Marietta Part 26

"That is a fine moral sentiment, my dear young friend, and does you credit," replied Giovanni sententiously. "It is impossible not to respect a man who carries a fortune in his head and refuses to profit by it out of a delicate sense of honour."

"I should have very little respect for a man who betrayed his master's secrets," said Zorzi.

"You know them then?" inquired the other with unusual blandness.

"I did not say so." Zorzi looked at him coldly.

"Oh no! Even to admit it might not be discreet. But apart from Paolo G.o.di's secrets, which my father has left sealed in my care-"

At this astounding falsehood Zorzi started and looked at Giovanni in unfeigned surprise.

"-but which nothing would induce me to examine," continued Giovanni with perfect coolness, "there must be many others of my father's own, which you have learned by watching him. I respect you for your discretion. Why did you start and look at me when I said that the ma.n.u.script was in my keeping?"

The question was well put, suddenly and without warning, and Zorzi was momentarily embarra.s.sed to find an answer. Giovanni judged that his surprise proved the truth of the boy's story, and his embarra.s.sment now added certainty to the proof. But Zorzi rarely lost his self-possession when he had a secret to keep.

"If I seemed astonished," he said, "it may have been because you had just given me the impression that the master did not trust you, and I know how careful he is of the ma.n.u.script."

"You know more than that, my friend," said Giovanni in a playful tone.

Zorzi had now filled the crucible and was replacing the clay rings which narrow the aperture of the 'bocca.' He plastered more wet clay upon them, and it pleased Giovanni to see how well he knew every detail of the art, from the simplest to the most difficult operations.

"Would anything you can think of induce you to leave my father?" Giovanni asked, as he had received no answer to his last remark. "Of course, I do not mean to speak of mere money, though few people quite despise it."

"That may be understood in more than one way," answered Zorzi cautiously. "In the first place, do you mean that if I left the master, it would be to go to another master, or to set up as a master myself?"

"Let us say that you might go to another gla.s.s-house for a fixed time, with the promise of then having a furnace of your own. How does that strike you?"

"No one can give such a promise and keep it," said Zorzi, sc.r.a.ping the wet clay from his hands with a blunt knife.

"But suppose that some one could," insisted Giovanni.

"What is the use of supposing the impossible?" Zorzi shrugged his shoulders and went on sc.r.a.ping.

"Nothing is impossible in the Republic, except what the Ten are resolved to hinder. And that is really impossible."

"The Ten will not make new laws nor repeal old ones for the benefit of an unknown Dalmatian."

"Perhaps not," answered Giovanni. "But on the other hand there is no very great penalty if you set up a furnace of your own. If you are discovered, your furnace will be put out, and you may have to pay a fine. It is no great matter. It is a civil offence, not a criminal one."

"What is it that you wish of me?" asked Zorzi with sudden directness. "You are a busy man. You have not come here to pa.s.s a morning in idle conversation with your father's a.s.sistant. You want something of me, sir. Speak out plainly. If I can do what you wish, I will do it. If I cannot, I will tell you so, frankly."

Giovanni was a little disconcerted by this speech. Excepting where money was concerned directly, his intelligence was of the sort that easily wastes its energy in futile cunning. He had not meant to reach the point for a long time, if he had expected to reach it at all at a first attempt.

"I like your straightforwardness," he said evasively. "But I do not think your conversation idle. On the contrary, I find it highly instructive."

"Indeed?" Zorzi laughed. "You do me much honour, sir! What have you learned from me this morning?"

"What I wished to know," answered Giovanni with a change of tone, and looking at him keenly.

Zorzi returned the glance, and the two men faced each other in silence for a moment. Zorzi knew what Giovanni meant, as soon as the other had spoken. The quick movement of surprise, which was the only indiscretion of which Zorzi had been guilty, would have betrayed to any one that he knew where the ma.n.u.script was, even if it were not in his immediate keeping. His instinct was to take the offensive and accuse his visitor of having laid a trap for him, but his caution prevailed.

"Whatever you may think that you have learned from me," he said, "remember that I have told you nothing."

"Is it here, in this room?" asked Giovanni, not heeding his last speech, and hoping to surprise him again.

But he was prepared now, and his face did not change as he replied.

"I cannot answer any questions," he said.

"You and my father hid it together," returned Giovanni. "When you had buried it under the stones in this room, you carried the earth out with a shovel and scattered it about on a flower-bed. You took out three shovelfuls of earth in that way. You see, I know everything. What is the use of trying to hide your secret from me?"

Zorzi was now convinced that Giovanni himself had been lurking in the garden.

"Sir," he said, with ill-concealed contempt for a man capable of such spy's work, "if you have more to say of the same nature, pray say it to your father, when he comes back."

"You misunderstand me," returned Giovanni with sudden mildness. "I had no intention of offending you. I only meant to warn you that you were watched on that night. The person who informed me has no doubt told many others also. It would have been very ill for you, if my father had returned to find that his secret was public property, and if you had been unable to explain that you had not betrayed him. I have given you a weapon of defence. You may call upon me to repeat what I have said, when you speak with him."

"I am obliged to you, sir," said Zorzi coldly. "I shall not need to disturb you."

"You are not wise," returned Giovanni gravely. "If I were curious-fortunately for you I am not!-I would send for a mason and have some of the stones of the pavement turned over before me. A mason would soon find the one you moved by trying them all with his hammer."

"Yes," said Zorzi. "If this were a room in your own gla.s.s-house, you could do that. But it is not."

"I am in charge of all that belongs to my father, during his absence," answered Giovanni.

"Yes," said Zorzi again. "Including Paolo G.o.di's ma.n.u.script, as you told me," he added.

"You understand very well why I said that," Giovanni answered, with visible annoyance.

"I only know that you said it," was the retort. "And as I cannot suppose that you did not know what you were saying, still less that you intentionally told an untruth, I really cannot see why you should suggest bringing a mason here to search for what must be in your own keeping."

Zorzi spoke with a quiet smile, for he felt that he had the best of it. Be was surprised when Giovanni broke into a peal of rather affected laughter.

"You are hard to catch!" he cried, and laughed again. "You did not really suppose that I was in earnest? Why, every one knows that you have the ma.n.u.script here."

"Then I suppose you spoke ironically," suggested Zorzi.

"Of course, of course! A mere jest! If I had known that you would take it so literally-" he stopped short.

"Pray excuse me, sir. It is the first time I have ever heard you say anything playful."

"Indeed! The fact is, my dear Zorzi, I never knew you well enough to jest with you, till to-day. Paolo G.o.di's secrets in my keeping? I wish they were! Oh, not that anything would induce me to break the seals. I told you that. But I wish they were in my possession. I tell you, I would pay down half my fortune to have them, for they would bring me back four times as much within the year. Half my fortune! And I am not poor, Zorzi."

"Half your fortune?" repeated Zorzi. "That is a large sum, I imagine. Pray, sir, how much might half your fortune be, in round numbers? Ten thousand silver lires?"

"Silver!" sneered Giovanni contemptuously.

"Gold, then?" suggested Zorzi, drawing him on.