Then they kissed; and as their lips touched they closed their eyes, for they were too near to see each other any longer. Her head sank back from his upon his arm, for she was almost fainting, and he laid his palm gently on her forehead and pushed away her hair, and looked at her long.
'I had not meant to love you,' he said again.
Her lips were still parted, tender as rose-leaves at dewfall, and her eyes glistened as she opened them at the sound of his voice.
[Illustration: 'I did not mean to love you!']
He kissed the question from her lips, and her right hand went up to his brown throat and round it, and drew him, to press the kiss closer; and then it held him down while she moved her head till she could whisper in his ear:--
'It was only because you were angry,' she said. 'You are not really going out to-night! Tell me you are not!'
He would not answer at first, and he tried to kiss her again, but she would not let him, and she pushed him away till she could see his face. He met her eyes frankly, but he shook his head.
'It must be to-night, and no other night,' he said gravely. 'I have made an appointment, and I have given my word. I cannot break it, but I shall come back.'
She slipped from his hold, and sat down on the broad divan, against the cushions.
'You are going into danger,' she said. 'You may not come back. You told me so.'
He tried to laugh, and answered in a careless tone:--
'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.
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!'