other?"

"That is strange," said Arisa, "for it was he that brought the message
to Contarini, bidding him go and see her in Saint Mark's. That was how
he chanced upon them, downstairs, at their last meeting."

"How do you know it was that message, and not some other?"

"Contarini told me."

"But if the boy loves her, as I am sure he does, why should he have
delivered the message?" asked; the cunning Greek. "It would have been
very easy for him to have named another hour, and Contarini would never
have seen her. Besides, he had a fine chance then to send the future
husband to Paradise! He needed only to name a quiet street, instead of
the Church, and to appoint the hour at dusk. One, two and three in the
back, the body to the canal, and the marriage would have been broken
off."

"Perhaps he does not wish it broken off," suggested Arisa, taking an
equally amiable but somewhat different point of view. "He cannot marry
the girl, of course--but if she is once married and out of her father's
house, it will be different."

"That is an idea," assented Aristarchi. "Look at us two. It is very much
the same position, and Contarini will be indifferent about her, which he
is not, where you are concerned. Between the glass-blower and me, and
his wife and you, he will not be a man to be envied. That is another
reason for helping the marriage as much as we can."

"What if the glass-blower makes her give him money?" asked the Georgian
woman. "If she loves him she will give him everything she has, and he
will take all he can get, of course."

"Of course, if she had anything to give," said Aristarchi. "But she will
only have what you allow Contarini to give her. The young man knows well
enough that her dowry will all be paid to her husband on the day of the
marriage. It does not matter, for if he is in love he will not care much
about the money."

"I hope he will be careful. Any one else may see him with her, as you
did, and may warn old Contarini that his intended daughter-in-law is in
love with a boy belonging to the glass-house. The marriage would be
broken off at once if that happened."

"That is true."

So they talked together, judging Zorzi and Marietta according to their
views of human nature, which they deduced chiefly from their experience
of themselves. From time to time Arisa went and listened at the hole in
the floor, and when she heard the guests beginning to take their leave
she hid Aristarchi in the embrasure