She had received no real injury, but she limped as she walked to the window. Then she stood still just within it, where she could not see down to the steps below, but could talk with the slave-girls in a whisper. Doubtless, since Zeno had not wished her to be seen, she would not have shown herself; but she was quite conscious that she looked ill and tired, and by no means fit to face a rival who had been described to her as fresher than spring roses; so that the sacrifice was, after all, not so great as it might have been. 'Tell me what you see,' she said to the maids. Lucilla turned up her sallow little face. 'There are three,' she answered. 'There is a Venetian lord, and his lady, and a young lady. At least, I suppose she is young.' [Illustration: 'Tell me what you see,' she said to the maids.] 'I should think you could see that,' Zoë said. 'Her face is veiled,' Lucilla replied, after peering down; 'but I can see her hair. It is red, and she has a great deal of it.' 'Red like Rustan's wife's hair?' asked Zoë. 'Oh no! It is red like a lady's; for it is well dyed with the good khenna that comes from Alexandria. Now they are getting out--the old lady first--she is fat--the secretary and her husband help her on each side. She is all wrapped in a long green silk mantle embroidered with red roses. She is like a dish of spinach in flames. How fat she is!' Lucilla shook a little, as if she were laughing internally. 'What does her daughter wear?' asked Zoë. 'A dark purple cloak, with a broad silver trimming.' 'How hideous!' exclaimed Zoë, for no particular reason. 'The secretary bows to the ground,' Lucilla said. 'He is saying something.' She stopped speaking, and all three listened. Zoë could hear Omobono's voice quite distinctly. 'By a most unfortunate circumstance,' he was saying, 'Messer Carlo Zeno was obliged to go out on very urgent business, and has not yet returned. I am his secretary and major-duomo, as your lordship may deign to remember. In my master's absence I have the honour to welcome his guests, and to wait upon them.' Sebastian Polo said something in answer to this fine speech; but in a low tone, and Zoë could not hear the words. Then a peculiarly disagreeable woman's voice asked a question. Zoë thought it sounded like something between the croaking of many frogs and the clucking of an old hen. 'We hope you will give us our dinner, whatever happens,' said the lady, who seemed to be of a practical turn of mind. 'Is that the girl's voice?' asked Zoë of Lucilla, in a whisper. The maid shook her head. 'The mother,' she answered. 'Now they are going in. I cannot hear what Omobono says, for he is leading the way. They are all gone.' Zoë did not care who else came, and now that the moment was over she was much less disturbed by the fact that Giustina was under the same roof with her than she had expected to be. She did not believe that Zeno had ever kissed Giustina, and he had certainly never stepped on her.