As she inwardly repeated some of these considerations, she felt a little thrust of remorse for trying to look down on him as impossibly far below her own station, and a small voice told her that he was an artist, and that if he had chanced to be born in Venice he would have been as good as her brothers.
The future stretched out before her in a sort of dull magnificence that did not in the least appeal to her simple nature.

She could not tell why she had despised Jacopo Contarini from the moment she looked into his beautiful eyes.

Happily women are not expected to explain why they sometimes judge rightly at first sight, when a wise man is absurdly deceived.

Marietta did not understand Jacopo, and she easily fancied that because her own character was the stronger she should rule him as easily as she managed Nella.

It did not occur to her that he was already under the domination of another woman, who might prove to be quite as strong as she.