The Gadfly

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE Gadfly's recovery was rapid. One afternoon in the following weekRiccardo 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 wouldlike a tramp across the valley to Fiesole to start with.

  "You might go and call on the Grassinis for a change," he addedwickedly. "I'm sure madame would be delighted to see you, especiallynow, 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 ofItaly's martyrs, and talk patriotism to me. I should have to act up tothe part, and tell her I've been cut to pieces in an underground dungeonand stuck together again rather badly; and she'd want to know exactlywhat 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 yourden that she'll swallow the biggest lie I can invent. That's a generousoffer, 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 sopretty."

  "But as it happens, my dear fellow, I don't want the dagger and I dowant the tape-worm. Martini, I must run off. Are you in charge of thisobstreperous patient?"

  "Only till three o'clock. Galli and I have to go to San Miniato, andSignora 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 myailments. 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?" askedRiccardo, laughing. "My good man, Signora Bolla is head nurse in generalto all of us. She has looked after sick people ever since she was inshort frocks, and does it better than any sister of mercy I know. Won'tlike to come into your room! Why, you might be talking of the Grassiniwoman! I needn't leave any directions if she's coming, Martini. Heartalive, 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 ofconvalescence, 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 thepain is gone?"

  "Just because I don't want it to come back. You wouldn't like it if youcollapsed 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'snot a t-toothache to be frightened away with your trashy mixtures. Theyare about as much use as a t-toy squirt for a house on fire. However, Isuppose you must have your way."

  He took the glass with his left hand, and the sight of the terriblescars recalled Galli to the former subject of conversation.

  "By the way," he asked; "how did you get so much knocked about? In thewar, 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 supposeit was in the war with Brazil?"

  "Yes, I got a bit hurt there; and then hunting in the savage districtsand one thing and another."

  "Ah, yes; on the scientific expedition. You can fasten your shirt; Ihave 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 afew adventures once in a way," said the Gadfly lightly; "and you canhardly expect them all to be pleasant."

  "Still, I don't understand how you managed to get so much knocked aboutunless in a bad adventure with wild beasts--those scars on your leftarm, 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 isreally 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 alittle 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 otherroom. Shall I take the basket, too?"

  "Take care; those are new-laid eggs. Katie brought them in from MonteOliveto this morning. There are some Christmas roses for you, SignorRivarez; I know you are fond of flowers."

  She sat down beside the table and began clipping the stalks of theflowers 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; andI 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 beastthe powder wouldn't go off; it had got splashed with water. Naturallythe 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; butit's a splendid life on the whole. Serpent-catching, for instance----"

  He rattled on, telling anecdote after anecdote; now of the Argentinewar, now of the Brazilian expedition, now of hunting feats andadventures with savages or wild beasts. Galli, with the delight ofa child hearing a fairy story, kept interrupting every moment to askquestions. He was of the impressionable Neapolitan temperament and lovedeverything sensational. Gemma took some knitting from her basket andlistened silently, with busy fingers and downcast eyes. Martini frownedand fidgeted. The manner in which the anecdotes were told seemed tohim boastful and self-conscious; and, notwithstanding his unwillingadmiration for a man who could endure physical pain with the amazingfortitude which he had seen the week before, he genuinely disliked theGadfly and all his works and ways.

  "It must have been a glorious life!" sighed Galli with naive envy. "Iwonder you ever made up your mind to leave Brazil. Other countries mustseem so flat after it!"

  "I think I was happiest in Peru and Ecuador," said the Gadfly. "Thatreally 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 barbarouscountry would attract me more than any scenery. A man must feel hispersonal, 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 flushedsuddenly 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 Ib-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 withan egg beaten up in milk.

  "Take this, please," she said with mild authority; and sat down again toher knitting. The Gadfly obeyed meekly.

  For half an hour, neither spoke. Then the Gadfly said in a very lowvoice:

  "Signora Bolla!"

  She looked up. He was tearing the fringe of the couch-rug, and kept hiseyes 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," sheanswered 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 theexpedition, I had a few adventures, of course, and most of those storiesare true, but it was not that way I got smashed. You have detected me inone 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 manyfalsehoods?" she asked. "I should have thought it was hardly worth thetrouble."

