Even the boys who fed the fires all night were of the calling, and by and by would become workmen, and perhaps masters, legally almost the equals of the splendid nobles who sat in the Grand Council over there in Venice.
Zorzi's very existence was an anomaly.

He had no social right to be what he was, and he knew it when he called himself a servant, for the cruel law would not allow him to be anything else so long as he helped Angelo Beroviero.
Suddenly, while Marietta watched the men, Zorzi was there among them, coming out as they went in.

He must have risen early, she thought, for she did not know that he had slept in the laboratory.

He looked pale and thin as he flattened himself against the door-post to let a workman pass, and then slipped out himself.

No one greeted him, even by a nod.
Marietta knew that they hated him because he was in her father's confidence; and somehow, instead of pitying him, she was glad.
It seemed natural that he should not be one of them, that he should pass them with quiet indifference and that they should feel for him the instinctive dislike which most inferiors feel for those above them.
Doubtless, they looked down upon him, or told themselves that they did; but in their hearts they knew that a man with such a face was born to be their teacher and their master, and the girl was proud of him.