'Indeed,' he said coldly, and he took a cracked walnut from the table and began to peel the kernel, 'it is not easy to know what will please you. You seem horrified at the idea of going to Venice and furious at the thought of staying here! Of course, there is a third possibility. I would not send my friend a slave who would be so discontented as to poison him and his family, and I shall certainly not keep one in my house who hates me and may take it into her head to cut my throat in my sleep. The only thing that remains will be to sell you back to the Bokharian at a loss. Should you like that?'
Zoë felt again that he was her master.
'You made me think you would be kind to me!' she said, and her voice quavered.
Zeno laughed, for he had been too much annoyed to yield at once to her appeal.
'That did not prevent you from saying that you hated me, a while ago,' he answered. 'You must not expect too much Christian virtue of me, for I am no saint. I never learned to love those that hate me!'
She liked him better now; as he threw back his head a little, looking at her from under his half-closed lids, she glanced at his brown throat and she did not think of cutting it, as he had suggested. But she was angry with herself for passing through so many phases of like and dislike in so short a time, and for not feeling relief at the thought of being sent on a long journey, which certainly would mean safety while it lasted, and perhaps a chance of freedom. She wondered, too, why she no longer wished to die outright now that she had saved Kyría Agatha. Her answer to his last speech was humble.
'You made me say it,' she said. 'I am sorry, sir.'
'At least, I have learnt that you would rather stay here than go back to Rustan Karaboghazji and that gentle wife of his—his red-haired dove!'
'Anything rather than that!'
Her tone was earnest, for it was the fate she feared most, both for herself and because she fancied that the dealer would in some way claim his money from Kyría Agatha. Zeno was apparently satisfied with her answer, for he looked more kindly at her and was silent for a time. Again he allowed his eyes to be delighted with her beauty.