  "What would you have? You know your own English proverb: 'Ask noquestions and you'll be told no lies.' It's no pleasure to me to foolpeople that way, but I must answer them somehow when they ask what madea cripple of me; and I may as well invent something pretty while I'mabout 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. "Youwouldn't have me tell those people the truth? I'd cut my tongue outfirst!" Then with an awkward, shy abruptness:

  "I have never told it to anybody yet; but I'll tell you if you care tohear."

  She silently laid down her knitting. To her there was somethinggrievously pathetic in this hard, secret, unlovable creature, suddenlyflinging his personal confidence at the feet of a woman whom he barelyknew and whom he apparently disliked.

  A long silence followed, and she looked up. He was leaning his left armon the little table beside him, and shading his eyes with the mutilatedhand, and she noticed the nervous tension of the fingers and thethrobbing of the scar on the wrist. She came up to him and called himsoftly by name. He started violently and raised his head.

  "I f-forgot," he stammered apologetically. "I was g-going to t-tell youabout----"

  "About the--accident or whatever it was that caused your lameness. Butif it worries you----"

  "The accident? Oh, the smashing! Yes; only it wasn't an accident, it wasa poker."

  She stared at him in blank amazement. He pushed back his hair with ahand that shook perceptibly, and looked up at her, smiling.

  "Won't you sit down? Bring your chair close, please. I'm so sorry Ican't get it for you. R-really, now I come to think of it, the casewould have been a p-perfect t-treasure-trove for Riccardo if he hadhad me to treat; he has the true surgeon's love for broken bones, andI believe everything in me that was breakable was broken on thatoccasion--except my neck."

  "And your courage," she put in softly. "But perhaps you count that amongyour unbreakable possessions."

  He shook his head. "No," he said; "my courage has been mended up aftera fashion, with the rest of me; but it was fairly broken then, like asmashed tea-cup; that's the horrible part of it. Ah---- Yes; well, I wastelling you about the poker.

  "It was--let me see--nearly thirteen years ago, in Lima. I told youPeru was a delightful country to live in; but it's not quite so nice forpeople that happen to be at low water, as I was. I had been down in theArgentine, 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'tget any work in Lima itself, so I went down to the docks,--they'reat Callao, you know,--to try there. Well of course in all thoseshipping-ports there are low quarters where the sea-faring peoplecongregate; and after some time I got taken on as servant in one of thegambling hells there. I had to do the cooking and billiard-marking, andfetch 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 leastfood and the sight of human faces and sound of human tongues--of akind. You may think that was no advantage; but I had just been down withyellow fever, alone in the outhouse of a wretched half-caste shanty, andthe thing had given me the horrors. Well, one night I was told to putout a tipsy Lascar who was making himself obnoxious; he had come ashoreand lost all his money and was in a bad temper. Of course I had to obeyif I didn't want to lose my place and starve; but the man was twice asstrong 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 hemanaged to scamp his work--Lascars always do if they have a chance; andleft just enough of me not smashed to go on living with."

  "Yes, but the other people, could they not interfere? Were they allafraid of one Lascar?"

  He looked up and burst out laughing.

  "THE OTHER PEOPLE? The gamblers and the people of the house? Why, youdon't understand! They were negroes and Chinese and Heaven knows what;and I was their servant--THEIR PROPERTY. They stood round and enjoyedthe 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 nextfew days after a thing of that kind, as a rule. But there was a ship'ssurgeon near, and it seems that when they found I was not dead, somebodycalled him in. He patched me up after a fashion--Riccardo seems to thinkit 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 forChristian charity--that sounds queer, doesn't it? She used to sithuddled up in the corner of the hut, smoking a black pipe and spittingon the floor and crooning to herself. However, she meant well, andshe told me I might die in peace and nobody should disturb me. But thespirit of contradiction was strong in me and I elected to live. Itwas rather a difficult job scrambling back to life, and sometimes Iam 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 longwas it?--nearly four months lying in her hut, raving like a mad thing atintervals, 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 inchildhood with overmuch coddling."

  "And then?"

