Arethusa Part 17

This was thinking 'like a grown-up woman,' as she had proposed to do!

She was disgusted with herself, and looked about for something to occupy her thoughts. There were sweetmeats, whole boxes of sweetmeats of every sort. Twice already they had been emptied and refilled with fresh ones, since she had been brought to the house. That was Zeno's idea of what a woman needed to occupy her thoughts and be happy!

Sweetmeats! Preserve of rose-leaves! Figs in syrup! That was all he knew of her wants!

She lay back among her cushions, her brown eyes gleamed angrily, her lips were a little parted, and her nostrils quivered now and then as she drew a sharp breath. Presently, she called Yulia to her side.

'Go to the secretary,' she said, 'and tell him to send me a book.'

'A book?' repeated the slave stupidly, for she had never seen a woman who could read.

'Yes. A book in Greek, Latin, or Italian; it does not matter which. I am sick of doing nothing. Tell him to be quick, too,' she added, in a tone of authority.

The girl tripped away and found Omobono in the counting-house on the ground floor. He was in a bad humour too, but in his case it took the form of dignified sorrow. His master had compared him to a fowl, and to one that cackled.

'What does she want with a book?' he asked, in a dreary tone, looking up from his accounts.

'To read, I think, sir,' answered the little maid timidly; 'and she told me to beg you to let her have it soon.'

'As if a slave could read!' He looked about him in a melancholy way, and rose to take from the shelf above his head a good-sized volume bound in soft brown leather, with little thongs tied in slip knots, for clasps, to keep it shut.

'Take her that,' he said, thrusting the book into the girl's hands.

Yulia took it, and before she had left the room Omobono was gravely busy with his figures again; but each time he added up a column the sum seemed to be 'cackling hen,' instead of anything reasonable. But Yulia ran upstairs.

Zoe untied the thongs and opened the book in the middle. An exclamation of anger and disgust escaped her lips. The secretary, who did not believe she could really read, though she spoke Latin fluently, had sent an old volume of accounts in answer to her request.

There were pages and pages of entries and columns of figures, all neatly written in his small, clear hand, on stout cotton paper. Here and there some one else had made a note, as if checking his work.

Zoe pushed the book away from her on the divan, and it fell over the edge and lay face downwards and open on the floor. Then the little tune began again in her head.

'He shall pay me for this!'

She wished he would open the door noiselessly and be all at once beside her, as on that first evening. That had been Friday, and to-day was Wednesday; five days had gone by. Counting Friday there were six, and six days were practically a week! She had been under his roof a whole week and he had only cared to see her face once.

'He shall pay me for this!'

The tune went on, and she quite forgot how she had longed for death, and how his first antic.i.p.ated coming had been dreadful beyond anything she had ever suffered, beyond cold, starvation, and misery. Or if she remembered it at all, she told herself that the man she had seen was not the kind of man she had expected, and that she had nothing to fear from him. She was quite sure of that.

She turned on one side, as she half lay on the divan, till she could reach the account-book to pick it up. One of the maids jumped up from the carpet to help her.

'Go away!' she exclaimed crossly, for she had got hold of the cover and had drawn the volume over the edge of the divan. 'I will call if I want anything.'

The girls slipped away in silence and left her alone. She turned over the pages with a sort of angry curiosity, half expecting to find an entry concerning slaves bought and sold like herself. Just then she could have believed Zeno capable of anything.

But though she found a great many strange words which she did not understand, and which referred to tonnage, insurance, profit and loss, and all the complicated matters of an Eastern merchant's business, there was nothing which could possibly be interpreted to mean that Zeno had dealt in humanity, as most of the Venetians who lived in Constantinople certainly did. Sebastian Polo's name occurred very often. Large sums had been paid to him, and other large sums had been received from him. It was clear that the two men were in close relations of business, and constantly made ventures together, dividing the profits and sharing the losses.

That might account for Zeno's constant visits to his fellow-merchant, though Zoe was not inclined to admit such a view. On the contrary, she made herself believe that Zeno dealt with Polo solely in order to make an excuse for seeing more of the latter's daughter. He should pay for that, too! The little tune hammered away in her head at a great rate.

She clapped her hands.

'Take this back to the secretary,' she said, giving the book to Yulia.

'Tell him I am not a merchant's clerk, and that I want something to read.'

Again little Yulia tripped downstairs to the ground floor. But the counting-house was locked, and the men-servants told her that Omobono had gone out. She would not leave the book with them, for she had a superst.i.tiously exaggerated idea of the value of all written things; therefore, after a moment's hesitation, she turned and carried it upstairs again, though she did not like the idea of facing her mistress.

