esn't drink!"
     "You  had better discuss  the  matter  with  the  other members  of the
committee," she said,  rising.  "I cannot  form any opinion as to what  they
will think about it."
     "And  you?" He  had  risen  too,  and  was leaning  against the  table,
pressing the flowers to his face
     She  hesitated.  The question  distressed  her,  bringing  up  old  and
miserable associations. "I --hardly know," she said at last. "Many years ago
I used to know something  about Monsignor Montanelli. He was only a canon at
that  time, and Director of the theological seminary in the province where I
lived as  a girl. I  heard a great deal about him from--someone who knew him
very intimately; and I never  heard anything  of him that  was  not good.  I
believe  that, in those  days at least, he was really a most remarkable man.
But that was long ago, and he may have changed. Irresponsible power corrupts
so many people."
     The  Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and looked at her with  a
steady face.
     "At any  rate,"  he said, "if Monsignor  Montanelli  is not  himself  a
scoundrel,  he is a tool in scoundrelly hands.  It is all one to me which he
is--and to my friends across the frontier.  A stone in the path may have the
best intentions, but it must be kicked out of the path, for all  that. Allow
me, signora!" He rang the bell, and, limping to the door,  opened it for her
to pass out.
     "It was very  kind of you to call, signora. May  I send for  a vettura?
No? Good-afternoon, then! Bianca, open the hall-door, please."
     Gemma went out into the street, pondering anxiously. "My friends across
the frontier"-- who were they? And how was the stone to be kicked out of the
path? If with satire only, why had he said it with such dangerous eyes?
        PART II: CHAPTER IV.
     MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence in the  first week of October.
His visit caused a  little flutter of excitement throughout the town. He was
a famous preacher  and a representative  of the reformed Papacy;  and people
looked eagerly to him for an exposition of the "new doctrine," the gospel of
love  and  reconciliation which  was  to  cure  the  sorrows of  Italy.  The
nomination  of Cardinal  Gizzi to the Roman State Secretaryship  in place of
the universally detested Lambruschini  had raised the  public  enthusiasm to
its highest  pitch; and Montanelli  was just  the  man who could most easily
sustain it. The  irreproachable strictness  of  his  life  was  a phenomenon
sufficiently rare among the high  dignitaries of the Roman Church to attract
the attention of people accustomed to regard  blackmailing, peculation,  and
disreputable intrigues  as  almost invariable  adjuncts  to the career of  a
prelate. Moreover, his  talent as a preacher was really  great; and with his
beautiful voice and  magnetic  personality,  he would in any time  and place
have made his mark.
     Grassini,  as  usual, strained  every  nerve  to get  the newly arrived
celebrity to  his house; but Montanelli  was no  easy game  to catch. To all
invitations he replied with the same  courteous but positive refusal, saying
that his health was bad and his time fully occupied, and that he had neither
strength nor leisure for going into society.
     "What  omnivorous  creatures   those  Grassinis  are!"   Martini   said
contemptuously to Gemma as they crossed the Signoria square one bright, cold
Sunday morning. "Did  you notice the way Grassini bowed when  the Cardinal's
carriage drove up? It's all one to them who a man is, so long as he's talked
about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only last August it was the
Gadfly; now it's  Montanelli. I hope  His Eminence  feels  flattered  at the
attention; a precious lot of adventurers have shared it with him."
     They had been hearing Montanelli preach in the Cathedral; and the great
building had  been so  thronged with eager listeners that Martini, fearing a
return of  Gemma's troublesome headaches,  had persuaded  her to  come  away
before the Mass was over. The sunny morning, the first after a week of rain,
offered him an excuse for  suggesting a walk among the garden slopes by  San
Niccolo.
     "No," she answered; "I should like a walk if you  have time; but not to
the  hills. Let us keep along the Lung'Arno; Montanelli will pass on his way
back from church and I am like Grassini-- I want to see the notability."
     "But you have just seen him."
     "Not  close. There was such a crush in the Cathedral, and his back  was
turned  to  us when the carriage passed. If we  keep near  to  the bridge we
shall be sure to see him well--he is staying on the Lung'Arno, you know."
     "But  what has given  you such  a sudden fancy  to see  Montanelli? You
never used to care about famous preachers."
     "It is not  famous preachers;  it is the man himself; I want to see how
much he has changed since I saw him last."
     "When was that?"
     "Two days after Arthur's death."
     Martini  glanced  at  her  anxiously. They  had  come  out  on  to  the
Lung'Arno, and she was staring absently across the water, with a look on her
face that he hated to see.
     "Gemma, dear,"  he said  after a  moment;  "are you  going  to let that
miserable  business haunt you all your life? We have all made mistakes  when
we were seventeen."
     "We have not all killed our dearest friend when we were seventeen," she
answered  wearily; and,  leaning  her  arm  on the  stone balustrade  of the
bridge, looked down  into the river. Martini  held his tongue; he was almost
afraid to speak to her when this mood was on her.
     "I  never look  down at  water  without remembering,"  she said, slowly
raising her eyes  to his; then with a nervous little shiver: "Let us walk on
a bit, Cesare; it is chilly for standing."
     They crossed the bridge in silence  and walked on along the river-side.
After a few minutes she spoke again.
     "What a beautiful voice that man has! There is something about  it that
I  have never heard in any other human voice.  I believe it is the secret of
half his influence."
     "It is a wonderful voice," Martini assented,  catching at a  subject of
conversation which might lead her away from the dreadful memory called up by
the river,  "and he is,  apart from his voice, about the  finest  preacher I
have ever  heard. But I believe the secret of his influence lies deeper than
that. It is the  way his life  stands out  from that of almost all the other
prelates. I don't  know whether you could lay your  hand  on  one other high
dignitary  in  all  the  Italian  Church--except   the  Pope  himself--whose
reputation  is so  utterly spotless. I  remember, when  I was in the Romagna
last  year, passing through his diocese and seeing those fierce mountaineers
waiting in the rain to  get a glimpse of  him or  touch  his  dress.  He  is
venerated  there  almost  as a saint; and  that means a good  deal among the
Romagnols, who generally hate everything that wears a cassock. I remarked to
one of  the old  peasants,--as  typical  a  smuggler  as ever  I  saw in  my
life,--that the  people  seemed  very much devoted to  their  bishop, and he
said: 'We don't love bishops, they are liars; we love  Monsignor Montanelli.
Nobody has ever known him to tell a lie or do an unjust thing.'"
     "I wonder," Gemma said, half to herself, "if  he knows the people think
that about him."
     "Why shouldn't he know it? Do you think it is not true?"
     "I know it is not true."
     "How do you know it?"
     "Because he told me so."
     "HE told you? Montanelli? Gemma, what do you mean?"
     She pushed the hair back from her forehead and turned towards him. They
were  standing  still  again, he  leaning on  the  balustrade and she slowly
drawing lines on the pavement with the point of her umbrella.
     "Cesare,  you and I have been friends for all these  years,  and I have
never told you what really happened about Arthur."
     "There is  no need to tell me, dear," he broke in hastily; "I know  all
about it already."
     "Giovanni told you?"
     "Yes,  when he  was dying. He  told  me  about it  one night when I was
sitting  up with  him. He said----  Gemma,  dear, I had better tell you  the
truth,  now  we have  begun talking about it--he said that  you  were always
brooding over that wretched story,  and he begged me to  be as good a friend
to  you as I could and try to keep you from thinking of it. And I have tried
to, dear, though I may not have succeeded--I have, indeed."
     "I know you have," she  answered softly, raising her eyes for a moment;
"I should have been badly off without your friendship. But--Giovanni did not
tell you about Monsignor Montanelli, then?"
     "No, I didn't know that he had anything to do with it. What he told  me
was about--all that affair with the spy, and about----"
     "About  my striking Arthur and his drowning himself.  Well, I will tell
you about Montanelli."
     They turned back towards the bridge over which the Cardinal's  carriage
would have to pass. Gemma looked out steadily across the water as she spoke.
