THE Gadfly's recovery was rapid. One afternoon
in the following week Riccardo found him
lying on the sofa in a Turkish dressing-gown,
chatting with Martini and Galli. He even talked
about going downstairs; but Riccardo merely
laughed at the suggestion and asked whether he
would like a tramp across the valley to Fiesole to
start with.
"You might go and call on the Grassinis for a
change," he added wickedly. "I'm sure madame
would be delighted to see you, especially now,
when you look so pale and interesting."
The Gadfly clasped his hands with a tragic
gesture.
"Bless my soul! I never thought of that!
She'd take me for one of Italy's martyrs, and talk
patriotism to me. I should have to act up to the
part, and tell her I've been cut to pieces in an
underground dungeon and stuck together again
rather badly; and she'd want to know exactly what
the process felt like. You don't think she'd believe
it, Riccardo? I'll bet you my Indian dagger
against the bottled tape-worm in your den that
she'll swallow the biggest lie I can invent. That's
a generous offer, and you'd better jump at it."
"Thanks, I'm not so fond of murderous tools
as you are."
"Well, a tape-worm is as murderous as a dagger,
any day, and not half so pretty."
"But as it happens, my dear fellow, I don't
want the dagger and I do want the tape-worm.
Martini, I must run off. Are you in charge of this
obstreperous patient?"
"Only till three o'clock. Galli and I have to go
to San Miniato, and Signora Bolla is coming till
I can get back."
"Signora Bolla!" the Gadfly repeated in a tone
of dismay. "Why, Martini, this will never do!
I can't have a lady bothered over me and my ailments.
Besides, where is she to sit? She won't
like to come in here."
"Since when have you gone in so fiercely for the
proprieties?" asked Riccardo, laughing. "My
good man, Signora Bolla is head nurse in general
to all of us. She has looked after sick people ever
since she was in short frocks, and does it better
than any sister of mercy I know. Won't like to
come into your room! Why, you might be talking
of the Grassini woman! I needn't leave any
directions if she's coming, Martini. Heart alive,
it's half-past two; I must be off!"
"Now, Rivarez, take your physic before she
comes," said Galli, approaching the sofa with a
medicine glass.
"Damn the physic!" The Gadfly had reached
the irritable stage of convalescence, and was
inclined to give his devoted nurses a bad time.
"W-what do you want to d-d-dose me with all
sorts of horrors for now the pain is gone?"
"Just because I don't want it to come back.
You wouldn't like it if you collapsed when Signora
Bolla is here and she had to give you opium."
"My g-good sir, if that pain is going to come
back it will come; it's not a t-toothache to be
frightened away with your trashy mixtures. They
are about as much use as a t-toy squirt for a house
on fire. However, I suppose you must have your
way."
He took the glass with his left hand, and the
sight of the terrible scars recalled Galli to the
former subject of conversation.
"By the way," he asked; "how did you get so
much knocked about? In the war, was it?"
"Now, didn't I just tell you it was a case of
secret dungeons and----"
"Yes, that version is for Signora Grassini's
benefit. Really, I suppose it was in the war with
Brazil?"
"Yes, I got a bit hurt there; and then hunting
in the savage districts and one thing and another."
"Ah, yes; on the scientific expedition. You
can fasten your shirt; I have quite done. You
seem to have had an exciting time of it out there."
"Well, of course you can't live in savage countries
without getting a few adventures once in a
way," said the Gadfly lightly; "and you can
hardly expect them all to be pleasant."
"Still, I don't understand how you managed to
get so much knocked about unless in a bad adventure
with wild beasts--those scars on your left
arm, for instance."
"Ah, that was in a puma-hunt. You see, I had
fired----"
There was a knock at the door.
"Is the room tidy, Martini? Yes? Then please
open the door. This is really most kind, signora;
you must excuse my not getting up."
"Of course you mustn't get up; I have not come
as a caller. I am a little early, Cesare. I thought
perhaps you were in a hurry to go."
"I can stop for a quarter of an hour. Let me
put your cloak in the other room. Shall I take
the basket, too?"
"Take care; those are new-laid eggs. Katie
brought them in from Monte Oliveto this morning.
There are some Christmas roses for you,
Signor Rivarez; I know you are fond of flowers."
She sat down beside the table and began clipping
the stalks of the flowers and arranging them
in a vase.
"Well, Rivarez," said Galli; "tell us the rest of
the puma-hunt story; you had just begun."
