'Where is Thominus Carolus?' she enquired, so suddenly that the secretary was almost taken off his guard.
'Yes. He is gone to dine with Messer Sebastian Polo. He goes there two or three times a week.'
Zoë watched the secretary's face with amusement; his surprise was comical.
'Then the man is really an astrologer,' he said, in a wondering tone, 'and star-gazing is not all nonsense!'
'Sebastian Polo's daughter is young and beautiful,' observed Zoë, who apparently did not place implicit faith in astrology.
Omobono's face and gesture expressed a qualified assent, but he said nothing.
'Tell me at once,' said Zoë, 'that she is thirty, that her complexion resembles the dust when it is pitted by raindrops after a shower----'
'That would not be true,' cried the secretary. 'Giustina Polo is not supremely beautiful, but she is young and pretty, and as fresh as roses.'
'But she is very poor,' suggested Zoë. 'She has no dowry.'
'Who says so?' asked Omobono indignantly. 'The house of Sebastian Polo is as prosperous as any in Constantinople! He is as rich as any Venetian here except, perhaps, Marin Cornèr!'
'Then it is true that the master is going to marry his daughter,' Zoë replied, as if stating a fact that could no longer be denied.
She was rapidly working the secretary into a state of excitement in which his Latin grammar went to the winds.
'No, indeed!' he cried. 'It is altogether a lie! Who has told you such things?'
'She is young, pretty, fresh as roses, and very rich,' said Zoë, recapitulating. 'Did you not say so?'
'And the master goes to dine in her father's house three times a week----'
'Do you suppose that Polo would invite the master so often unless he wanted him for his daughter?'
'Or that the master would wilfully deceive Polo and the girl?'
'Simply that Thominus Carolus is going to marry Thomna Justina.'
'Either you are very simple, or you think I am,' interrupted Zoë, with crushing logic. 'Which shall it be, Master Secretary?'
Omobono thought her a terrible young person just then. He spread out his hands and looked up to the ceiling in despair, but still protesting.
'And meanwhile,' she continued, 'what is the master going to do with me? Am I to be locked up here for ever?'
If anything could further disturb Omobono's equanimity it was this question. His gentle temper was beginning to be ruffled.