  "Oh, then--I got up somehow and crawled away. No, don't think it wasany delicacy about taking a poor woman's charity--I was past caring forthat; it was only that I couldn't bear the place any longer. You talkedjust now about my courage; if you had seen me then! The worst of thepain used to come on every evening, about dusk; and in the afternoonI used to lie alone, and watch the sun get lower and lower---- Oh, youcan'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--itwould have driven me mad to stay in Lima. I got as far as Cuzco, andthere------ Really I don't know why I'm inflicting all this ancienthistory 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. Butdon't imagine it's the thing itself that haunts me so. It is the fact ofhaving 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 thepoint 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 hemay reach it again."

  "Would you mind telling me," she asked, hesitating, "how you came to bestranded 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 broughtup in an over-luxurious home, and coddled and faddled after till Ithought the world was made of pink cotton-wool and sugared almonds. Thenone 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 bitof 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 plungedinto South America to sink or swim as I could, without a cent in mypocket or a word of Spanish in my tongue, or anything but w
hite handsand expensive habits to get my bread with. And the natural result wasthat 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 Duprezexpedition 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 hada friend!"

  The next instant he seemed a little ashamed of his vehemence, and wenton quickly:

  "You mustn't take all this too seriously; I dare say I made the worstof things, and really it wasn't so bad the first year and a half; I wasyoung and strong and I managed to scramble along fairly well till theLascar put his mark on me. But after that I couldn't get work. It'swonderful 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 blackson the sugar plantations, fetching and carrying and so on. It's one ofthe curious things in life, by the way, that slaves always contrive tohave a slave of their own, and there's nothing a negro likes so much asa white fag to bully. But it was no use; the overseers always turned meoff. 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 whateverthe confounded thing is.

  "After some time I went down to the silver-mines and tried to get workthere; but it was all no good. The managers laughed at the very notionof 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 couldhit back with. They're a mangy, half-caste lot; negroes and Zambosmostly. And then those horrible coolies! So at last I got enough ofthat, 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. Aftera moment's silence he began again, his voice sinking lower and lower ashe spoke:

  "Well, I tramped, and tramped, till I was nearly mad with tramping, andnothing came of it. I got down into Ecuador, and there it was worse thanever. Sometimes I'd get a bit of tinkering to do,--I'm a pretty fairtinker,--or an errand to run, or a pigstye to clean out; sometimes Idid--oh, I hardly know what. And then at last, one day------"

  The slender, brown hand clenched itself suddenly on the table, andGemma, raising her head, glanced at him anxiously. His side-face wasturned towards her, and she could see a vein on the temple beating likea hammer, with quick, irregular strokes. She bent forward and laid agentle 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 theother night; well, that sort of thing, only coarser and more indecent.The Zambos are not like these gentle Florentines; they don't care foranything that is not foul or brutal. There was bull-fighting, too, ofcourse. They had camped out by the roadside for the night; and I went upto 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 faintingsuddenly at that time, like a boarding-school girl with tight stays. Sothey took me in and gave me brandy, and food, and so on; and then--thenext morning--they offered me----"

  Another pause.

  "They wanted a hunchback, or monstrosity of some kind; for the boysto pelt with orange-peel and banana-skins--something to set the blackslaughing------ You saw the clown that night--well, I was that--fortwo years. I suppose you have a humanitarian feeling about negroes andChinese. Wait till you've been at their mercy!

  "Well, I learned to do the tricks. I was not quite deformed enough; butthey set that right with an artificial hump and made the most ofthis foot and arm---- And the Zambos are not critical; they're easilysatisfied if only they can get hold of some live thing to torture--thefool'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 mycoming into the ring when I had these attacks on; and I believe thepeople liked those evenings best. Once, I remember, I fainted right offwith the pain in the middle of the performance---- When I came to mysenses again, the audience had got round me--hooting and yelling andpelting 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 thewindow. When she turned round, the Gadfly was again leaning on the tableand covering his eyes with one hand. He had evidently forgotten herpresence, and she sat down beside him without speaking. After a longsilence 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," hesaid. "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 arethe very bravest man that I have ever met."

  He covered his eyes again, and held her hand in a close passionateclasp. 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 awaywith a stifled groan. She clasped both hands round his arm and pressedit firmly, as she might have pressed that of a person undergoing asurgical operation. When the song broke off and a chorus of laughter andapplause came from the garden, he looked up with the eyes of a torturedanimal.

  "Yes, it is Zita," he said slowly; "with her officer friends. She triedto come in here the other night, before Riccardo came. I should havegone mad if she had touched me!"