     "In  those  days  Montanelli was  a  canon;  he  was  Director  of  the
Theological Seminary at Pisa, and used  to give Arthur lessons in philosophy
and read  with him after  he went up to the Sapienza.  They  were  perfectly
devoted to each other;  more like two  lovers than teacher and pupil. Arthur
almost worshipped  the  ground that Montanelli walked on, and I remember his
once  telling me that  if he  lost  his  'Padre'--he  always  used  to  call
Montanelli so --he should  go and drown  himself. Well, then  you  know what
happened about the spy.  The  next day, my  father and the Burtons--Arthur's
step-brothers,  most detestable people--spent the  whole  day  dragging  the
Darsena basin for the body; and I sat in my room alone and thought of what I
had done----"
     She paused a moment, and went on again:
     "Late in  the evening  my father came into  my  room and said:  'Gemma,
child, come downstairs; there's  a man I want you to see.' And when  we went
down there was one of  the  students  belonging to the group  sitting in the
consulting room,  all white  and shaking;  and  he told us  about Giovanni's
second letter coming from  the prison to say that they had  heard  from  the
jailer about Cardi, and that Arthur had been tricked in  the confessional. I
remember the  student saying to me: 'It is at least some consolation that we
know he was  innocent' My father  held my hands and  tried to comfort me; he
did not know  then about the blow. Then I went back to my room and sat there
all night alone. In the morning my father went out again with the Burtons to
see the harbour dragged. They had some hope of finding the body there."
     "It was never found, was it?"
     "No; it must have got washed  out to sea; but they thought there was  a
chance.  I was alone in my room and the  servant  came  up  to  say  that  a
'reverendissimo padre' had called and she had told him my father  was at the
docks and he had gone  away. I knew it must  be Montanelli; so  I ran out at
the  back  door  and caught him up at the garden  gate. When I said:  'Canon
Montanelli, I want to speak to you,' he just stopped and waited silently for
me to speak. Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face--it haunted me  for months
afterwards! I said: 'I am Dr. Warren's daughter, and I have come to tell you
that  it is I who have killed Arthur.' I  told him everything,  and he stood
and listened, like a figure cut in stone, till I had finished; then he said:
'Set your  heart at rest, my child; it is  I that am a  murderer, not you. I
deceived him and he found it out.' And with  that he turned and went out  at
the gate without another word."
     "And then?"
     "I don't know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening
that he had fallen down  in the street in a kind of fit and had been carried
into  a house  near  the  docks;  but  that  is all  I  know. My father  did
everything  he  could  for  me; when I told him  about  it he  threw up  his
practice  and took me away to England at once, so that  I should never  hear
anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the water, too;
and indeed  I believe I was near it at one time. But then, you know, when we
found out that my father had cancer  I was  obliged to come to myself--there
was no one  else to nurse him.  And after he died I was left with the little
ones on my hands until  my elder brother was able to give them  a home. Then
there  was Giovanni.  Do you  know, when he came to  England  we were almost
afraid to meet each other with  that frightful memory  between us. He was so
bitterly  remorseful  for his share  in it all--that unhappy letter he wrote
from prison. But I believe, really, it was our  common trouble that drew  us
together."
     Martini smiled and shook his head.
     "It may have  been so on your side," he said; "but Giovanni had made up
his mind from the first time he ever saw you.  I remember his coming back to
Milan  after that  first  visit to Leghorn and raving about you to me till I
was perfectly sick of hearing of the English Gemma. I  thought I should hate
you. Ah! there it comes!"
     The  carriage crossed the bridge  and drove up to a large  house on the
Lung'Arno. Montanelli was leaning  back on  the cushions  as if too tired to
care any  longer for  the  enthusiastic crowd which had collected  round the
door to  catch a glimpse of him. The inspired look that his face had worn in
the Cathedral had faded quite away and the sunlight showed the lines of care
and fatigue.  When  he  had alighted and passed,  with the heavy, spiritless
tread of weary and heart-sick old age, into the house, Gemma turned away and
walked slowly  to the  bridge.  Her face seemed for a  moment to reflect the
withered, hopeless look of his. Martini walked beside her in silence.
     "I have so often wondered," she began again after a little pause; "what
he meant about the deception. It has sometimes occurred to me----"
     "Yes?"
     "Well,  it  is very strange; there  was the most extraordinary personal
resemblance between them."
     "Between whom?"
     "Arthur and Montanelli. It was not only I who noticed it. And there was
something  mysterious  in  the relationship  between  the  members  of  that
household. Mrs.  Burton,  Arthur's mother,  was one  of the sweetest women I
ever knew. Her  face had the same spiritual look  as Arthur's, and I believe
they were alike in character, too.  But she  always  seemed half frightened,
like  a detected criminal;  and her  step-son's wife used to treat her as no
decent  person treats a dog. And  then  Arthur himself was such  a startling
contrast to  all those  vulgar Burtons. Of course, when  one  is a child one
takes everything for granted; but looking back on it afterwards I have often
wondered whether Arthur was really a Burton."
     "Possibly he found out something about his mother--that may easily have
been  the  cause  of his  death, not  the  Cardi  affair  at  all,"  Martini
interposed, offering  the only consolation he could think of at  the moment.
Gemma shook her head.
     "If you  could have seen his face after I struck him, Cesare, you would
not think that. It may be all true about Montanelli--very likely it is-- but
what I have done I have done."
     They walked on a little way without speaking,
     "My dear," Martini said at  last;  "if  there were  any way on earth to
undo  a thing  that is once done, it  would be worth while to brood over our
old mistakes; but as it  is, let the dead bury their dead. It is  a terrible
story, but at least the poor lad is out of it now, and luckier  than some of
those  that are  left--the ones that are  in  exile and in prison. You and I
have them to  think of, we have no right to eat out our hearts for the dead.
Remember  what your own Shelley  says: 'The  past is Death's, the future  is
thine own.' Take it, while it is still yours, and fix your mind, not on what
you may have done long ago to hurt, but on what you can do now to help."
     In his earnestness he had taken  her hand.  He dropped it  suddenly and
drew back at the sound of a soft, cold, drawling voice behind him.
     "Monsignor   Montan-n-nelli,"   murmured   this   languid   voice,  "is
undoubtedly  all  you say, my dear doctor. In fact, he appears to be so much
too good for this world that he ought to be politely escorted into the next.
I  am sure he would cause  as great a sensation there as  he  has done here;
there are p-p-probably many  old-established ghosts who have never seen such
a thing as an honest cardinal. And there is nothing that ghosts love as they
do novelties----"
     "How do  you  know  that?" asked  Dr. Riccardo's  voice  in a  tone  of
ill-suppressed irritation.
     "From Holy Writ, my dear  sir. If the Gospel is to be trusted, even the
most respectable  of all  Ghosts  had a f-f-fancy for  capricious alliances.
Now,  honesty and  c-c-cardinals--that  seems  to  me  a somewhat capricious
alliance, and rather an uncomfortable one, like  shrimps and liquorice.  Ah,
Signor Martini, and Signora Bolla! Lovely weather after the rain, is it not?
Have you been to hear the n-new Savonarola, too?"
     Martini turned round sharply. The Gadfly, with a cigar in his mouth and
a  hot-house  flower in his buttonhole, was  holding out  to him a  slender,
carefully-gloved hand.  With the sunlight reflected  in his immaculate boots
and  glancing  back  from the water  on to his  smiling face, he  looked  to
Martini  less lame and  more conceited than usual. They were shaking  hands,
affably  on  the  one  side and  rather sulkily on the other, when  Riccardo
hastily exclaimed:
     "I am afraid Signora Bolla is not well!"
     She  was so pale that her face looked almost livid  under the shadow of
her bonnet,  and  the  ribbon at her  throat fluttered perceptibly  from the
violent beating of the heart.
     "I will go home," she said faintly.
     A cab was called and Martini got in with her to see her safely home. As
the Gadfly bent down to arrange her cloak, which was hanging over the wheel,
he raised  his eyes suddenly to  her face, and  Martini saw  that she shrank
away with a look of something like terror.
