“I cannot allow you to go,” he said.  “It is most unbecoming.  Our father would be shocked.  Go back at once, and never think of going to the laboratory while Zorzi is there.  Do you hear?”

“Yes.  Come, Nella,” she added, taking her serving-woman by the arm.

Before Giovanni realised what she was going to do, she was walking quickly across the wooden bridge towards the glass-house, holding Nella’s sleeve, to keep her from lagging, and Nella trotted beside her mistress like a frightened lamb, led by a string.  Giovanni did not attempt to follow at first, for he was utterly nonplussed by his sister’s behaviour.  He rarely knew what to do when any one openly defied him.  He stood still, staring after the two, and saw Marietta tap upon the door of the glass-house.  It opened almost immediately and they disappeared within.

As soon as they were out of sight, his anger broke out, and he made a few quick steps on the bridge.  Then he stopped, for he was afraid to make a scandal.  That at least was what he said to himself, but the fact was that he was afraid to face his sister, who was infinitely braver and cooler than he.  Besides, he reflected that he could not now prevent her from going to the laboratory, since she was already there, and that it would be very undignified to make a scene before Zorzi, who was only a servant after all.  This last consideration consoled him greatly.  In the eyes of the law, and therefore in Giovanni’s, Zorzi was a hired servant.  Now, socially speaking, a servant was not a man; and since Zorzi was not a man, and Marietta was therefore gone with one servant to a place, belonging to her father, where there was another servant, to go thither and forcibly bring her back would either be absurd, or else it would mean that Zorzi had acquired a new social rank, which was absurd also.  There is no such consolation to a born coward as a logical reason for not doing what he is afraid to do.

But Giovanni promised himself that he would make his sister pay dearly for having defied him, and as he had also made up his mind to have Zorzi removed to the house, on pretence of curing his hurt, but in reality in order to search for the precious manuscripts, it would be impossible for Marietta to commit the same piece of folly a second time.  But she should pay for the affront she had put upon him.

He accordingly came back to the footway and walked along toward his own glass-house; and the boy, who had finished washing his face, smoothed his hair with his wet fingers and followed him, having seen and understood all that had happened.

Marietta sent Pasquale on, to tell Zorzi that she was coming, and when she reached the laboratory he was sitting in the master’s big chair, with his foot on a stool before him.  His face was pale and drawn from the suffering of the past twenty-four hours, and from time to time he was still in great pain.  As Marietta entered, he looked up with a grateful smile.