'I never knew her.'
'Your father, then?'
Zeno was not always patient, even with women, and there was no reason why he should be forbearing with his own property.
'I do not believe you,' he said in a tone of annoyance, and he rose and began to pace the room.
Now it chanced that Zoë had been able to answer his last two questions quite truthfully, for she had not the least recollection of her own father and mother, who had died of the plague when she was three months old.
'I will swear to you on all holy things that it is true,' she said, watching him.
He made an impatient gesture.
'A slave cannot take an oath,' he answered roughly.
Zoë lifted her beautiful head at once, and her eyes shone; but he did not see, for he had turned his back on her in his walk, and a moment later she resumed her former submissive attitude.