"Ah, yes! Galli was asking me about life in
South America, signora; and I was telling him
how I came to get my left arm spoiled. It was
in Peru. We had been wading a river on a puma-hunt,
and when I fired at the beast the powder
wouldn't go off; it had got splashed with water.
Naturally the puma didn't wait for me to rectify
that; and this is the result."
"That must have been a pleasant experience."
"Oh, not so bad! One must take the rough
with the smooth, of course; but it's a splendid
life on the whole. Serpent-catching, for instance----"
He rattled on, telling anecdote after anecdote;
now of the Argentine war, now of the Brazilian
expedition, now of hunting feats and adventures
with savages or wild beasts. Galli, with the delight
of a child hearing a fairy story, kept interrupting
every moment to ask questions. He was
of the impressionable Neapolitan temperament
and loved everything sensational. Gemma took
some knitting from her basket and listened
silently, with busy fingers and downcast eyes.
Martini frowned and fidgeted. The manner in
which the anecdotes were told seemed to him
boastful and self-conscious; and, notwithstanding
his unwilling admiration for a man who could
endure physical pain with the amazing fortitude
which he had seen the week before, he genuinely
disliked the Gadfly and all his works and ways.
"It must have been a glorious life!" sighed
Galli with naive envy. "I wonder you ever made
up your mind to leave Brazil. Other countries
must seem so flat after it!"
"I think I was happiest in Peru and Ecuador,"
said the Gadfly. "That really is a magnificent
tract of country. Of course it is very hot, especially
the coast district of Ecuador, and one has to
rough it a bit; but the scenery is superb beyond
imagination."
"I believe," said Galli, "the perfect freedom of
life in a barbarous country would attract me more
than any scenery. A man must feel his personal,
human dignity as he can never feel it in our
crowded towns."
"Yes," the Gadfly answered; "that is----"
Gemma raised her eyes from her knitting and
looked at him. He flushed suddenly scarlet and
broke off. There was a little pause.
"Surely it is not come on again?" asked Galli
anxiously.
"Oh, nothing to speak of, thanks to your
s-s-soothing application that I b-b-blasphemed
against. Are you going already, Martini?"
"Yes. Come along, Galli; we shall be late."
Gemma followed the two men out of the room,
and presently returned with an egg beaten up in
milk.
"Take this, please," she said with mild authority;
and sat down again to her knitting. The
Gadfly obeyed meekly.
For half an hour, neither spoke. Then the Gadfly
said in a very low voice:
"Signora Bolla!"
She looked up. He was tearing the fringe of
the couch-rug, and kept his eyes lowered.
"You didn't believe I was speaking the truth
just now," he began.
"I had not the smallest doubt that you were
telling falsehoods," she answered quietly.
"You were quite right. I was telling falsehoods
all the time."
"Do you mean about the war?"
"About everything. I was not in that war at
all; and as for the expedition, I had a few adventures,
of course, and most of those stories are true,
but it was not that way I got smashed. You have
detected me in one lie, so I may as well confess the
lot, I suppose."
"Does it not seem to you rather a waste of
energy to invent so many falsehoods?" she asked.
"I should have thought it was hardly worth the
trouble."
"What would you have? You know your own
English proverb: 'Ask no questions and you'll be
told no lies.' It's no pleasure to me to fool people
that way, but I must answer them somehow when
they ask what made a cripple of me; and I may as
well invent something pretty while I'm about it.
You saw how pleased Galli was."
"Do you prefer pleasing Galli to speaking the truth?"
"The truth!" He looked up with the torn
fringe in his hand. "You wouldn't have me tell
those people the truth? I'd cut my tongue out
first!" Then with an awkward, shy abruptness:
"I have never told it to anybody yet; but I'll tell
you if you care to hear."
She silently laid down her knitting. To her
there was something grievously pathetic in this
hard, secret, unlovable creature, suddenly flinging
his personal confidence at the feet of a woman
whom he barely knew and whom he apparently
disliked.
A long silence followed, and she looked up.
He was leaning his left arm on the little table beside
him, and shading his eyes with the mutilated
hand, and she noticed the nervous tension of the
fingers and the throbbing of the scar on the wrist.
She came up to him and called him softly by name.
He started violently and raised his head.
"I f-forgot," he stammered apologetically. "I
was g-going to t-tell you about----"
"About the--accident or whatever it was that
caused your lameness. But if it worries you----"
"The accident? Oh, the smashing! Yes;
only it wasn't an accident, it was a poker."
