me to the church, you may drag me before the altar, but I will resist.  I will scream out that I will not, and the priest himself will protect me.  That will be a much greater scandal than if you go to the Contarini family and tell them that your daughter is mad—­if you really think I am.”

“You are undoubtedly beside yourself at the present moment,” Beroviero answered.  “But it will pass, I hope.”

“Not while I am alive, and I shall certainly resist to the end.  It would be much wiser of you to send me to a convent at once, than to count on forcing me to go through the marriage ceremony.”

Beroviero stared at her, and stroked his beard.  He began to believe that she might possibly be in earnest.  Since she talked so quietly of going to a convent, a fate which most girls considered the most terrible that could be imagined.  He bent his brows in thought, but watched her steadily.

“You have not yet given me a single reason for all this wild talk,” he said after a pause.  “It is absurd to think that without some good cause you are suddenly filled with repulsion for marriage, or for Jacopo Contarini.  I have heard of young women who were betrothed, but who felt a religious vocation, and refused to marry for that reason.  It never seemed a very satisfactory one to me, for if there is any condition in which a woman needs religion, it is the marriage state.”

He paused in his speech, pleased with his own idea, in spite of all his troubles.  Marietta had moved a few steps away from him and stood beside the table, looking down at the things on it, without seeing them.

“But you do not even make religion a pretext,” pursued her father.  “Have you no reason to give?  I do not expect a good one, for none can have any weight.  But I should like to hear the best you have.”

“It is a very convincing one to me,” Marietta replied, still looking down at the table.  “But I think I had better not tell it to you to-day,” she added.  “It would make you angry.”

“No,” said Beroviero.  “One cannot be angry with people who are really out of their senses.”

“I am not so mad as you think,” answered the girl.  “I have told you of my decision, because it was cowardly of me not to tell you what I felt before you went away.  But it might be a mistake to tell you more to-day.  You have had enough to harass you already, since you came back.”