     "Gemma, what is  the matter with you?" he asked, in English, when  they
had started. "What did that scoundrel say to you?"
     "Nothing, Cesare; it was no fault of his. I-- I--had a fright----"
     "A fright?"
     "Yes; I fancied----"  She put  one hand over  her  eyes, and  he waited
silently  till  she should recover  her self-command.  Her face was  already
regaining its natural colour.
     "You are quite right," she said at last, turning to him and speaking in
her usual voice; "it is worse than useless  to look back at a horrible past.
It  plays  tricks with one's nerves  and  makes one  imagine  all  sorts  of
impossible things. We will NEVER talk about that subject again, Cesare, or I
shall see fantastic likenesses  to Arthur in every face I meet. It is a kind
of  hallucination,  like a nightmare in broad daylight. Just  now, when that
odious little fop came up, I fancied it was Arthur."
        PART II: CHAPTER V.
     THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal enemies. He  had arrived
in Florence  in  August, and  by the end of  October  three-fourths  of  the
committee which had invited him shared Martini's opinion. His savage attacks
upon  Montanelli had  annoyed even his  admirers; and Galli himself,  who at
first had been inclined to uphold everything the witty satirist said or did,
began to  acknowledge with an aggrieved air that Montanelli had better  have
been  left in peace.  "Decent cardinals are  none so plenty. One might treat
them politely when they do turn up."
     The only  person  who, apparently, remained  quite  indifferent to  the
storm of  caricatures  and pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed, as
Martini  said, hardly worth while to expend one's energy in ridiculing a man
who took it so good-humouredly. It was said in the town that Montanelli, one
day when  the Archbishop of Florence  was dining with  him, had found in the
room one  of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons against himself, had read
it through and  handed  the paper to the  Archbishop,  remarking:  "That  is
rather cleverly put, is it not?"
     One  day  there appeared in the town a leaflet, headed: "The Mystery of
the Annunciation." Even had the author omitted his now familiar signature, a
sketch of a gadfly with spread wings, the bitter, trenchant style would have
left in the  minds of most readers no doubt as to his identity. The skit was
in the form of a dialogue between Tuscany as the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli
as  the angel who, bearing the lilies of purity and crowned with  the  olive
branch of peace, was announcing  the advent of the Jesuits. The whole  thing
was full of offensive personal allusions and hints of the most risky nature,
and all Florence felt the satire to be  both ungenerous and unfair.  And yet
all Florence laughed. There was  something so irresistible  in the  Gadfly's
grave absurdities  that  those  who  most  disapproved  of  and disliked him
laughed  as immoderately at  all his  squibs as  did his  warmest partisans.
Repulsive in tone  as  the leaflet was, it left  its  trace upon the popular
feeling of the town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any
lampoon, however witty, seriously to  injure it, but for  a moment the  tide
almost turned against him. The Gadfly  had known where to sting; and, though
eager crowds still collected before the Cardinal's house to see him enter or
leave  his carriage, ominous  cries of  "Jesuit!" and "Sanfedist spy!" often
mingled with the cheers and benedictions.
     But  Montanelli   had  no  lack  of  supporters.  Two  days  after  the
publication of  the skit,  the Churchman, a leading clerical  paper, brought
out  a  brilliant  article,  called:  "An  Answer  to  'The  Mystery of  the
Annunciation,'" and signed:  "A  Son of  the  Church." It was an impassioned
defence of  Montanelli  against  the  Gadfly's  slanderous imputations.  The
anonymous writer,  after expounding,  with great eloquence  and fervour, the
doctrine  of  peace  on earth and  good will towards men,  of  which the new
Pontiff was the evangelist, concluded by challenging  the Gadfly to  prove a
single one of his assertions, and solemnly  appealing  to the public not  to
believe a contemptible slanderer. Both the cogency of the  article as  a bit
of  special  pleading   and  its  merit  as  a  literary  composition   were
sufficiently  far above the average  to attract much attention in the  town,
especially as not even the editor of the newspaper  could guess the author's
identity. The article was  soon reprinted separately in  pamphlet form;  and
the "anonymous defender" was discussed in every coffee-shop in Florence.
     The Gadfly  responded with a  violent attack on the new Pontificate and
all its supporters, especially on Montanelli, who, he cautiously hinted, had
probably  consented  to  the panegyric on  himself.  To this  the  anonymous
defender again replied in the Churchman with an indignant denial. During the
rest of  Montanelli's  stay  the controversy raging  between the two writers
occupied more of the  public  attention  than did even the  famous  preacher
himself.
     Some  members  of the liberal party ventured to  remonstrate  with  the
Gadfly about the unnecessary malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but they
did not  get much  satisfaction  out of  him.  He  only  smiled  affably and
answered with a languid little stammer: "R-really, gentlemen, you are rather
unfair.  I expressly stipulated, when I  gave in  to  Signora Bolla,  that I
should be allowed a l-l-little chuckle all to myself now. It is so nominated
in the bond!"
     At the  end of October Montanelli returned to  his see in the  Romagna,
and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell  sermon  in which he spoke
of the controversy,  gently deprecating the vehemence of  both  writers  and
begging his  unknown defender to set an  example of tolerance  by closing  a
useless  and  unseemly  war  of  words. On the  following day the  Churchman
contained a  notice  that,  at  Monsignor  Montanelli's  publicly  expressed
desire, "A Son of the Church" would withdraw from the controversy.
     The last word remained with the Gadfly. He issued a little  leaflet, in
which he  declared himself  disarmed and converted by Montanelli's Christian
meekness and ready to  weep  tears of  reconciliation  upon the neck  of the
first Sanfedist  he met. "I am even willing," he concluded; "to  embrace  my
anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers knew, as his Eminence  and I
know, what that  implies and why he remains anonymous, they would believe in
the sincerity of my conversion."
     In  the latter part of  November he announced to the literary committee
that  he was  going  for a  fortnight's  holiday to  the seaside.  He  went,
apparently, to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going there soon after and wishing
to speak to him, searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th of December a
political demonstration  of  the  most extreme  character  burst  out in the
States of the Church, along  the  whole  chain of the Apennines;  and people
began to guess  the reason of the Gadfly's sudden fancy to take his holidays
in the depth of  winter. He  came  back to Florence when the riots  had been
quelled, and, meeting Riccardo in the street, remarked affably:
     "I  hear you were  inquiring for me in Leghorn; I was staying  in Pisa.
What a pretty old town it is! There's something quite Arcadian about it."
     In Christmas  week he attended an  afternoon  meeting  of  the literary
committee  which was held  in Dr.  Riccardo's  lodgings  near the Porta alla
Croce. The meeting was a full one, and when he came in, a  little late, with
an apologetic bow and smile, there seemed to be no seat empty. Riccardo rose
to fetch a  chair  from the  next room,  but the Gadfly  stopped him. "Don't
trouble  about it,"  he  said; "I  shall  be  quite  comfortable  here"; and
crossing  the room  to a window beside which Gemma  had placed her chair, he
sat down on the sill, leaning his head indolently back against the shutter.
     As he looked down at Gemma, smiling with half-shut eyes, in the subtle,
sphinx-like way that gave him the  look of a Leonardo da Vinci portrait, the
instinctive distrust with which he  inspired her  deepened  into a  sense of
unreasoning fear.
     The  proposal under discussion  was  that a  pamphlet be issued setting
forth the committee's  views on the dearth with which Tuscany was threatened
and the measures which should be taken to meet it. The matter was a somewhat
difficult  one  to decide, because, as usual, the committee's views upon the
subject  were much  divided.  The more advanced  section,  to  which  Gemma,
Martini, and Riccardo belonged, was in favour of an energetic appeal to both
government and public to  take adequate measures at  once for  the relief of
the peasantry. The moderate division--including, of course, Grassini--feared
that an over-emphatic tone might irritate rather than convince the ministry.
     "It is all very well, gentlemen, to want the people helped at once," he
said, looking round upon the red-hot radicals with his calm and pitying air.
