Arethusa Part 22

'Can you?' He laughed a little.

'He tells you that if you will not try to force Arethusa to keep away from the window to-morrow, she will probably do as you wish--probably!'

'Your friend must have good ears!' Zeno smiled. 'But then he only said "probably." That is not a promise.'

'Why should you trust the promise of a poor slave, sir? You would not believe a lady of Constantinople in the same case if she took oath on the four Gospels! Imagine any woman missing a chance of looking at another about whom she is curious!'

'Who is the other?' asked Zeno, not much pleased.

'She is young, and as fresh as spring. Her hair is like that of all the Venetian ladies----'

'Since you have seen her, why are you so anxious to see her again?'

'Ah! You see! It is she! I knew it! She is coming to-morrow with her father.'

'Well? If she is, what of it?' asked Zeno, impatiently.

'Nothing. Since you admit that it is she, I do not care to see her at all. I will be good and you need not lock me up.'

Thereupon she bent towards the table and began to eat again, daintily, but as if she were still hungry. Zeno watched her in silence for some time, conscious that of all women he had ever seen none had so easily touched him, none had played upon his moods as she did, making him impatient, uneasy, angry, and forgiving by turns, within a quarter of an hour. A few minutes ago he had been so exasperated that he had rudely longed to box her little ears; and now he felt much more inclined to kiss her, and did not care to think how very easy and wholly lawful it was for him to do so. That was one of his many dilemmas; if he spoke to her as his equal she told him she was a slave, but when he treated her ever so little as if she were one, her proud little head went up, and she looked like an empress.

She had never been so much like one as to-night, he thought, though there was nothing very imperial in the action of eating a very sticky strawberry, drawn up out of thick syrup with a forked silver pin. She did it with grace, no doubt, twisting the pin dexterously, so that the big drop of syrup spread all round the berry just at the right moment, and it never dripped. Zeno had often seen the wife of the Emperor Charles eating stewed prunes with her fingers, which was not neat or pleasant to see, though it might be imperial, since she was a genuine empress. But it was neither Zoe's grace nor her delicate ways that pleased him and puzzled him most; the mystery lay rather in the fearless tone of her voice and the proud carriage of her head when she was offended, in the flashing answer of her brave eyes and the n.o.ble curve of her tender mouth; for these are things given, not learnt, and if they could be taught at all, thought Zeno, they would not be taught to a slave.

He let his head rest against the back of his chair and wished many things, rather incoherently. For once in his life he felt inclined for anything rather than action or danger, or any sudden change; and in the detestable natural contradiction of duty and inclination it chanced that on that night, of all nights, he could not stay where he was to idle away two or three hours in careless talk, till it should be time to go downstairs and sleep. The habit of spending his evenings in that way had grown upon him during the past month more than he realised; but to-night he knew that he must break through it, and perhaps to-morrow, too, and for long afterwards, if not for ever. That was one reason why it had annoyed him to find Zoe out of temper.

He rose with an effort, and with something like a sigh.

'I must be going,' he said, standing beside the divan. 'Good-night.'

Zoe had looked up in surprise when he left his seat, and now her face fell.

'Already? Must you go already?' she asked.

'Yes. I have to keep an appointment. Good-night.'

'Good-night, Messer Carlo,' answered Zoe softly and a little sadly.

She had never before addressed him in that way, as an equal and a Venetian would have done, and the expression, with the tone in which it was uttered, arrested his attention and stopped him when he was in the act of turning away. He said nothing, but there was a question in his look.

'I am sorry that I made you angry,' she said, and she turned her face up to him with one of those half-pathetic, hesitating little smiles that ask forgiveness of a man and invariably get it, unless he is a brute.

'I am sorry that I let you see I was annoyed,' he answered simply.

'If I had not been so foolish, you would not go away so early!'

Her tone was contrite and regretfully thoughtful, as if the explanation were irrefutable but humiliating. Eve was, on the whole, a good woman, and is believed to be in Paradise; yet with the slight previous training of a few minutes' conversation with the serpent she was an accomplished temptress, and her rustic taste for apples has sent untold millions down into unquenchable fire. It was a mere coincidence that Eve should have been always called Zoe in the early Greek translations of Genesis, and that Zoe Rhangabe should have inherited a dangerous resemblance to the first beautiful--and enterprising--mother of men.

'I would stay if I could,' Zeno said. 'But indeed I have an appointment, and I must go.'

'Is it very important, very--very?'

Zeno smiled at her now, but did not answer at once. Instead, he walked to the window, opened the shutters again, and looked out. The night was very dark. Here and there little lights twinkled in the houses of Pera, and those that were near the water's edge made tiny paths over the black stream. After his eyes had grown used to the gloom Zeno could make out that there was a boat near the marble steps, and a very soft sound of oars moving in the water told him that the boatman was paddling gently to keep his position against the slow current. Zeno shut the window again and turned back to Zoe.

'Yes,' he said, answering her last speech after the interval, 'it is very important. If it were not, I would not go out to-night.'

He was going out of the house, then. She knew that he rarely did so after dark, and she could not help connecting his going with the invitation he had given to Polo and his daughter for the next day.

Zoe's imagination instantly spun a thread across the chasms of improbability, and ran along the fairy bridge to the regions of the impossible beyond. He was to be betrothed to Giustina to-morrow, he was going now to settle some urgent matter of business connected with the marriage-contract; or he was betrothed already; yes, and he was to be married in the morning and would bring his bride home; Zoe, in her lonely room upstairs, would hear the noisy feasting of the wedding-guests below----

When the thread broke, leaving her in the unreality, her lip quivered, and she was a little pale. Zeno was standing beside her, holding her hand.

'Good-night, Arethusa,' he said in a tone that frightened her.

The words sounded like 'good-bye,' for that was what they might mean; he knew it, and she guessed it.

'You are going away!' she cried, springing to her feet and slipping her hand from his to catch his wrist.

'Not if I can help it,' he answered. 'But you may not see me to-morrow.'

'Not in the evening?' she asked in great anxiety. 'Not even after they are gone?'

'I cannot tell,' he replied gravely. 'Perhaps not.'

She dropped his wrist and turned from him.

'You are going to be married,' she said in a low voice. 'I was sure of it.'

'No!' he answered with emphasis. 'Not that!'

She turned to him again; it did not occur to her to doubt his word, and her eyes asked him the next question with eager anxiety, but he would not answer. He only repeated the three words, very tenderly and softly--

'Good-night--Arethusa!'

She knew it was good-bye, though he would not say it; she was not guessing his meaning now. But she was proud. He should not see how hurt she was.

'Good-night,' she answered. 'If you are going away--then, good-bye.'

Her voice almost broke, but she pressed her lips tight together when the last word had pa.s.sed them, and though the tears seemed to be burning her brain she would not shed them while his eyes were on her.

'G.o.d keep you,' he said, as one says who goes on a long journey.

Again he was turning from her, not meaning to look back; but it was more than she could bear. In an inward tempest of fear and pain she had been taught suddenly that she truly loved him more than her soul, and in the same instant he was leaving her for a long time, perhaps for ever. She could not bear it, and her pride broke down. She caught his hand as he turned to go and held it fast.

'Take me with you!' she cried. 'Oh, do not go away and leave me behind!'

A silence of three seconds.

'I will come back,' he said. 'If I am alive, I will come back.'

'You are going into danger!' Her hand tightened on his, and she grew paler still.