"She would laugh at me," said Martin in tones of the deepest and saddest conviction; "she would not look at me. See, I am a dog to her. She would turn her face away from me, and never look at me again. She is so far away above me, but you are close to her. You are like her, very grand, and very beautiful, and very clever. I am down, down in the mud. I cannot learn your ways; they are too hard for me. Oh, my brother! if I was like you, my signorina would love me and be my wife."
Philip, looking down at the seared and melancholy face of his unfortunate brother, said to himself that this might have been true. If Martin had been trained and educated as he himself had been he would have been a suitable husband for Dorothy, and what would please his father and mother more than to have her for their daughter?
"She is like the Madonna to me," said Martin slowly and hesitatingly, as if searching through his brain for suitable words to express the thoughts pressing busily into it; "my Madonna. I see her all day, and at night I cannot sleep. I sit all night on the mat at her door watching, listening. I do not sleep, but I am happy."
"You must never tell her that," replied Philip; "it would make her very unhappy."
"I will never tell her, my brother," he answered submissively; "she is too high above me. She is like an angel, and I am a dog. That is true. I am nothing; only a rich man. But I will give her all my riches--this house, these lands. They shall be hers, not mine."
"But you are not a rich man till your father dies," explained Philip; "they belong to him as long as he lives, and then they will belong to you as long as you live, but you can never give them away. They will be kept for your eldest son. It would be impossible for you to give any of them to Dorothy."
"It is a lie, then," he said; "it is a lie. I am not a rich man. They are of no good to me, this house and these lands. It would be better for me to have a farm of my own in Ampezzo, and marry a woman there. I did not dare to think the signorina would be my wife; but if I could give her this house and these lands, and live near her, where I could see her every day, I could be happy, perhaps, here in this strange country, though I do not know what the people say. I am not happy in Ampezzo; they curse me and throw stones at me. I am not happy here in these clothes, and this great house, and these fine rooms. Let me be a servant; your servant, or the signorina's; then I might be happy."