"We most of us want a good many things that we are not likely to get; but if
we start with the tone you propose  to  adopt, the government is very likely
not to begin any relief measures at all till there is  actual famine.  If we
could  only induce the  ministry  to make an  inquiry into the  state of the
crops it would be a step in advance."
     Galli, in his corner by the stove, jumped up to answer his enemy.
     "A step in advance--yes,  my dear sir;  but if there's going  to  be  a
famine, it won't wait  for us to advance at that pace. The people  might all
starve before we got to any actual relief."
     "It would be interesting to know----" Sacconi began; but several voices
interrupted him.
     "Speak up; we can't hear!"
     "I should think not, with  such  an  infernal  row in the street," said
Galli, irritably. "Is that window shut, Riccardo? One can't hear  one's self
speak!"
     Gemma looked round. "Yes," she said, "the window is quite shut. I think
there is a variety show, or some such thing, passing."
     The sounds  of  shouting  and laughter, of the  tinkling  of bells  and
trampling of feet, resounded  from the  street below, mixed with the braying
of a villainous brass band and the unmerciful banging of a drum.
     "It can't be helped these few days,"  said  Riccardo;  "we must  expect
noise at Christmas time. What were you saying, Sacconi?"
     "I said  it  would be  interesting to hear  what  is  thought about the
matter in Pisa and Leghorn. Perhaps Signor Rivarez can tell us something; he
has just come from there."
     The  Gadfly  did not  answer.  He  was staring out  of  the  window and
appeared not to have heard what had been said.
     "Signor Rivarez!" said Gemma.  She was  the only person sitting near to
him, and as he remained silent she bent forward and touched him on  the arm.
He slowly turned his face to  her, and she started as she  saw its fixed and
awful  immobility. For a moment it was like the  face of a  corpse; then the
lips moved in a strange, lifeless way.
     "Yes," he whispered; "a variety show."
     Her first instinct was to shield him from the curiosity  of the others.
Without understanding  what was the matter with him, she realized that  some
frightful fancy or hallucination had  seized upon  him, and  that,  for  the
moment, he was at its mercy, body and  soul. She rose  quickly and, standing
between him and the company, threw the window open as if to look out. No one
but herself had seen his face.
     In the  street  a  travelling circus was  passing, with mountebanks  on
donkeys  and  harlequins in parti-coloured  dresses.  The  crowd  of holiday
masqueraders, laughing  and shoving,  was  exchanging jests and  showers  of
paper ribbon with the clowns and flinging  little bags of sugar-plums to the
columbine,  who  sat in her  car, tricked out in tinsel and  feathers,  with
artificial curls  on her  forehead and an  artificial smile on  her  painted
lips. Behind  the  car came  a  motley  string of  figures--  street  Arabs,
beggars, clowns turning somersaults, and costermongers hawking their  wares.
They were jostling, pelting, and  applauding a  figure which at  first Gemma
could  not see  for the  pushing  and swaying of the crowd. The next moment,
however,  she saw  plainly  what  it was--a  hunchback,  dwarfish  and ugly,
grotesquely  attired  in  a fool's  dress, with  paper  cap  and  bells.  He
evidently belonged  to the strolling company, and was amusing the crowd with
hideous grimaces and contortions.
     "What  is going on out there?" asked Riccardo,  approaching the window.
"You seem very much interested."
     He was a  little surprised at their keeping the whole committee waiting
to look at a strolling company of mountebanks. Gemma turned round.
     "It  is nothing interesting," she  said; "only a variety show; but they
made such a noise that I thought it must be something else."
     She was standing with one hand upon the window-sill, and suddenly  felt
the  Gadfly's cold fingers press the hand  with  a  passionate clasp. "Thank
you!" he whispered softly; and then, closing the window, sat down again upon
the sill.
     "I'm afraid," he said in his airy manner, "that I have interrupted you,
gentlemen.  I  was l-looking at the variety  show;  it is s-such a  p-pretty
sight."
     "Sacconi was asking you a question," said Martini gruffly. The Gadfly's
behaviour seemed to him  an absurd piece of  affectation, and he was annoyed
that Gemma should  have been tactless  enough to follow his  example. It was
not like her.
     The Gadfly  disclaimed all knowledge  of the state of  feeling in Pisa,
explaining that  he  had been there "only on a  holiday." He then plunged at
once  into an animated  discussion, first of agricultural prospects, then of
the  pamphlet question; and continued pouring out a flood of stammering talk
till the others were quite tired. He seemed to find some feverish delight in
the sound of his own voice.
     When  the meeting ended  and the members  of the committee  rose to go,
Riccardo came up to Martini.
     "Will you stop to dinner with me? Fabrizi and Sacconi have  promised to
stay."
     "Thanks; but I was going to see Signora Bolla home."
     "Are you really afraid I  can't get home by myself?" she  asked, rising
and  putting on her wrap. "Of course he will stay  with  you,  Dr. Riccardo;
it's good for him to get a change. He doesn't go out half enough."
     "If you  will allow me, I will see you home," the Gadfly interposed; "I
am going in that direction."
     "If you really are going that way----"
     "I  suppose  you won't have time  to drop in here  in the course of the
evening, will you, Rivarez?" asked Riccardo, as he opened the door for them.
     The Gadfly looked back over his shoulder, laughing. "I, my dear fellow?
I'm going to see the variety show!"
     "What  a strange  creature  that  is;  and  what an  odd  affection for
mountebanks!" said Riccardo, coming back to his visitors.
     "Case of a fellow-feeling,  I should think," said Martini; "the man's a
mountebank himself, if ever I saw one."
     "I  wish I could think  he was  only that,"  Fabrizi interposed, with a
grave face. "If he is a mountebank I am afraid he's a very dangerous one."
     "Dangerous in what way?"
     "Well, I  don't like those mysterious little  pleasure trips that he is
so fond of taking. This is the third time, you  know; and I don't believe he
has been in Pisa at all."
     "I suppose it is almost an open  secret that it's into the mountains he
goes," said Sacconi. "He  has  hardly  taken the trouble  to deny that he is
still in relations with the smugglers he got to  know in the Savigno affair,
and  it's quite natural he  should take advantage of their friendship to get
his leaflets across the Papal frontier."
     "For my part," said  Riccardo; "what I wanted to  talk to you about  is
this very  question. It occurred to me that we  could hardly do better  than
ask Rivarez  to undertake the management of our own smuggling. That press at
Pistoja  is  very  inefficiently managed,  to my  thinking; and the way  the
leaflets  are taken across,  always rolled in  those  everlasting cigars, is
more than primitive."
     "It has answered pretty well up till now," said Martini contumaciously.
He was getting wearied  of  hearing Galli and Riccardo always put the Gadfly
forward as a model to copy, and inclined  to think that  the world  had gone
well enough before this  "lackadaisical buccaneer" turned up to set everyone
to rights.
     "It has answered so far  well that we have been  satisfied with it  for
want of anything better; but you know there have been plenty of  arrests and
confiscations. Now I believe that if Rivarez undertook  the business for us,
there would be less of that."
     "Why do you think so?"
     "In  the  first  place, the smugglers look upon  us  as strangers to do
business with, or  as sheep  to  fleece,  whereas Rivarez  is their personal
friend, very likely their leader, whom they look up to and trust. You may be
sure  every smuggler in  the  Apennines will  do for a  man  who was in  the
Savigno revolt what he will not do for us. In the next place, there's hardly
a  man among us that knows  the mountains  as Rivarez does. Remember, he has
been  a fugitive among  them, and  knows the smugglers' paths by  heart.  No
smuggler  would  dare to  cheat him, even if he  wished to,  and no smuggler
could cheat him if he dared to try."
     "Then is your proposal  that we should ask him to  take over  the whole
management    of    our    literature   on   the   other    side   of    the
frontier--distribution, addresses, hiding-places, everything--or simply that
we should ask him to put the things across for us?"
     "Well, as for addresses  and  hiding-places, he  probably knows already
all the  ones that we have  and a good many more  that we have not. I  don't
suppose  we  should  be able  to  teach  him  much  in  that  line.  As  for
distribution, it's as the others prefer,  of course. The important question,
to  my  mind, is  the actual  smuggling  itself. Once the books  are safe in
Bologna, it's a comparatively simple matter to circulate them."