She stared at him in blank amazement. He
pushed back his hair with a hand that shook perceptibly,
and looked up at her, smiling.
"Won't you sit down? Bring your chair close,
please. I'm so sorry I can't get it for you.
R-really, now I come to think of it, the case would
have been a p-perfect t-treasure-trove for Riccardo
if he had had me to treat; he has the true surgeon's
love for broken bones, and I believe everything
in me that was breakable was broken on that
occasion--except my neck."
"And your courage," she put in softly. "But
perhaps you count that among your unbreakable
possessions."
He shook his head. "No," he said; "my courage
has been mended up after a fashion, with the
rest of me; but it was fairly broken then, like a
smashed tea-cup; that's the horrible part of it.
Ah---- Yes; well, I was telling you about the
poker.
"It was--let me see--nearly thirteen years ago,
in Lima. I told you Peru was a delightful country
to live in; but it's not quite so nice for people that
happen to be at low water, as I was. I had been
down in the Argentine, and then in Chili, tramping
the country and starving, mostly; and had
come up from Valparaiso as odd-man on a cattle-boat.
I couldn't get any work in Lima itself, so I
went down to the docks,--they're at Callao, you
know,--to try there. Well of course in all those
shipping-ports there are low quarters where the
sea-faring people congregate; and after some time
I got taken on as servant in one of the gambling
hells there. I had to do the cooking and billiard-marking,
and fetch drink for the sailors and their
women, and all that sort of thing. Not very
pleasant work; still I was glad to get it; there was
at least food and the sight of human faces and
sound of human tongues--of a kind. You may
think that was no advantage; but I had just been
down with yellow fever, alone in the outhouse of a
wretched half-caste shanty, and the thing had
given me the horrors. Well, one night I was told
to put out a tipsy Lascar who was making himself
obnoxious; he had come ashore and lost all his
money and was in a bad temper. Of course I had
to obey if I didn't want to lose my place and
starve; but the man was twice as strong as I--I
was not twenty-one and as weak as a cat after the
fever. Besides, he had the poker."
He paused a moment, glancing furtively at her;
then went on:
"Apparently he intended to put an end to me
altogether; but somehow he managed to scamp
his work--Lascars always do if they have a
chance; and left just enough of me not smashed to
go on living with."
"Yes, but the other people, could they not
interfere? Were they all afraid of one Lascar?"
He looked up and burst out laughing.
"THE OTHER PEOPLE? The gamblers and the
people of the house? Why, you don't understand!
They were negroes and Chinese and Heaven knows
what; and I was their servant--THEIR PROPERTY.
They stood round and enjoyed the fun, of course.
That sort of thing counts for a good joke out
there. So it is if you don't happen to be the subject
practised on."
She shuddered.
"Then what was the end of it?"
"That I can't tell you much about; a man
doesn't remember the next few days after a thing
of that kind, as a rule. But there was a ship's
surgeon near, and it seems that when they found I
was not dead, somebody called him in. He
patched me up after a fashion--Riccardo seems to
think it was rather badly done, but that may be
professional jealousy. Anyhow, when I came to
my senses, an old native woman had taken me in
for Christian charity--that sounds queer, doesn't
it? She used to sit huddled up in the corner of
the hut, smoking a black pipe and spitting on the
floor and crooning to herself. However, she
meant well, and she told me I might die in peace
and nobody should disturb me. But the spirit of
contradiction was strong in me and I elected to
live. It was rather a difficult job scrambling back
to life, and sometimes I am inclined to think it
was a great deal of cry for very little wool. Anyway
that old woman's patience was wonderful;
she kept me--how long was it?--nearly four
months lying in her hut, raving like a mad thing at
intervals, and as vicious as a bear with a sore ear
between-whiles. The pain was pretty bad, you
see, and my temper had been spoiled in childhood
with overmuch coddling."
"And then?"
"Oh, then--I got up somehow and crawled
away. No, don't think it was any delicacy about
taking a poor woman's charity--I was past caring
for that; it was only that I couldn't bear the place
any longer. You talked just now about my courage;
if you had seen me then! The worst of the
pain used to come on every evening, about dusk;
and in the afternoon I used to lie alone, and watch
the sun get lower and lower---- Oh, you can't
understand! It makes me sick to look at a sunset now!"
A long pause.
