Marietta Part 24

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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 gla.s.s-house; and the boy, who had finished was.h.i.+ng 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.

"You seem glad to see us after all," she said. "Yet you protested that I should not come to-day!"

"I cannot help it," he answered.

"Ah, but if you had been with us just now!" Nella began, still frightened.

But Marietta would not let her go on.

"Hold your tongue, Nella," she said, with a little laugh. "You should know better than to trouble a sick man's fancy with such stories."

Nella understood that Zorzi was not to know, and she began examining the foot, to make sure that the bandages had not been displaced during the night.

"To-morrow I will change them," she said. "It is not like a scald. The gla.s.s has burned you like red-hot iron, and the wound will heal quickly."

"If you will tell me which crucible to try," said Marietta, "I will make the tests for you. Then we can move the table to your side and you can prepare the new ingredients according to the writing."

Pasquale had left them, seeing that he was not wanted.

"I fear it is of little use," answered Zorzi, despondently. "Of course, the master is very wise, but it seems to me that he has added so much, from time to time, to the original mixture, and so much has been taken away, as to make it all very uncertain."

"I daresay," a.s.sented Marietta. "For some time I have thought so. But we must carry out his wishes to the letter, else he will always believe that the experiments might have succeeded if he had stayed here."

"Of course," said Zorzi. "We should make tests of all three crucibles to-day, if it is only to make more room for the things that are to be put in."

"Where is the copper ladle?" asked Marietta. "I do not see it in its place."

"I have none-I had forgotten. Your brother came here yesterday morning, and wanted to try the gla.s.s himself in spite of me. I knocked the ladle out of his hand and it fell through into the crucible."

"That was like you," said Marietta. "I am glad you did it."

"Heaven knows what has happened to the thing," Zorzi answered. "It has been there since yesterday morning. For all I know, it may have melted by this time. It may affect the gla.s.s, too."

"Where can I get another?" asked Marietta, anxious to begin.

Zorzi made an instinctive motion to rise. It hurt him badly and he bit his lip.

"I forgot," he said. "Pasquale can get another ladle from the main gla.s.s-house."

"Go and call Pasquale, Nella," said Marietta at once. "Ask him to get a copper ladle."

Nella went out into the garden, leaving the two together. Marietta was standing between the chair and the furnace, two or three steps from Zorzi. It was very hot in the big room, for the window was still shut.

"Tell me how you really feel," Marietta said, almost at once.

Every woman who loves a man and is anxious about him is sure that if she can be alone with him for a moment, he will tell her the truth about his condition. The experience of thousands of years has not taught women that if there is one person in the world from whom a man will try to conceal his ills and aches, it is the woman he loves, because he would rather suffer everything than give her pain.

"I feel perfectly well," said Zorzi.

"Indeed you are not!" answered Marietta, energetically. "If you were perfectly well you would be on your feet, doing your work yourself. Why will you not tell me?"

"I mean, I have no pain," said Zorzi.

"You had great pain just now, when you tried to move," retorted Marietta. "You know it. Why do you try to deceive me? Do you think I cannot see it in your face?"

"It is nothing. It comes now and then, and goes away again almost at once."

Marietta had come close to him while she was speaking. One hand hung by her side within his reach. He longed to take it, with such a longing as he had never felt for anything in his life; he resisted with all the strength he had left. But he remembered that he had held her hand in his yesterday, and the memory was a force in itself, outside of him, drawing him in spite of himself, lifting his arm when he commanded it to lie still. His eyes could not take themselves from the beautiful white fingers, so delicately curved as they hung down, so softly shaded to pale rose colour at their tapering tips. She stood quite still, looking down at his bent head.

"You would not refuse my friends.h.i.+p, now," she said, in a low voice, so low that when she had spoken she doubted whether he could have understood.

He took her hand then, for he had no resistance left, and she let him take it, and did not blush. He held it in both his own and silently drew it to him, till he was pressing it to his heart as he had never hoped to do.

"You are too good to me," he said, scarcely knowing that he p.r.o.nounced the words.

Nella pa.s.sed the window, coming back from her errand. Instantly Marietta drew her hand away, and when the serving-woman entered she was speaking to Zorzi in the most natural tone in the world.

"Is the testing plate quite clean?" she asked, and she was already beside it.

Zorzi looked at her with amazement. She had almost been seen with her hand in his, a catastrophe which he supposed would have entailed the most serious consequences; yet there she was, perfectly unconcerned and not even faintly blus.h.i.+ng, and she had at once pretended that they had been talking about the gla.s.s.

"Yes-I believe it is clean," he answered, almost hesitating. "I cleaned it yesterday morning."

Nella had brought the copper ladle. There were always several in the gla.s.s-works for making tests. Marietta took it and went to the furnace, while Nella watched her, in great fear lest she should burn herself. But the young girl was in no danger, for she had spent half her life in the laboratory and the garden, watching her father. She wrapped the wet cloth round her hand and held the ladle by the end.

"We will begin with the one on the right," she said, thrusting the instrument through the aperture.

Bringing it out with some gla.s.s in it, she supported it with both hands as she went quickly to the iron table, and she instantly poured out the stuff and began to watch it.

"It is just what you had the other day," she said, as the gla.s.s rapidly cooled.

Zorzi was seated high enough to look over the table.

"Another failure," he said. "It is always the same. We have scarcely had any variation in the tint in the last week."

"That is not your fault," answered Marietta. "We will try the next."

As if she had been at the work all her life, she chilled the ladle and chipped off the small adhering bits of gla.s.s from it, and slipped the last test from the table, carrying it to the refuse jar with tongs. Once more she wrapped the damp cloth round her hand and went to the furnace. The middle crucible was to be tried next. Nella, looking on with nervous anxiety, was in a profuse perspiration.

"I believe that is the one into which the ladle fell," said Zorzi. "Yes, I am quite sure of it."

Marietta took the specimen and poured it out, set down the ladle on the brick work, and watched the cooling gla.s.s, expecting to see what she had often seen before. But her face changed, in a look of wonder and delight.

"Zorzi!" she exclaimed. "Look! Look! See what a colour!"