mattered, since she loved him and was at last quite sure that he loved her?  To-day, that was enough.  She would go over to the glass-house and sit in the garden, by the rose he had planted, and now and then she would go into the close furnace room where he worked with her father, or Zorzi would come out for something; she should be near him, she should see his face and hear his quiet voice, and she would say to herself:  He loves me, he loves me—­as often as she chose, knowing that it was true.

Since she knew it, she was sure that she should see it in his face, that had hidden it from her so long.  There would be glances when he thought she was not watching him, his colour would come and go, as yesterday, and he would do her some little service, now and then, in which the sweet truth, against his will, should tell itself to her again and again.  It would be a delicious and ever-remembered day, each minute a pearl, each hour a chaplet of jewels, from golden sunrise to golden sunset, all perfect through and through.

There were so many little things she could watch in him, now that she knew the truth, things that had long meant nothing and would mean volumes to-day.  She would watch him, and then call him suddenly and see him try to hide the little gladness he would feel as he turned to her; and when they were alone a moment, she would ask him whether he had remembered to forget Jacopo Contarini’s name; and some day, but not for a long time yet, she would drop a rose again, and she would turn as he picked it up, but she would not make him give it back to her, and in that way he should know that she loved him.  She must not think of that, for it was too soon, yet she could almost see his face as it would be when he knew.

Yesterday her father had talked again of her marriage.  A whole month had passed since he had even alluded to it, but this time he had spoken of it as a certainty; and she had opened her eyes wide in surprise.  She did not believe that it was to be.  How could she marry a man she did not love?  How could she love any man but Zorzi?  They might show her twenty Venetian patricians, that she might choose among them.  Meanwhile she would show her indifference.  Nothing was easier than to put on an inscrutable expression which betrayed nothing, but which, as she knew, sometimes irritated her father beyond endurance.

He had always promised that she should not be married against her will, as many girls were.  Then why should she marry Contarini, any more than any other man except the one she had chosen?  She need only say that Contarini did not please her, and her father would certainly not try to use force.  There was therefore nothing to fear, and since her first surprise was over, she felt sure of appearing quite indifferent.  She would put the thought out of her mind and begin the day with the perfect certainty that the marriage was altogether impossible.