Marietta doubtless expected to have a week in which to make up her mind.

She should have five hours, and even that was too much, thought Beroviero.

He would have preferred to march her to the altar without any preliminaries and marry her to Contarini without giving her a chance of seeing him before the ceremony.

After all, that was the custom of the day.
The fortunes of love were in his favour, for Marietta had spent three miserably unhappy days and nights since she had last talked with Zorzi in the garden.

From that time he had avoided her moat carefully, never coming out of the laboratory when she was under the tree with her work, never raising his eyes to look at her when she came in and talked with her father.