'Go, Yulia,' she said, 'find the secretary and beg him to come to me.' While she waited, she made Lucilla arrange her veil again so that it hid her face, and this was scarcely done when Omobono was ushered in by the other girl. He bowed to Zoë and gravely stroked his pointed beard. 'What is the Kokóna's pleasure?' he asked, after a pause. 'Do you speak Latin?' Zoë enquired, in that language. The little man drew himself up proudly, and cleared his throat. 'In my family we have been notaries for five generations,' he answered, in language that was comprehensible but would have filled an average Churchman with vague uneasiness, and would have made Cicero's ashes rattle in their urn. Zoë was satisfied, however, for though her maids might understand Italian, she was quite sure that Latin was beyond them. She herself spoke it far more correctly than Omobono, though with a rather lisping Greek accent. She could not have helped saying 'vonus' for 'bonus,' 'eyo' for 'ego,' and 'Thominus' for 'Dominus.' 'Where is Thominus Carolus?' she enquired, so suddenly that the secretary was almost taken off his guard. 'He is--he is gone out,' he answered. '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?' 'Yes----' 'And the master goes to dine in her father's house three times a week----' 'Perhaps----' 'Do you suppose that Polo would invite the master so often unless he wanted him for his daughter?' 'Perhaps not----' 'Or that the master would wilfully deceive Polo and the girl?' 'What are you saying?' 'Simply that Thominus Carolus is going to marry Thomna Justina.'