Zeno was perfectly satisfied with this logical explanation which entirely explained Zoë's aristocratic beauty, her nobility of manner, and the delicate rearing that was so apparent in all her ways, as well as the fearlessness which had made her turn upon him and tell him that she hated him. The only point he could not understand, was that Zoë should have smiled. But he thought, as was quite possible, that there might have been jealousy and even hatred between the mistress and her slave-born sister, and he would not enquire too closely yet, since all was so clear to him. Such unnatural doings were not rare in a city half-filled with slaves. Zoë's mistress had probably sold her in a fit of anger, or perhaps deliberately and with a cruel purpose, or even out of avarice, to buy a string of pearls. The girl did not offer to say more, but she looked away from her owner and seemed to be thinking of the past, as indeed she was, though it was so different from that which his imagination was inventing for her. He, on his side, peeled another walnut thoughtfully, and looked at her from time to time, sure that he knew the truth, and wondering what he ought to do, and above all what he really wished to do. He had believed her deeply wronged, and had paid a great sum to redress that wrong, almost without hesitating, because it was his nature to help any one in distress, and because he, who counted neither life nor limb when his cause was good, had never counted such stuff as gold in a like case. But now, it was all clear. She was a slave, in spite of all appearances. She had suffered no injustice; her smile had told him that the change in her life had not been to greater unhappiness. That she should fear to be sent back to Rustan was only natural; she, who had no doubt always lived delicately in the great house where she had been born, must have felt the sordidness and the degradation of the slave-prison, in spite of the special care she had received in consideration of her beauty and value. Very likely, too, she had not much real feeling, in spite of her behaviour; slave women rarely have.