Arethusa Part 21

'Oh no! I a.s.sure you!' Zoe broke in, with a woman's diabolical facility in interrupting a man just at the right moment for her own advantage. 'I was never in a better temper in my life!'

To prove this, she took a bird and some salad, and smiled sweetly at her plate, leaving him to prove his a.s.sertion, but he did not fall into the trap.

'Then you are not easy to live with,' he observed bluntly. 'I am glad it is over.'

'Do take some of this salad!' suggested Zoe. 'It is really delicious!'

'To-morrow,' Zeno said, without paying any attention to her recommendation, 'I shall have a few guests at dinner.'

'I should advise you to give them a salad exactly like this,' answered Zoe. 'It could not be better!'

'I am glad you like it. I leave the fare to Omobono. It is about another matter that I have to speak.'

'You need not!' Zoe laughed carelessly. 'I know what you are going to say. Shall I save you the trouble?'

'I do not see how you can guess what it is----'

'Oh, easily! You do not wish your friends to see me and you are going to order me not to look out of the window when they come. Is that it?'

'Yes--more or less----' Zeno was surprised.

'Yes, that is it,' laughed Zoe. 'But it is quite useless, sir. I shall most certainly look out of the window, unless you lock me up in another room; and as for your doing that, I will yield only to force!'

She laughed again, much amused at the dilemma in which she was placing him. And indeed, he did not at first know how to answer her declaration of independence.

'I cannot imagine why you should be so anxious to show yourself to people you do not know,' he said. 'Or perhaps you fancy they may be friends--you think that if they recognise you--but that is absurd. I have told you that if you have friends in the world you may go to them, and you say you have none.'

Zoe's tone changed again and became girlishly petulant.

'It is nothing but curiosity, of course!' she answered. 'I want to see the people you like. Is that so unnatural? In a whole month I have never seen one of your friends--'

'I have not many. But such as I have, I value, and I do not care to let them get a mistaken impression of me, or of the way I live.'

'Especially not the women amongst them,' Zoe added, half interrogatively.

'There are none,' said Zeno, as if to cut short the suggestion.

'I see. You do not want your men friends to know that there are women living in your house, do you? They are doubtless all grave and elderly persons, who would be much shocked and grieved to learn that you have bought a pretty Greek slave. After all, you came near being a priest, did you not? They naturally a.s.sociate you in their minds with the clergy, and for some reason or other you think it just as well for you, or your affairs, that they should! I have always heard that the Venetians are good men of business!'

'You are probably the only person alive who would risk saying that to me,' said Zeno, looking at her.

'What do I risk, my lord?' asked Zoe, with a sort of submissive gravity.

'My anger,' Zeno answered curtly.

'Yes sir, I understand. Your anger--but pray, my lord, how will it show itself? Shall I be beaten, or put in chains and starved, or turned out of your house and sold at auction? Those are the usual punishments for disobedient slaves, are they not?'

'I am not a Greek,' said Zeno, annoyed.

'If you were,' answered Zoe, turning her face from him to hide her smile, 'you would probably wish to tear out my tongue!'

'Perhaps.'

'It might be a wise precaution!' she laughed.

Zeno looked at her sharply now, for the words sounded like a threat that was only half-playful. She knew enough to compa.s.s his destruction at the hands of Andronicus if she betrayed him, but he did not believe she would do that, and he wondered what she was driving at, for his experience of women's ways was small.

'Listen,' he said, dropping his voice a little. 'I shall not beat you, I shall not starve you, and I shall not sell you. But if you try to betray me, I will kill you.'

She raised her head proudly and met his eyes without fear.

'I would spare you the trouble--if I ever betrayed you or any one.'

'It is one thing to talk of death, it is another to die!' Zeno laughed rather incredulously, as he quoted the old Italian proverb.

'I have seen death,' Zoe answered, in a different tone. 'I know what it is.'

He wondered what she meant, but he knew it was useless to question her, and for a few moments there was silence. The lamps burned steadily in the quiet air, for the evenings were still and cool, and the windows were shut and curtained; through the curtains and the shutters the song of a pa.s.sing waterman was heard in the stillness, a long-drawn, plaintive melody in the Lydian Mode, familiar to Zoe's ears since she had been a child.

But Zeno saw how intensely she listened to the words. She clasped her hands tightly over her knee, and bent forwards to catch each note and syllable.

The waters are blue as the eyes of the Emperor's daughter, In the crystal pools of her eyes there are salt tears.

The water is both salt and fresh.

Over the water to my love, this night, over the water--

The voice died away, and Zoe no longer heard the words distinctly; presently she could not hear the voice at all, yet she strained her ears for a few seconds longer. The boat must have pa.s.sed, on its way down to the Bosphorus.

For a whole month she had sat in the same room at that hour, and many times already she had heard men singing in their boats, sometimes to that same ancient Lydian Mode, but never once had they p.r.o.nounced those meaning words. Often and often again she had pa.s.sed within sight of the Amena tower, but not until to-day had she seen a solitary fisherman sitting at the pier's edge below it, and he had waved his rod thrice over the water when she pa.s.sed by. And now in a flash of intuition she guessed that the singer was the fisherman and none other, and that the song was for her, and for no one else; and it was a signal which she could understand and should answer if she could; and there was but one way of answering, and that was to show some light.

'It is hot,' she said, beckoning to Yulia. 'Open the large window wide for a few minutes and let in the fresh air.'

Yulia obeyed quickly. The night was very dark.

'Besides,' Zoe continued carelessly, as Zeno looked at her, 'that fellow has a fine voice, and we shall still hear him.'

And indeed, as the window was opened, the song was heard again, at some distance--

Over the water to my love, she is awake to-night, I see her eyes amongst the stars.

Love, I am here in the dark, but to-morrow I shall see the day in your face, I shall see the noon in your eyes, I shall look upon the sun in your hair.

Over the water, the blue water, the water both salt and fresh----

Once more the voice died away and the faint plash of oars told Zoe that the message was all delivered, and that Gorlias was gone, on his way downstream.

Zeno, whose maternal tongue was not Greek, could not be supposed to understand much of the song, for unfamiliar words sung to such ancient melodies can only be caught by native-born ears, and sharp ones at that. At a signal from Zoe, the maid shut the window again, and drew the curtains.

'Could you understand the fellow?' Zeno asked, glad in reality that the conversation had been interrupted.

'Yes,' Zoe answered lightly, 'as you would understand an Italian fisherman, I suppose. The man gave you a message, my lord. Shall I interpret what he said?'