     "For my part,"  said  Martini, "I  am against the  plan. In  the  first
place,  all this about  his skilfulness  is  mere conjecture;  we  have  not
actually seen him engaged in frontier work and  do not know whether he keeps
his head in critical moments."
     "Oh, you needn't have any doubt of that!" Riccardo put in. "The history
of the Savigno affair proves that he keeps his head."
     "And then," Martini went on; "I do not feel at all  inclined, from what
little  I know of Rivarez, to intrust him with all  the party's  secrets. He
seems to me feather-brained and  theatrical. To give the whole management of
a party's contraband  work  into a man's hands is a serious matter. Fabrizi,
what do you think?"
     "If  I  had  only  such  objections  as yours,  Martini,"  replied  the
professor, "I  should certainly  waive them  in the  case of  a  man  really
possessing, as  Rivarez  undoubtedly does, all  the  qualifications Riccardo
speaks of. For my part, I  have not  the slightest  doubt  as to either  his
courage,  his  honesty, or  his presence  of  mind; and that he  knows  both
mountains and  mountaineers  we have  had ample proof.  But there is another
objection. I do not feel sure that it is only for the smuggling of pamphlets
he goes into the mountains. I have begun to doubt whether he has not another
purpose.  This is, of course,  entirely  between ourselves.  It  is  a  mere
suspicion. It seems to  me just possible that  he is  in connexion with some
one of the 'sects,' and perhaps with the most dangerous of them."
     "Which one do you mean--the 'Red Girdles'?"
     "No; the 'Occoltellatori.'"
     "The 'Knifers'! But that is a little body of outlaws--peasants, most of
them, with neither education nor political experience."
     "So  were the insurgents of Savigno; but they had a few educated men as
leaders, and  this  little society may  have  the same.  And remember,  it's
pretty well known that  most of the members  of those  more violent sects in
the Romagna  are  survivors of the  Savigno affair, who found themselves too
weak to fight the Churchmen in open insurrection, and so have fallen back on
assassination. Their hands are not strong enough for guns, and they  take to
knives instead."
     "But what makes you suppose Rivarez to be connected with them?"
     "I don't suppose, I merely suspect. In any  case, I think we had better
find out for certain before we intrust our smuggling to him. If he attempted
to do both kinds of work at once he would injure our party most terribly; he
would simply destroy its reputation and accomplish nothing. However, we will
talk of  that another time.  I wanted  to  speak to you about the news  from
Rome. It is said that a commission  is to be appointed to  draw up a project
for a municipal constitution."PART II: CHAPTER VI.
     GEMMA and the Gadfly walked silently along the  Lung'Arno. His feverish
talkativeness seemed to have quite spent itself; he had hardly spoken a word
since they left Riccardo's door, and Gemma was heartily glad of his silence.
She always felt  embarrassed in his company,  and to-day more so than usual,
for  his strange behaviour at the  committee  meeting  had greatly perplexed
her.
     By the Uffizi palace he suddenly stopped and turned to her.
     "Are you tired?"
     "No; why?"
     "Nor especially busy this evening?"
     "No."
     "I want to ask a favour of you; I want you to come for a walk with me."
     "Where to?"
     "Nowhere in particular; anywhere you like."
     "But what for?"
     He hesitated.
     "I--can't tell you--at  least, it's very  difficult; but please come if
you can."
     He raised his eyes suddenly  from the ground, and  she saw how  strange
their expression was.
     "There is something the matter with you," she said gently. He pulled  a
leaf from the flower in his button-hole, and began tearing it to pieces. Who
was it  that he was so oddly like?  Someone  who had that  same trick of the
fingers and hurried, nervous gesture.
     "I am in trouble," he said, looking down at his hands and speaking in a
hardly audible voice.  "I --don't want to  be  alone  this evening. Will you
come?"
     "Yes, certainly, unless you would rather go to my lodgings."
     "No; come  and  dine  with me  at  a restaurant.  There's  one  on  the
Signoria. Please don't refuse, now; you've promised!"
     They  went  into a  restaurant, where  he ordered  dinner,  but  hardly
touched his own share, and remained obstinately silent,  crumbling the bread
over the cloth,  and  fidgeting with  the fringe of his table napkin.  Gemma
felt  thoroughly uncomfortable,  and began to wish she had refused  to come;
the silence was growing awkward; yet she could not begin to  make small-talk
with  a person who seemed to have forgotten her presence. At last he  looked
up and said abruptly:
     "Would you like to see the variety show?"
     She stared at him in astonishment. What had he got into his head  about
variety shows?
     "Have you ever seen one?" he asked before she had time to speak.
     "No; I don't think so. I didn't suppose they were interesting."
     "They are very interesting. I don't think anyone can study the  life of
the people without seeing them. Let us go back to the Porta alla Croce."
     When they arrived the mountebanks had set up their tent beside the town
gate, and  an abominable scraping of fiddles and banging of drums  announced
that the performance had begun.
     The  entertainment was of the roughest kind.  A few clowns, harlequins,
and  acrobats,  a circus-rider jumping through hoops, the painted columbine,
and the hunchback performing various  dull  and foolish antics,  represented
the entire force of the company. The jokes were not, on the whole, coarse or
offensive;  but they were very tame  and  stale, and there was a  depressing
flatness about the whole thing. The audience  laughed and clapped from their
innate Tuscan courtesy; but the only part which they  seemed really to enjoy
was the  performance  of the  hunchback, in which Gemma  could  find nothing
either witty  or skilful. It  was merely a  series  of grotesque and hideous
contortions,  which  the spectators mimicked, holding  up children  on their
shoulders that the little ones might see the "ugly man."
     "Signor  Rivarez,  do  you really think this  attractive?" said  Gemma,
turning to the Gadfly, who was standing beside her, his arm round one of the
wooden posts of the tent. "It seems to me----"
     She broke off and remained looking at him silently. Except when she had
stood with Montanelli  at  the garden gate in Leghorn, she had never  seen a
human  face express such fathomless, hopeless misery. She thought of Dante's
hell as she watched him.
     Presently the  hunchback, receiving  a  kick  from one  of  the clowns,
turned  a  somersault  and  tumbled in a grotesque  heap outside the ring. A
dialogue  between two clowns began, and  the Gadfly seemed to wake  out of a
dream.
     "Shall we go?" he asked; "or would you like to see more?"
     "I would rather go."
     They left  the tent, and walked across the dark green to the river. For
a few moments neither spoke.
     "What did you think of the show?" the Gadfly asked presently.
     "I thought  it rather a  dreary business; and part of  it  seemed to me
positively unpleasant."
     "Which part?"
     "Well, all those grimaces and  contortions. They are simply ugly; there
is nothing clever about them."
     "Do you mean the hunchback's performance?"
     Remembering  his  peculiar  sensitiveness on  the subject  of  his  own
physical defects,  she had  avoided mentioning this  particular bit  of  the
entertainment; but now  that he  had  touched upon the  subject himself, she
answered: "Yes; I did not like that part at all."
     "That was the part the people enjoyed most."
     "I dare say; and that is just the worst thing about it."
     "Because it was inartistic?"
     "N-no; it was all inartistic. I meant--because it was cruel."
     He smiled.
     "Cruel? Do you mean to the hunchback?"
     "I mean---- Of course the man himself  was quite indifferent; no doubt,
it is to him just a way  of getting a living, like the circus-rider's way or
the columbine's. But the thing makes one feel unhappy. It is humiliating; it
is the degradation of a human being."
     "He probably is  not  any more degraded than he was to start with. Most
of us are degraded in one way or another."
     "Yes; but this--I dare say you will think it an absurd prejudice; but a
human body, to me, is  a  sacred  thing;  I don't  like  to see  it  treated
irreverently and made hideous."
     "And a human soul?"
     He  had stopped  short, and  was  standing  with  one hand on the stone
balustrade of the embankment, looking straight at her.
