'I have come back from far more dangerous expeditions. Besides, I have guests to-morrow—that is a good reason for not being killed!'
He stood beside her, one hand half-thrust into his loose belt. She took the other, which hung down, and looked up to him, still pleading.
'Please, please do not go to-night!'
Still he shook his head; nothing could move him, and he would go. A piteous look came into her eyes while they appealed to his in vain, and suddenly she dropped his hand and buried her face in the soft leathern pillow.
'You had made me forget that I am only a slave!' she cried.
The cushion muffled her voice, and the sentence was broken by a sob, though no tears came with it.
'I would go to-night, though my own mother begged me to stay,' Zeno answered.
Zoë turned her head without lifting it, and looked up at him sideways.
'Then much depends on your going,' she said, with a question in her tone. 'If it were only for yourself, for your pleasure, or your fortune, you would not refuse your own mother!'
Zeno turned and began to walk up and down the room, but he said nothing in reply. A thought began to dawn in her mind.