At the first landing she almost ran against the master of the house, who asked her what she was carrying and where she was going. He spoke rather sharply, and Yulia was frightened and told him the whole story, explaining that Zoe seemed to be in a bad temper, and would be angry with her for bringing back the account-book, but that it was Omobono's fault. How could he dare to suppose that the Kokona could not read?

And why was he out? And if he was not out why had the men-servants told her that he was?

The little slave did as all slaves and servants naturally do when they wish to gain favour with the master; she hinted that all the other servants in the house were in league to do evil, and that she only was righteous. Zeno carelessly looked through the pages of the account-book as he stood listening to her tale.

'You talk too much,' he observed, when she paused. 'Go upstairs.'

Thereupon he turned his back on her and went in under the heavy curtain to his own room, taking the book with him and leaving Yulia considerably disconcerted. She looked at the curtain disconsolately for a few seconds, and then slowly ascended the second flight of steps to the women's apartments.

A few minutes later Zeno himself followed her, with another book in his hand. He knocked discreetly at the outer door, and Lucilla opened, for Yulia was still explaining to Zoe what had happened. The maid stood aside to let the master pa.s.s through the vestibule which separated the inner rooms from the staircase. Zeno raised the curtain and went in.

'I am no great reader,' he said, as he came forward towards the divan, 'but I have brought you this old book. It may amuse you. The man died more than fifty years ago, and I fancy he was mad; but there must be something in his poem, for it has been copied again and again. This was given me by the Emperor Charles when I was with him in Venice.'

Zoe had time to recover from her surprise and to study his face and manner while he spoke, and again she was convinced that he was a little shy in her presence. If she changed colour at all he did not see it, for though he glanced at her two or three times, he looked more often at the book he held. As he finished speaking he placed it in her hands and his eyes met hers.

Possibly Zoe had guessed that if she could make a stir in the house by sending messages to Omobono, the master would at last come in person; at all events she felt a little thrill of triumph when he was before her bringing his book and speaking pleasantly, as a sort of peace-offering for having neglected her so long.

'Thank you,' said she, very sweetly. 'Will it please your lordship to be seated?'

Yulia had pushed forward a large fold-stool, and Zoe motioned to her and her companion to sit down in a corner. Zeno thought she had sent them out of the room, and he looked round and saw them squatting on their carpet, side by side.

'Shall I send them away?' asked Zoe, with a sweet smile.

'They are not in the way,' Zeno answered coldly; for he felt that they might be if they understood, but nothing would have induced him to dismiss them just then.

A little pause followed, during which Zoe opened the ma.n.u.script and read the illuminated t.i.tle-page.

'It is dull for you, here,' said Carlo awkwardly.

Zoe did not even look up, and affected to answer absently, while she turned over the pages.

'Oh no!' she said. 'Not in the least, I a.s.sure you!' She went back to the t.i.tle and read it aloud. '"The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri"--I have heard his name. A Sicilian, was he not? Or a Lombard? I cannot remember. Have you read the poetry? The paintings are very pretty, I see. There is much more life in Italian painting than in our stiff pictures with their gilt backgrounds. Of course, there is a certain childlike simplicity about them, an absence of school, of the traditions of good masters, of reverence for the old art! But they mean something that is, whereas our Greek pictures mean something that never was. Do you agree with me?'

She had talked on in a careless tone, toying with the book, and only looking up as she asked a question without waiting for a reply. By the time she paused she had asked so many that Zeno only noticed the last.

'You would like Venice,' he said, 'but you would like Florence better.

There are good pictures there, I believe.'

'You have not seen them yourself?'

'Oh yes! But I do not understand such things. This man Alighieri describes some of them in his book. He was a Florentine.'

As Zeno showed himself more willing to talk, Zoe seemed to grow more indifferent. She laid the book down beside her, leaned back, and looked out of the window, turning her face half away from him. It was the first time he had seen her by daylight since she had come, and the strong afternoon light glowed in her white skin, her eyes, and her brown hair. He could have seen on her cheek the very smallest imperfection, had it been as tiny as the point of a pin, but there was none. He looked at her tender mouth; and in the strong glare he could have detected the least roughness on her lips, if they had not been as smooth as fresh fruit. Moreover, the line from her ear to her neck was really as perfect as it had seemed at first sight. Her nervous, high-bred young hand lay on the folds of her over-garment, within his reach, and he felt much inclined to take it and hold it. He did not remember that any woman's near presence had disturbed him in the same way, nor had he ever hesitated on the few occasions in his life when he had been inclined to take a woman's hand. He had the fullest rights which the laws of the Empire could give him, for Arethusa, as he called her, was his property out-and-out, and if he died suddenly she would be sold at auction with the furniture. Yet, for some wholly inexplicable reason he did not quite dare to touch the tips of her fingers.

'I have heard that you are a hero,' Zoe observed, without looking at him. 'Is it true?'