     "A soul?" she repeated, stopping in her turn to look at him in wonder.
     He flung out both hands with a sudden, passionate gesture.
     "Has it  never occurred to  you that that miserable clown  may  have  a
soul--a living, struggling, human soul,  tied down into that crooked hulk of
a body  and forced  to  slave  for it?  You  that are  so tender-hearted  to
everything--you  that  pity the body in its fool's dress and bells--have you
never  thought of  the wretched soul that has not even  motley to  cover its
horrible nakedness? Think of it shivering with  cold, stilled with shame and
misery,  before all  those  people--feeling their  jeers  that  cut  like  a
whip--their laughter, that burns like red-hot iron  on the bare flesh! Think
of it looking round--so  helpless before  them all--for  the mountains  that
will not fall  on  it--for  the  rocks that  have not  the  heart  to  cover
it--envying the rats that can creep into  some hole in  the  earth and hide;
and  remember that  a  soul is  dumb--it has  no voice  to cry out--it  must
endure, and endure, and endure. Oh! I'm talking nonsense! Why on earth don't
you laugh? You have no sense of humour!"
     Slowly and in dead silence  she turned  and walked  on along the  river
side. During  the whole evening  it had not once occurred  to her to connect
his trouble, whatever it might be, with the variety show;  and now that some
dim  picture  of his  inner life had  been  revealed  to  her by this sudden
outburst, she could not find, in her overwhelming pity for  him, one word to
say. He walked on beside her, with his head turned away, and looked into the
water.
     "I want you, please, to  understand," he began suddenly, turning to her
with a defiant air, "that everything I have just been saying to  you is pure
imagination. I'm rather given to romancing,  but I don't like people to take
it seriously."
     She made no answer, and they walked on in silence.  As they  passed  by
the gateway of the  Uffizi, he crossed the road and stooped down over a dark
bundle that was lying against the railings.
     "What is the matter,  little one?" he asked, more gently than  she  had
ever heard him speak. "Why don't you go home?"
     The bundle moved, and answered something in a low, moaning voice. Gemma
came  across to look, and  saw a child of about six  years  old, ragged  and
dirty, crouching  on the pavement like a  frightened animal. The  Gadfly was
bending down with his hand on the unkempt head.
     "What is  it?" he  said,  stooping lower to  catch  the  unintelligible
answer. "You  ought to go home to bed; little boys have no  business out  of
doors at night; you'll be quite frozen! Give me your hand and jump up like a
man! Where do you live?"
     He took the child's arm to raise him. The result was a sharp scream and
a quick shrinking away.
     "Why, what is  it?" the Gadfly  asked,  kneeling down on the  pavement.
"Ah! Signora, look here!"
     The child's shoulder and jacket were covered with blood.
     "Tell me what has happened?" the Gadfly went on caressingly. "It wasn't
a fall, was it? No? Someone's been beating you? I thought so! Who was it?"
     "My uncle."
     "Ah, yes! And when was it?"
     "This morning. He was drunk, and I--I----"
     "And you got in his way--was that it? You shouldn't get in people's way
when they are drunk, little man; they don't  like it. What shall we  do with
this poor mite,  signora? Come here to the  light, sonny, and let me look at
that shoulder. Put your arm round my neck; I won't hurt you. There we are!"
     He lifted the boy in his arms, and, carrying him across the street, set
him down on  the wide stone balustrade.  Then, taking out a pocket-knife, he
deftly ripped  up the torn sleeve, supporting  the  child's head against his
breast, while Gemma held the injured arm. The shoulder was badly bruised and
grazed, and there was a deep gash on the arm.
     "That's  an  ugly  cut  to give a  mite  like  you,"  said  the Gadfly,
fastening his  handkerchief  round  the  wound  to prevent  the  jacket from
rubbing against it. "What did he do it with?"
     "The  shovel. I went to ask him to give me a soldo to  get some polenta
at the corner shop, and he hit me with the shovel."
     The Gadfly  shuddered. "Ah!"  he said softly, "that hurts; doesn't  it,
little one?"
     "He hit me with the shovel--and I ran away-- I ran away--because he hit
me."
     "And you've been wandering about ever since, without any dinner?"
     Instead  of answering,  the  child began  to  sob violently. The Gadfly
lifted him off the balustrade.
     "There, there! We'll soon set all that straight. I wonder if we can get
a cab anywhere. I'm  afraid they'll all be waiting by the theatre; there's a
grand  performance  going  on to-night.  I am sorry to  drag you  about  so,
signora; but----"
     "I would rather come with you.  You may want help. Do you think you can
carry him so far? Isn't he very heavy?"
     "Oh, I can manage, thank you."
     At the  theatre door they found only a few cabs waiting, and these were
all engaged. The  performance was  over, and most of the  audience had gone.
Zita's name was printed in large letters on the wall-placards; she  had been
dancing in the  ballet. Asking Gemma  to  wait for him  a moment, the Gadfly
went round to the performers' entrance, and spoke to an attendant.
     "Has Mme. Reni gone yet?"
     "No, sir,"  the  man answered, staring blankly at  the  spectacle  of a
well-dressed  gentleman carrying a ragged street child  in  his  arms, "Mme.
Reni is just  coming out,  I think; her carriage  is  waiting for her.  Yes;
there she comes."
     Zita descended the  stairs, leaning  on  the  arm of  a  young  cavalry
officer. She looked superbly handsome, with an opera cloak of flame-coloured
velvet thrown over her evening  dress,  and  a great  fan of ostrich  plumes
hanging from her waist. In the entry she  stopped  short, and,  drawing  her
hand away from the officer's arm, approached the Gadfly in amazement.
     "Felice!" she exclaimed under her breath, "what HAVE you got there?"
     "I have  picked up this child in  the  street. It is hurt and starving;
and I want to get it home as quickly as  possible. There is not a cab to  be
got anywhere, so I want to have your carriage."
     "Felice! you  are not  going  to take a  horrid beggar-child  into your
rooms! Send for a policeman, and let him  carry it to the Refuge or whatever
is the proper place for it. You can't have all the paupers in the town----"
     "It is hurt," the Gadfly repeated; "it can go to  the Refuge to-morrow,
if necessary, but I must see to the child first and give it some food."
     Zita made a little  grimace  of disgust.  "You've got  its  head  right
against your shirt! How CAN you? It is dirty!"
     The Gadfly looked up with a sudden flash of anger.
     "It is hungry," he said fiercely. "You don't  know  what that means, do
you?"
     "Signer Rivarez," interposed Gemma,  coming  forward, "my lodgings  are
quite  close. Let us take the child in  there. Then, if  you  cannot  find a
vettura, I will manage to put it up for the night."
     He turned round quickly. "You don't mind?"
     "Of course not. Good-night, Mme. Reni!"
     The gipsy, with a stiff  bow and an angry shrug of her  shoulders, took
her officer's  arm  again, and, gathering up  the train of  her dress, swept
past them to the contested carriage.
     "I will send it  back  to fetch you  and the  child,  if  you  like, M.
Rivarez," she said, pausing on the doorstep.
     "Very well; I will give the address."  He came out on to the  pavement,
gave the address to the driver, and walked back to Gemma with his burden.
     Katie  was waiting up  for  her  mistress;  and,  on hearing  what  had
happened, ran  for warm  water and other necessaries. Placing the child on a
chair, the Gadfly knelt down beside him, and, deftly slipping off the ragged
clothing,  bathed and bandaged the wound with tender, skilful hands. He  had
just finished washing the boy, and was wrapping him  in a warm blanket, when
Gemma came in with a tray in her hands.
     "Is your  patient ready for  his  supper?"  she  asked, smiling at  the
strange little figure. "I have been cooking it for him."
     The Gadfly stood up and rolled the dirty rags  together. "I'm afraid we
have made a  terrible mess in your room," he  said. "As for  these, they had
better go straight  into the  fire, and  I  will  buy  him some  new clothes
to-morrow. Have you  any brandy  in the house,  signora? I think he ought to
have a little. I will just wash my hands, if you will allow me."