  "But she does not know," Gemma protested softly. "She cannot guess thatshe is hurting you."

  "She is like a Creole," he answered, shuddering. "Do you remember herface that night when we brought in the beggar-child? That is how thehalf-castes look when they laugh."

  Another burst of laughter came from the garden. Gemma rose and openedthe window. Zita, with a gold-embroidered scarf wound coquettishlyround her head, was standing in the garden path, holding up a bunchof violets, for the possession of which three young cavalry officersappeared to be competing.

  "Mme. Reni!" said Gemma.

  Zita's face darkened like a thunder-cloud. "Madame?" she said, turningand raising her eyes with a defiant look.

  "Would your friends mind speaking a little more softly? Signor Rivarezis very unwell."

  The gipsy flung down her violets. "Allez-vous en!" she said, turningsharply 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 anunspoken 'but' in the back of your mind."

  "If you look into the backs of pe
ople's minds, you mustn't be offendedat what you read there. It is not my affair, of course, but I cannotunderstand----"

  "My aversion to Mme. Reni? It is only when----"

  "No, your caring to live with her when you feel that aversion. It seemsto me an insult to her as a woman and as----"

  "A woman!" He burst out laughing harshly. "Is THAT what you call awoman? 'Madame, ce n'est que pour rire!'"

  "That is not fair!" she said. "You have no right to speak of her in thatway to anyone--especially to another woman!"

  He turned away, and lay with wide-open eyes, looking out of the windowat the sinking sun. She lowered the blind and closed the shutters, thathe might not see it set; then sat down at the table by the other windowand 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 laidit in the basket. For some time she sat with folded hands, silentlywatching the Gadfly's motionless figure. The dim evening light, fallingon his face, seemed to soften away its hard, mocking, self-assertivelook, and to deepen the tragic lines about the mouth. By some fancifulassociation of ideas her memory went vividly back to the stone crosswhich 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 outof the room. Coming back with a lamp, she paused for a moment, thinkingthat the Gadfly was asleep. As the light fell on his face he turnedround.

  "I have made you a cup of coffee," she said, setting down 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 uglytangle I have got my life into. But remember, a man does not meet everyday a woman whom he can--love; and I--I have been in deep waters. I amafraid----"

  "Afraid----"

  "Of the dark. Sometimes I DARE not be alone at night. I must havesomething living--something solid beside me. It is the outer darkness,where shall be---- No, no! It's not that; that's a sixpenny toyhell;--it's the INNER darkness. There's no weeping or gnashing of teeththere; only silence--silence----"

  His eyes dilated. She was quite still, hardly breathing till he spokeagain.

  "This is all mystification to you, isn't it? You can'tunderstand--luckily for you. What I mean is that I have a pretty fairchance of going mad if I try to live quite alone---- Don't think toohardly of me, if you can help it; I am not altogether the vicious bruteyou perhaps imagine me to be."

  "I cannot try to judge for you," she answered. "I have not suffered asyou have. But--I have been in rather deep water too, in another way; andI think--I am sure--that if you let the fear of anything drive you todo a really cruel or unjust or ungenerous thing, you will regret itafterwards. For the rest--if you have failed in this one thing, I knowthat I, in your place, should have failed altogether,--should havecursed God and died."

  He still kept her hands in his.

  "Tell me," he said very softly; "have you ever in your life done areally cruel thing?"

  She did not answer, but her head sank down, and two great tears fell onhis hand.

  "Tell me!" he whispered passionately, clasping her hands tighter. "Tellme! I have told you all my misery."

  "Yes,--once,--long ago. And I did it to the person I loved best in theworld."

  The hands that clasped hers were trembling violently; but they did notloosen their hold.

  "He was a comrade," she went on; "and I believed a slander againsthim,--a common glaring lie that the police had invented. I struck him inthe face for a traitor; and he went away and drowned himself. Then, twodays later, I found out that he had been quite innocent. Perhaps that isa worse memory than any of yours. I would cut off my right hand to undowhat it has done."

  Something swift and dangerous--something that she had not seenbefore,--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--Imust go!"

  *****

  When Martini came into the room he found the Gadfly lying alone with theuntouched coffee beside him, swearing softly to himself in a languid,spiritless way, as though he got no satisfaction out of it.