once. Girls were brought up to regard marriage as the greatest thing in
life, as the natural goal to which all their girlhood should tend, and
at the same time they were taught from childhood that it was all to be
arranged for them, and that they would in due course grow fond of the
man their parents chose for them. Until Marietta had begun to love
Zorzi, she had accepted all these things quite naturally, as a part of
every woman's life, and it would have seemed as absurd, and perhaps as
impossible, to rebel against them as to repudiate the religion in which
she had been born. Such beliefs turn into prejudices, and assert
themselves as soon as whatever momentarily retards them is removed. By
the time the gondola drew alongside of the steps of the Foscarini
palace, Marietta was convinced that there was nothing for her but to
submit to her fate.

"Then I am to be married in two months?" she said, in a tone of
interrogation, and regardless of the servant.

Beroviero bent his head in answer and smiled kindly; for after all, he
was grateful to her for accepting his decision so quietly. But Marietta
was very pale after she had spoken, for the audible words somehow made
it all seem dreadfully real, and out of the shadows of the great
entrance hall that opened upon the canal she could fancy Zorzi's face
looking at her sadly and reproachfully. The bargain was made, and the
woman he loved was sold for life. For one moment, instinctive womanhood
felt the accursed humiliation, and the flushing blood rose in the girl's
cool cheeks.

She would have blushed deeper had she guessed who had been witnesses of
her first meeting with Contarini, and old Beroviero's temper would have
broken out furiously if he could have imagined that the Greek pirate who
had somehow miraculously escaped the hangman in Naples had been
contemplating with satisfaction the progress of the marriage
negotiations, sure that he himself should before long be enjoying the
better part of Marietta's rich dowry. If the old man could have had
vision of Jacopo's life, and could have suddenly known what the
beautiful woman in black was to the patrician, Contarini's chance of
going home alive that day would have been small indeed, for Beroviero
might have strangled him where he stood, and perhaps Aristarchi would
have discreetly turned his back while he was doing it. For a few minutes
they had all been very near together, the deceivers and the deceived,
and it was not lik