     When the child had finished his supper, he immediately went to sleep in
the Gadfly's arms, with his rough head against the white shirt-front. Gemma,
who had been helping Katie  to set the disordered  room tidy again, sat down
at the table.
     "Signor  Rivarez, you  must take something before you  go home--you had
hardly any dinner, and it's very late."
     "I should like a cup of tea in the English fashion, if you have it. I'm
sorry to keep you up so late."
     "Oh! that doesn't  matter. Put the child down on the sofa; he will tire
you. Wait a minute; I will just lay a sheet  over the cushions. What are you
going to do with him?"
     "To-morrow? Find out  whether he has any other  relations  except  that
drunken brute; and if not,  I suppose I must follow Mme. Reni's  advice, and
take  him to the Refuge. Perhaps the kindest thing to  do would be  to put a
stone round  his neck and pitch  him into the  river there;  but that  would
expose  me to unpleasant consequences. Fast asleep!  What an odd little lump
of ill-luck you are, you mite--not half as capable of  defending yourself as
a stray cat!"
     When Katie brought in the tea-tray, the boy opened his eyes  and sat up
with  a bewildered air.  Recognizing the Gadfly, whom he already regarded as
his natural protector, he wriggled off the sofa, and, much encumbered by the
folds of  his  blanket, came  up  to  nestle  against  him.  He  was by  now
sufficiently revived to be inquisitive; and, pointing to the  mutilated left
hand, in which the Gadfly was holding a piece of cake, asked:
     "What's that?"
     "That? Cake; do you want some? I think  you've had enough for now. Wait
till to-morrow, little man."
     "No--that!"  He  stretched out his  hand  and touched the stumps of the
amputated  fingers and the great scar on the wrist. The Gadfly put  down his
cake.
     "Oh,  that! It's  the  same  sort  of  thing  as what you have on  your
shoulder--a hit I got from someone stronger than I was."
     "Didn't it hurt awfully?"
     "Oh, I don't know--not  more than other things. There, now, go to sleep
again; you have no business asking questions at this time of night."
     When  the  carriage arrived  the boy  was again asleep; and the Gadfly,
without awaking him, lifted him gently and carried him out on to the stairs.
     "You  have been a sort  of ministering angel to me to-day," he said  to
Gemma, pausing  at  the door. "But  I suppose that need not prevent  us from
quarrelling to our heart's content in future."
     "I have no desire to quarrel with anyone."
     "Ah! but I have. Life  would  be unendurable  without  quarrels. A good
quarrel is the salt of the earth; it's better than a variety show!"
     And with that he went downstairs, laughing softly to  himself, with the
sleeping child in his arms.
        PART II: CHAPTER VII.
     ONE day in the first week of January Martini, who  had sent  round  the
forms of invitation to the monthly group-meeting of  the literary committee,
received  from  the  Gadfly  a laconic,  pencil-scrawled "Very sorry:  can't
come." He was a little annoyed, as a notice of "important business" had been
put into  the  invitation; this  cavalier  treatment  seemed to  him  almost
insolent.  Moreover, three  separate letters  containing  bad  news  arrived
during the  day, and  the wind was  in the east, so that Martini felt out of
sorts and out of temper; and when, at the group meeting, Dr. Riccardo asked,
"Isn't Rivarez here?" he answered rather  sulkily: "No; he seems to have got
something more interesting on hand, and can't come, or doesn't want to."
     "Really, Martini,"  said  Galli  irritably,  "you are  about  the  most
prejudiced person in Florence. Once you object to a  man, everything he does
is wrong. How could Rivarez come when he's ill?"
     "Who told you he was ill?"
     "Didn't you know? He's been laid up for the last four days."
     "What's the matter with him?"
     "I don't know. He had to  put off an appointment with me on Thursday on
account of illness; and  last night, when  I went round, I heard that he was
too ill to see anyone. I thought Riccardo would be looking after him."
     "I knew  nothing about it.  I'll go round  to-night and see if he wants
anything."
     The  next  morning  Riccardo, looking very pale  and  tired, came  into
Gemma's little study.  She was sitting at  the table, reading out monotonous
strings of  figures to Martini, who, with a magnifying glass in one hand and
a finely pointed pencil in the other, was making tiny marks  in the pages of
a  book. She made  with one  hand  a gesture  requesting silence.  Riccardo,
knowing that a person who is writing in cipher must  not be interrupted, sat
down on the sofa behind her and yawned like a man who can hardly keep awake.
     "2,  4;  3, 7;  6,  1;  3,  5;  4> 1;"  Gemma's voice  went  on with
machine-like evenness.  "8,  4; 7,  2; 5,  1;  that  finishes  the sentence,
Cesare."
     She stuck a  pin  into the  paper  to mark the exact place,  and turned
round.
     "Good-morning, doctor; how fagged you look! Are you well?"
     "Oh,  I'm well  enough--only  tired  out. I've had an awful night  with
Rivarez."
     "With Rivarez?"
     "Yes;  I've been  up with him  all night, and  now I  must go off to my
hospital patients. I just came round to know whether you can think of anyone
that  could look after him a bit for the next few days. He's in a devil of a
state. I'll do my best, of  course;  but I really haven't  the time;  and he
won't hear of my sending in a nurse."
     "What is the matter with him?"
     "Well, rather a complication of things. First of all----"
     "First of all, have you had any breakfast?"
     "Yes,  thank you. About Rivarez--no doubt,  it's complicated with a lot
of nerve  trouble;  but the main cause of disturbance is an old  injury that
seems  to  have  been  disgracefully   neglected.  Altogether,  he's   in  a
frightfully knocked-about state; I suppose it was that war in  South America
--  and  he  certainly didn't get proper care when  the  mischief was  done.
Probably things were  managed in  a very rough-and-ready fashion out  there;
he's lucky  to  be  alive at all. However,  there's  a chronic  tendency  to
inflammation, and any trifle may bring on an attack----"
     "Is that dangerous?"
     "N-no;  the  chief danger in  a  case  of  that  kind is of the patient
getting desperate and taking a dose of arsenic."
     "It is very painful, of course?"
     "It's simply horrible;  I don't  know how he manages to bear it.  I was
obliged to stupefy him with opium in  the night--a thing I hate to do with a
nervous patient; but I had to stop it somehow."
     "He is nervous, I should think."
     "Very,  but  splendidly   plucky.  As  long  as  he  was  not  actually
light-headed with the pain last night, his coolness was quite wonderful. But
I  had an awful job with him towards the end.  How long  do you suppose this
thing has been going on? Just five nights; and not a soul within call except
that stupid landlady, who wouldn't wake if the house tumbled down, and would
be no use if she did."
     "But what about the ballet-girl?"
     "Yes; isn't that  a curious thing? He won't let her come  near  him. He
has   a   morbid  horror   of  her.   Altogether,  he's  one  of  the   most
incomprehensible creatures I ever met--a perfect mass of contradictions."
     He  took out his watch  and looked  at it with a  preoccupied face.  "I
shall be late at the hospital; but it can't be helped. The junior  will have
to begin  without me  for once.  I wish  I  had known of all this before--it
ought not to have been let go on that way night after night."
     "But  why  on  earth  didn't  he  send  to  say  he  was  ill?" Martini
interrupted. "He might have guessed  we shouldn't have  left him stranded in
that fashion."
     "I wish,  doctor," said Gemma, "that you had sent for  one  of us  last
night, instead of wearing yourself out like this." My dear lady, I wanted to
send  round  to Galli; but Rivarez  got so  frantic at the suggestion that I
didn't dare attempt it. When  I asked  him  whether there was anyone else he
would like fetched, he looked at me for  a minute,  as if he were scared out
of his wits, and then put up both hands to his  eyes  and  said: 'Don't tell
them; they  will laugh!'  He  seemed quite possessed  with some  fancy about
people  laughing  at something. I couldn't  make  out  what; he kept talking
Spanish; but patients do say the oddest things sometimes."
     "Who is with him now?" asked Gemma.
     "No one except the landlady and her maid."
     "I'll go to him at once," said Martini.