"Well, then I went up country, to see if I could
get work anywhere--it would have driven me mad
to stay in Lima. I got as far as Cuzco, and
there------ Really I don't know why I'm inflicting
all this ancient history on you; it hasn't even the
merit of being funny."
She raised her head and looked at him with deep
and serious eyes. "PLEASE don't talk that way,"
she said.
He bit his lip and tore off another piece of the
rug-fringe.
"Shall I go on?" he asked after a moment.
"If--if you will. I am afraid it is horrible to
you to remember."
"Do you think I forget when I hold my tongue?
It's worse then. But don't imagine it's the thing
itself that haunts me so. It is the fact of having
lost the power over myself."
"I--don't think I quite understand."
"I mean, it is the fact of having come to the
end of my courage, to the point where I found
myself a coward."
"Surely there is a limit to what anyone can bear."
"Yes; and the man who has once reached
that limit never knows when he may reach it
again."
"Would you mind telling me," she asked, hesitating,
"how you came to be stranded out there alone at twenty?"
"Very simply: I had a good opening in life, at
home in the old country, and ran away from it."
"Why?"
He laughed again in his quick, harsh way.
"Why? Because I was a priggish young cub,
I suppose. I had been brought up in an over-luxurious
home, and coddled and faddled after till
I thought the world was made of pink cotton-wool
and sugared almonds. Then one fine day I found
out that someone I had trusted had deceived me.
Why, how you start! What is it?"
"Nothing. Go on, please."
"I found out that I had been tricked into believing
a lie; a common bit of experience, of course;
but, as I tell you, I was young and priggish, and
thought that liars go to hell. So I ran away from
home and plunged into South America to sink or
swim as I could, without a cent in my pocket or a
word of Spanish in my tongue, or anything but
white hands and expensive habits to get my bread
with. And the natural result was that I got a dip
into the real hell to cure me of imagining sham
ones. A pretty thorough dip, too--it was just
five years before the Duprez expedition came
along and pulled me out."
"Five years! Oh, that is terrible! And had
you no friends?"
"Friends! I"--he turned on her with sudden
fierceness--"I have NEVER had a friend!"
The next instant he seemed a little ashamed of
his vehemence, and went on quickly:
"You mustn't take all this too seriously; I dare
say I made the worst of things, and really it wasn't
so bad the first year and a half; I was young and
strong and I managed to scramble along fairly
well till the Lascar put his mark on me. But after
that I couldn't get work. It's wonderful what an
effectual tool a poker is if you handle it properly;
and nobody cares to employ a cripple."
"What sort of work did you do?"
"What I could get. For some time I lived by
odd-jobbing for the blacks on the sugar plantations,
fetching and carrying and so on. It's one of
the curious things in life, by the way, that slaves
always contrive to have a slave of their own, and
there's nothing a negro likes so much as a white
fag to bully. But it was no use; the overseers
always turned me off. I was too lame to be
quick; and I couldn't manage the heavy loads.
And then I was always getting these attacks
of inflammation, or whatever the confounded
thing is.
"After some time I went down to the silver-mines
and tried to get work there; but it was all
no good. The managers laughed at the very
notion of taking me on, and as for the men, they
made a dead set at me."
"Why was that?"
"Oh, human nature, I suppose; they saw I had
only one hand that I could hit back with. They're
a mangy, half-caste lot; negroes and Zambos
mostly. And then those horrible coolies! So at
last I got enough of that, and set off to tramp the
country at random; just wandering about, on the
chance of something turning up."
"To tramp? With that lame foot!"
He looked up with a sudden, piteous catching
of the breath.
"I--I was hungry," he said.
She turned her head a little away and rested her
chin on one hand. After a moment's silence he
began again, his voice sinking lower and lower as
he spoke:
"Well, I tramped, and tramped, till I was nearly
mad with tramping, and nothing came of it. I
got down into Ecuador, and there it was worse
than ever. Sometimes I'd get a bit of tinkering
to do,--I'm a pretty fair tinker,--or an errand to
run, or a pigstye to clean out; sometimes I
did--oh, I hardly know what. And then at last,
one day------"
The slender, brown hand clenched itself suddenly
on the table, and Gemma, raising her head,
glanced at him anxiously. His side-face was
turned towards her, and she could see a vein on
the temple beating like a hammer, with quick,
irregular strokes. She bent forward and laid a
gentle hand on his arm.
"Never mind the rest; it's almost too horrible
to talk about."
