To Zo’s discomfiture they both smiled. She dried her eyes with her fists, and waited doggedly for an answer. Carmina set the child’s mind at ease very prettily and kindly; and Ovid added the pacifying influence of a familiar pat on her cheek. Noticed at last, and satisfied that the bird was not to be bought for anybody, Zo’s sense of injury was appeased; her jealousy melted away as the next result. After a pause—produced, as her next words implied, by an effort of memory—she suddenly took Carmina into her confidence.
“Don’t tell!” she began. “I saw another man look like Ovid.”
“When, dear?” Carmina asked—meaning, at what past date.
“When his face was close to yours,” Zo answered—meaning, under what recent circumstances.
Ovid, hearing this reply, knew his small sister well enough to foresee embarrassing results if he allowed the conversation to proceed. He took Carmina’s arm, and led her a little farther on.
Miss Minerva obstinately followed them, with Maria in attendance, still imperfectly enlightened on the migration of cranes. Zo looked round, in search of another audience. Teresa had been listening; she was present, waiting for events. Being herself what stupid people call “an oddity,” her sympathies were attracted by this quaint child. In Teresa’s opinion, seeing the animals was very inferior, as an amusement, to exploring Zo’s mind. She produced a cake of chocolate, from a travelling bag which she carried with her everywhere. The cake was sweet, it was flavoured with vanilla, and it was offered to Zo, unembittered by advice not to be greedy and make herself ill. Staring hard at Teresa, she took an experimental bite. The wily duenna chose that propitious moment to present herself in the capacity of a new audience.
“Who was that other man you saw, who looked like Mr. Ovid?” she asked; speaking in the tone of serious equality which is always flattering to the self-esteem of children in intercourse with elders. Zo was so proud of having her own talk reported by a grown-up stranger, that she even forgot the chocolate. “I wanted to say more than that,” she announced. “Would you like to hear the end of it?” And this admirable foreign person answered, “I should very much like.”
Zo hesitated. To follow out its own little train of thought, in words, was no easy task to the immature mind which Miss Minerva had so mercilessly overworked. Led by old Dame Nature (first of governesses!) Zo found her way out of the labyrinth by means of questions.
“Do you know Joseph?” she began.
Teresa had heard the footman called by his name: she knew who Joseph was.