ut by and by would weave spells in her chamber which
would bring all Venice to her will, and turn it all to gold and precious
stones and red glass, and the people to fairies subject to her will, her
husband, the Council of Ten, even the Doge himself.

Nella roused herself, and passed her hand over her eyes, as if she were
waking from a dream. And indeed she had been dreaming, for she had
looked too long into the wonderful depths of the new colour, and it had
dazed her wits.

CHAPTER XII

On that day Marietta felt once more the full belief that Zorzi loved
her; but the certainty did not fill her with happiness as on that first
afternoon when she had seen him stoop to pick up the rose she had
dropped. The time that had seemed so very distant had come indeed;
instead of years, a week had scarcely passed, and it was not by letting
a flower fall in his path that she had told him her love, as she had
meant to do. She had done much more. She had let him take her hand and
press it to his heart, and she would have left it there if Nella had not
passed the window; she had wished him to take it, she had let it hang by
her side in the hope that he would be bold enough to do so, and she had
thrilled with delight at his touch; she had drawn back her hand when the
woman came, and she had put on a look of innocent indifference that
would have deceived one of the Council's own spies. Could any language
have been more plain?

It was very strange, she thought, that she should all at once have gone
so far, that she should have felt such undreamt joy at the moment and
then, when it was hers, a part of her life which nothing could ever undo
nor take from her, it was stranger still that the remembrance of this
wonderful joy should make her suddenly sad and thoughtful, that she
should lie awake at night, wishing that it had never been, and
tormenting herself with the idea that she had done an almost
irretrievable wrong. At the very moment when the coming day was breaking
upon her heart's twilight, a wall of darkness arose between her and the
future.

Much that is very good and true in the world is built upon the fanciful
fears of evil that warn girls' hearts of harm. There are dangers that
cannot be exaggerated, because the value of what they threaten cannot be
reckoned too great, so long as human goodness rests on the dangerous
quicksands of human nature.

Marietta had not realised what it meant to be betrothed to Jacopo
Conta