He stared doubtfully at the hand, shook his
head, and went on steadily:
"Then one day I met a travelling variety show.
You remember that one the other night; well, that
sort of thing, only coarser and more indecent.
The Zambos are not like these gentle Florentines;
they don't care for anything that is not foul or
brutal. There was bull-fighting, too, of course.
They had camped out by the roadside for the
night; and I went up to their tent to beg. Well,
the weather was hot and I was half starved, and
so--I fainted at the door of the tent. I had a
trick of fainting suddenly at that time, like a
boarding-school girl with tight stays. So they
took me in and gave me brandy, and food, and so
on; and then--the next morning--they offered
me----"
Another pause.
"They wanted a hunchback, or monstrosity of
some kind; for the boys to pelt with orange-peel
and banana-skins--something to set the blacks
laughing------ You saw the clown that night--
well, I was that--for two years. I suppose you
have a humanitarian feeling about negroes and
Chinese. Wait till you've been at their mercy!
"Well, I learned to do the tricks. I was not
quite deformed enough; but they set that right
with an artificial hump and made the most of this
foot and arm---- And the Zambos are not critical;
they're easily satisfied if only they can get
hold of some live thing to torture--the fool's dress
makes a good deal of difference, too.
"The only difficulty was that I was so often ill
and unable to play. Sometimes, if the manager
was out of temper, he would insist on my coming
into the ring when I had these attacks on; and I
believe the people liked those evenings best.
Once, I remember, I fainted right off with the pain
in the middle of the performance---- When I
came to my senses again, the audience had got
round me--hooting and yelling and pelting me
with------"
"Don't! I can't hear any more! Stop, for
God's sake!"
She was standing up with both hands over her
ears. He broke off, and, looking up, saw the
glitter of tears in her eyes.
"Damn it all, what an idiot I am!" he said
under his breath.
She crossed the room and stood for a little while
looking out of the window. When she turned
round, the Gadfly was again leaning on the table
and covering his eyes with one hand. He had evidently
forgotten her presence, and she sat down
beside him without speaking. After a long silence
she said slowly:
"I want to ask you a question."
"Yes?" without moving.
"Why did you not cut your throat?"
He looked up in grave surprise. "I did not expect
YOU to ask that," he said. "And what about
my work? Who would have done it for me?"
"Your work---- Ah, I see! You talked just
now about being a coward; well, if you have come
through that and kept to your purpose, you are
the very bravest man that I have ever met."
He covered his eyes again, and held her hand in
a close passionate clasp. A silence that seemed to
have no end fell around them.
Suddenly a clear and fresh soprano voice rang
out from the garden below, singing a verse of a
doggerel French song:
"Eh, Pierrot! Danse, Pierrot!
Danse un peu, mon pauvre Jeannot!
Vive la danse et l'allegresse!
Jouissons de notre bell' jeunesse!
Si moi je pleure ou moi je soupire,
Si moi je fais la triste figure--
Monsieur, ce n'est que pour rire!
Ha! Ha, ha, ha!
Monsieur, ce n'est que pour rire!"
At the first words the Gadfly tore his hand from
Gemma's and shrank away with a stifled groan.
She clasped both hands round his arm and pressed
it firmly, as she might have pressed that of a person
undergoing a surgical operation. When the
song broke off and a chorus of laughter and applause
came from the garden, he looked up with
the eyes of a tortured animal.
"Yes, it is Zita," he said slowly; "with her
officer friends. She tried to come in here the
other night, before Riccardo came. I should have
gone mad if she had touched me!"
"But she does not know," Gemma protested
softly. "She cannot guess that she is hurting
you."
"She is like a Creole," he answered, shuddering.
"Do you remember her face that night when we
brought in the beggar-child? That is how the
half-castes look when they laugh."
Another burst of laughter came from the garden.
Gemma rose and opened the window. Zita, with
a gold-embroidered scarf wound coquettishly
round her head, was standing in the garden path,
holding up a bunch of violets, for the possession
of which three young cavalry officers appeared
to be competing.
"Mme. Reni!" said Gemma.
Zita's face darkened like a thunder-cloud.
"Madame?" she said, turning and raising her
eyes with a defiant look.
"Would your friends mind speaking a little
more softly? Signor Rivarez is very unwell."
The gipsy flung down her violets. "Allez-vous
en!" she said, turning sharply on the astonished
officers. "Vous m'embetez, messieurs!"
She went slowly out into the road. Gemma
closed the window.
