There was therefore nothing to fear, and since her first surprise was over, she felt sure of appearing quite indifferent.

She would put the thought out of her mind and begin the day with the perfect certainty that the marriage was altogether impossible.
She looked out over her flowers.

The door of the glass-house was open now, and the burly porter was sweeping; she could hear the cypress broom on the flagstones inside, and presently it appeared in sight while the porter was still invisible, and it whisked out a mixture of black dust and bread crumbs and bits of green salad leaves, and the old man came out and swept everything across the footway into the canal.

As he turned to go back, the workmen came trooping across the bridge to the furnaces--pale men with intent faces, very different from ordinary working people.

For each called himself an artist, and was one; and each knew that so far as the law was concerned the proudest noble in Venice could marry his daughter without the least derogation from patrician dignity.