will they say in Casa Contarini when they hear that you have actually
gone out of the house to help a wounded young man in your father's
glass-house?"

"If they are human, they will say that I was quite right," answered
Marietta promptly. "If they are not, why should I care what they say?"

Zorzi smiled. At that moment Pasquale passed the window, and then came
in by the open door, growling. His ugly face was transfigured by rage,
until it had a sort of grotesque grandeur, and he clenched his fist as
he began to speak.

"Animals! Beasts! Brutes! Worse than savages! He was almost incoherent.

"Well? What has happened now?" asked. Nella. "You talk like a mad dog.
Remember the young lady!"

"It would make a leaden statue speak!" answered Pasquale. "The Signor
Giovanni sends a boy to say that the Surgeon was not at home, because he
had gone to shave the arch-priest of San Piero!"

In spite of the great pain he still suffered, Zorzi laughed, a little.

"You said that you would throw, him into the canal if he came at all,"
he said.

"Yes, and so I meant to do!" cried Pasquale. "But that is no reason why
the inhuman monster should be shaving the arch-priest when a man might
be dying for need of him! Oh, let him come here! Oh, I advise him to
come! The miserable, cowardly, bloodletting, soap-sudding, shaving
little beast of a barber!"

Pasquale drew a long breath after this, and unclenched his fist, but his
lips still moved, as he said things to himself which would have shocked
Marietta if she could have had the least idea of what they meant.

"You cannot stay here," she said, turning to Zorzi again. "You cannot
lie on this bench all day."

"I shall soon be able to stand," answered Zorzi confidently. "I am much
better."

"You will not stand on that foot for many a day," said Nella, shaking
her head.

"Then Pasquale must get me a pair of crutches," replied Zorzi. "I cannot
lie on my back because I have hurt one foot. I must tend the furnace, I
must go on with my work, I must make the tests, I must--"

He stopped short and bit his lip, turning white again as a spasm of
excruciating pain shot along his right side, from his foot upwards.
Marietta bent over him, full of anxiety.

"You are suffering!" she said tenderly. "You must not try to move."

"It is nothing," he answered through his closed teeth. "It will pass, I
daresay."

"It will not pass to-day," said Nella. "But I will bring you some syrup
of poppies.