Omobono promised to send for him the very next day. After that there was silence for a while, and the skiff slipped along upstream, till the secretary spoke again, to correct what he had last said. 'He had better not come to-morrow. I will tell him to come the next morning.' 'Why?' Zoë asked, in some surprise. 'To-morrow,' said Omobono, 'Messer Sebastian Polo comes to dine with the master. There will be confusion in the house.' 'Confusion, because one guest comes to dinner?' Zoë spoke incredulously. 'I believe,' said Omobono rather timidly, 'that he will not be the only guest.' 'He brings his daughter with him, then?' Zoë felt that she changed colour under her veil. 'I do not know,' the secretary said smoothly; 'but there will be several guests.' Zoë turned towards him impatiently. 'You will have orders to keep me out of the way while they are in the house,' she said. 'I shall receive through you the master's commands not to show myself at my window!' 'How can you think such a thing?' cried Omobono, protesting. 'Rather than put you to such inconvenience I am sure the master will beg his guests to enter by the other side of the house. If it was his object to exasperate her, he had succeeded, but if he expected her to break out in anger he was mistaken. She was too proud, and she already regretted the few hasty words she had spoken. Moreover, her anger told her something that surprised her, and wounded her self-respect. She understood for the first time how jealous she was, and that she could feel no such jealousy if she were not in love. She was not a child, and but for misfortune she would have been married at least two years by this time. This was not the dreamy and slowly stealing dawn of girlhood's day; her sun had risen in a flash amidst angry clouds, as he does in India in mid-June, when the south-west monsoon is just going to break and the rain is very near. When Omobono had spoken she leaned back in her seat and drew the folds of her mantle more closely round her, as if to separate herself from him more completely, and she did not speak again for a long time. On his side, the secretary understood, and instead of feeling rebuked by her silence, he was pleased with himself because his curiosity had made another step forward in the land of discovery. It occurred to him that it would be very interesting to bring Zoë and Giustina within sight of each other, if no nearer. Zeno had not said that his guests were to come by land instead of by water; the secretary had only argued that he would request them to do so, to avoid their seeing Zoë if she happened to be at her window. Omobono had power to do whatever he thought necessary for keeping the house and the approach to it in repair without consulting any one. That was a part of his duty.