'Never? When I was a student at Padua I sold everything, even my books, to get money for both. It was only when the books were gone that I turned soldier, and learned the greatest game of hazard in the world. Compared with that, dice are an opiate, and wine is a sleeping-draught.'
He only smiled now, after laughing, but there was a look in his face as he spoke which she saw then for the first time and did not forget, and recognised when she saw it again. It was subtle, and might have passed unnoticed among men, but it spoke to the sex in the girl, and made her young blood thrill. For worlds, she would not have had him guess what she felt just then.
'Fighting for its own sake would tempt you, if nothing else could,' she answered quietly.
'Ah—perhaps, perhaps,' he answered, musing.
'But you would need a cause, though ever so slight, and you have none here, have you?'
'None that I care to take up.'
'You may find something to fight for—over the water,' Zoë suggested, emphasising the words a little and watching his face.
The phrase meant nothing to him.
'Over the water?' he repeated carelessly. 'At home, in Venice, you mean. Yes, if Venice needed me, I should not wait to be called twice!'
It was quite clear that he attached no meaning to the words she had used, and this fact tallied with what the astrologer had told her in the morning as to his having been deaf to all advances made to him by the imprisoned Emperor's party.