She glanced at him sideways, as a woman does when she hears a man's tone change suddenly, and she is not sure what he may do or say next. 'You do not make it easy to understand you, my lord,' she said after an instant's hesitation. 'The matter is simple enough. I find you in a bad humour----' 'Oh no! I assure you!' Zoë broke in, with a woman's diabolical facility in interrupting a man just at the right moment for her own advantage. 'I was never in a better temper in my life!' To prove this, she took a bird and some salad, and smiled sweetly at her plate, leaving him to prove his assertion, but he did not fall into the trap. 'Then you are not easy to live with,' he observed bluntly. 'I am glad it is over.' 'Do take some of this salad!' suggested Zoë. 'It is really delicious!' 'To-morrow,' Zeno said, without paying any attention to her recommendation, 'I shall have a few guests at dinner.' 'I should advise you to give them a salad exactly like this,' answered Zoë. 'It could not be better!' 'I am glad you like it. I leave the fare to Omobono. It is about another matter that I have to speak.' 'You need not!' Zoë laughed carelessly. 'I know what you are going to say. Shall I save you the trouble?' 'I do not see how you can guess what it is----' 'Oh, easily! You do not wish your friends to see me and you are going to order me not to look out of the window when they come. Is that it?' 'Yes--more or less----' Zeno was surprised. 'Yes, that is it,' laughed Zoë. 'But it is quite useless, sir. I shall most certainly look out of the window, unless you lock me up in another room; and as for your doing that, I will yield only to force!' She laughed again, much amused at the dilemma in which she was placing him. And indeed, he did not at first know how to answer her declaration of independence. 'I cannot imagine why you should be so anxious to show yourself to people you do not know,' he said. 'Or perhaps you fancy they may be friends--you think that if they recognise you--but that is absurd. I have told you that if you have friends in the world you may go to them, and you say you have none.' Zoë's tone changed again and became girlishly petulant. 'It is nothing but curiosity, of course!' she answered. 'I want to see the people you like. Is that so unnatural? In a whole month I have never seen one of your friends--' 'I have not many. But such as I have, I value, and I do not care to let them get a mistaken impression of me, or of the way I live.' 'Especially not the women amongst them,' Zoë added, half interrogatively. 'There are none,' said Zeno, as if to cut short the suggestion.