Sometimes, too, there were moments of strange
tenderness within him for this helpless, suffering morsel of humanity
that called him "babbo!" He did not know what might happen if the wrath
of the redoubtable Magagnati were to be invoked against him, for this
quarrel could not be disposed of as those small matters with the
gondoliers had invariably been. So far from threatening this before,
Marina had hitherto shielded Piero, in her unanswerable way, from
everything that might hasten the rupture that seemed always impending
between these two dissimilar natures; and Messer Magagnati had two
thoughts only, his daughter and his _stabilimento_--the great glass
furnaces which were the pride of Venice.
Piero had no suspicion that Marina always touched the best that was in
him; he thought she made him weaker, and it was not easy to yield the
point that had become a habit. No one else had ever moved him from any
purpose, but now he perceived that there would be no reversal of that
sentence--that he should continue to come to see his child, and that he
must continue to submit to Marina's influence.
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