"They have gone away," she said, turning to
him.
"Thank you. I--I am sorry to have troubled
you."
"It was no trouble." He at once detected the
hesitation in her voice.
"'But?'" he said. "That sentence was not
finished, signora; there was an unspoken 'but' in
the back of your mind."
"If you look into the backs of people's minds,
you mustn't be offended at what you read there.
It is not my affair, of course, but I cannot understand----"
"My aversion to Mme. Reni? It is only when----"
"No, your caring to live with her when you feel
that aversion. It seems to me an insult to her as
a woman and as----"
"A woman!" He burst out laughing harshly.
"Is THAT what you call a woman? 'Madame, ce
n'est que pour rire!'"
"That is not fair!" she said. "You have no
right to speak of her in that way to anyone--
especially to another woman!"
He turned away, and lay with wide-open eyes,
looking out of the window at the sinking sun. She
lowered the blind and closed the shutters, that he
might not see it set; then sat down at the table
by the other window and took up her knitting
again.
"Would you like the lamp?" she asked after a moment.
He shook his head.
When it grew too dark to see, Gemma rolled up
her knitting and laid it in the basket. For some
time she sat with folded hands, silently watching
the Gadfly's motionless figure. The dim evening
light, falling on his face, seemed to soften away its
hard, mocking, self-assertive look, and to deepen
the tragic lines about the mouth. By some fanciful
association of ideas her memory went vividly
back to the stone cross which her father had set
up in memory of Arthur, and to its inscription:
"All thy waves and billows have gone over me."
An hour passed in unbroken silence. At last
she rose and went softly out of the room. Coming
back with a lamp, she paused for a moment,
thinking that the Gadfly was asleep. As the light
fell on his face he turned round.
"I have made you a cup of coffee," she said,
setting clown the lamp.
"Put it down a minute. Will you come here,
please."
He took both her hands in his.
"I have been thinking," he said. "You are
quite right; it is an ugly tangle I have got my life
into. But remember, a man does not meet every
day a woman whom he can--love; and I--I have
been in deep waters. I am afraid----"
"Afraid----"
"Of the dark. Sometimes I DARE not be alone
at night. I must have something living--something
solid beside me. It is the outer darkness,
where shall be---- No, no! It's not that; that's
a sixpenny toy hell;--it's the INNER darkness.
There's no weeping or gnashing of teeth there;
only silence--silence----"
His eyes dilated. She was quite still, hardly
breathing till he spoke again.
"This is all mystification to you, isn't it? You
can't understand--luckily for you. What I mean
is that I have a pretty fair chance of going mad if
I try to live quite alone---- Don't think too
hardly of me, if you can help it; I am not altogether
the vicious brute you perhaps imagine me to be."
"I cannot try to judge for you," she answered.
"I have not suffered as you have. But--I have
been in rather deep water too, in another way; and
I think--I am sure--that if you let the fear of anything
drive you to do a really cruel or unjust or
ungenerous thing, you will regret it afterwards.
For the rest--if you have failed in this one thing,
I know that I, in your place, should have failed
altogether,--should have cursed God and died."
He still kept her hands in his.
"Tell me," he said very softly; "have you ever
in your life done a really cruel thing?"
She did not answer, but her head sank down,
and two great tears fell on his hand.
"Tell me!" he whispered passionately, clasping
her hands tighter. "Tell me! I have told you
all my misery."
"Yes,--once,--long ago. And I did it to the
person I loved best in the world."
The hands that clasped hers were trembling violently;
but they did not loosen their hold.
"He was a comrade," she went on; "and I believed
a slander against him,--a common glaring
lie that the police had invented. I struck him in
the face for a traitor; and he went away and
drowned himself. Then, two days later, I found
out that he had been quite innocent. Perhaps
that is a worse memory than any of yours. I
would cut off my right hand to undo what it has done."
Something swift and dangerous--something
that she had not seen before,--flashed into his
eyes. He bent his head down with a furtive, sudden
gesture and kissed the hand.
She drew back with a startled face. "Don't!"
she cried out piteously. "Please don't ever do
that again! You hurt me!"
"Do you think you didn't hurt the man you
killed?"
"The man I--killed---- Ah, there is Cesare
at the gate at last! I--I must go!"
. . . . .
When Martini came into the room he found the
Gadfly lying alone with the untouched coffee beside
him, swearing softly to himself in a languid,
spiritless way, as though he got no satisfaction
out of it.