     "Thank you. I'll look round  again in the evening. You'll find a  paper
of written directions in the table-drawer by the large window, and the opium
is on  the  shelf in the  next room. If the pain comes  on  again, give  him
another dose--not more than one; but don't leave the bottle where he can get
at it, whatever you do; he might be tempted to take too much."
     When Martini  entered  the  darkened room, the  Gadfly turned  his head
round  quickly,  and,  holding out  to him a burning  hand, began, in  a bad
imitation of his usual flippant manner:
     "Ah, Martini! You have  come to rout me out about those proofs. It's no
use swearing at me for missing the committee last night; the fact is, I have
not been quite well, and----"
     "Never  mind the committee. I have just seen Riccardo, and have come to
know if I can be of any use."
     The Gadfly set his face like a flint.
     "Oh, really! that is very kind of you; but it wasn't worth the trouble.
I'm only a little out of sorts."
     "So  I  understood  from  Riccardo. He was  up  with you all  night,  I
believe."
     The Gadfly bit his lip savagely.
     "I am quite comfortable, thank you, and don't want anything."
     "Very well; then I will sit in the other room; perhaps you would rather
be alone. I will leave the door ajar, in case you call me."
     "Please don't trouble about it; I really shan't want anything. I should
be wasting your time for nothing."
     "Nonsense, man!" Martini broke in roughly. "What's the use of trying to
fool me that way? Do you think I have no eyes? Lie still and go to sleep, if
you can."
     He went into the adjoining room, and,  leaving the  door open, sat down
with  a book.  Presently  he heard the Gadfly move restlessly  two or  three
times. He put down his book and listened.  There was a short  silence,  then
another restless movement;  then the quick, heavy,  panting  breath of a man
clenching his teeth to suppress a groan. He went back into the room.
     "Can I do anything for you, Rivarez?"
     There was  no answer, and  he crossed the room  to  the  bed-side.  The
Gadfly, with a ghastly, livid face, looked at him for a moment, and silently
shook his head.
     "Shall I give you some more opium? Riccardo said you were to have it if
the pain got very bad."
     "No, thank you; I can bear it a bit longer. It may be worse later on."
     Martini  shrugged his shoulders  and  sat  down beside the  bed. For an
interminable hour he watched in silence; then he rose and fetched the opium.
     "Rivarez, I  won't let this go  on any  longer; if  you can stand it, I
can't. You must have the stuff."
     The Gadfly took it without speaking. Then he turned away and closed his
eyes. Martini sat down again, and listened as the breathing became gradually
deep and even.
     The Gadfly was too much exhausted to wake easily when once asleep. Hour
after  hour he  lay  absolutely motionless.  Martini  approached him several
times  during the  day  and  evening,  and looked at  the still figure; but,
except  the breathing, there was  no sign of  life. The face was so  wan and
colourless that at last a  sudden fear seized upon him; what if he had given
too much  opium? The  injured left  arm lay on the coverlet, and he shook it
gently to rouse the sleeper. As he did so, the unfastened sleeve  fell back,
showing  a series of deep and fearful  scars covering  the arm from wrist to
elbow.
     "That arm must have been in a pleasant condition  when those marks were
fresh," said Riccardo's voice behind him.
     "Ah, there you are at  last!  Look  here,  Riccardo; ought  this man to
sleep forever? I gave him a dose about ten hours ago, and he hasn't moved  a
muscle since."
     Riccardo stooped down and listened for a moment.
     "No;  he  is  breathing  quite  properly;   it's  nothing   but   sheer
exhaustion--what you might expect  after  such a night. There may be another
paroxysm before morning. Someone will sit up, I hope?"
     "Galli will; he has sent to say he will be here by ten."
     "It's nearly  that now. Ah, he's  waking! Just see the maidservant gets
that broth  hot. Gently --gently, Rivarez! There,  there, you needn't fight,
man; I'm not a bishop!"
     The Gadfly started up with a shrinking, scared  look. "Is it my  turn?"
he said hurriedly in Spanish. "Keep the people amused a minute; I---- Ah!  I
didn't see you, Riccardo." He looked round the room and drew one hand across
his forehead as if bewildered. "Martini! Why, I thought you had gone away. I
must have been asleep."
     "You have been sleeping like the beauty in the fairy story for the last
ten hours; and now you are to have some broth and go to sleep again."
     "Ten hours! Martini, surely you haven't been here all that time?"
     "Yes; I was beginning to wonder whether I hadn't given  you an overdose
of opium."
     The Gadfly shot a sly glance at him.
     "No such luck! Wouldn't  you  have nice quiet  committee-meetings? What
the devil do you want, Riccardo? Do  for  mercy's sake  leave me  in  peace,
can't you? I hate being mauled about by doctors."
     "Well then, drink this and I'll leave  you in peace. I shall come round
in a day or two, though,  and  give you a thorough overhauling. I  think you
have pulled  through the worst of this business now; you don't look quite so
much like a death's head at a feast."
     "Oh, I shall  be all right  soon, thanks. Who's that--Galli?  I seem to
have a collection of all the graces here to-night."
     "I have come to stop the night with you."
     "Nonsense!  I don't want anyone. Go home, all  the  lot of you. Even if
the thing  should  come on again, you can't  help me;  I  won't keep  taking
opium. It's all very well once in a way."
     "I'm  afraid you're right," Riccardo  said.  "But that's not  always an
easy resolution to stick to."
     The Gadfly looked up, smiling. "No  fear! If I'd been going in for that
sort of thing, I should have done it long ago."
     "Anyway, you are  not going to be left alone," Riccardo answered drily.
"Come  into  the  other  room a minute,  Galli;  I want  to  speak  to  you.
Good-night, Rivarez; I'll look in to-morrow."
     Martini was  following them out  of  the room when  he  heard  his name
softly called. The Gadfly was holding out a hand to him.
     "Thank you!"
     "Oh, stuff! Go to sleep."
     When  Riccardo had gone,  Martini  remained a few minutes in the  outer
room, talking with Galli. As he opened the front door of the house he  heard
a carriage stop at the garden gate and saw a woman's figure get out and come
up  the  path.  It  was  Zita,  returning,  evidently,   from  some  evening
entertainment. He lifted his hat and stood aside to  let her pass, then went
out  into  the dark  lane leading from the  house to the  Poggio  Imperiale.
Presently the gate clicked and rapid footsteps came down the lane.
     "Wait a minute!" she said.
     When he turned back to meet her she stopped short, and then came slowly
towards him, dragging one hand after her along the hedge. There was a single
street-lamp at the corner, and he saw  by its light that she was hanging her
head down as though embarrassed or ashamed.
     "How is he?" she asked without looking up.
     "Much better than he  was this morning. He  has been asleep most of the
day and seems less exhausted. I think the attack is passing over."
     She still kept her eyes on the ground.
     "Has it been very bad this time?"
     "About as bad as it can well be, I should think."
     "I thought so. When he  won't let me come  into the  room,  that always
means it's bad."
     "Does he often have attacks like this?"
     "That depends---- It's  so irregular. Last summer,  in Switzerland,  he
was quite well; but the winter before, when we were in Vienna, it was awful.
He wouldn't let  me  come near him  for days together.  He hates  to have me
about when he's ill."
     She glanced up for a moment, and, dropping her eyes again, went on:
     "He always used to send me off to  a ball, or concert, or something, on
one pretext  or  another, when he  felt it  coming  on.  Then he  would lock
himself into his  room. I  used to slip  back and  sit outside  the door--he
would have been furious  if he'd  known.  He'd  let the  dog  come in if  it
whined, but not me. He cares more for it, I think."
     There was a curious, sullen defiance in her manner.
     "Well, I hope it  won't be so bad any  more," said Martini kindly. "Dr.
Riccardo is  taking the case  seriously in  hand. Perhaps he will be able to
make a permanent improvement. And,  in any case, the treatment gives  relief
at the moment. But you had better send to us at once, another time. He would
have suffered very much less if we had known of it earlier. Good-night!"
     He held  out  his  hand, but  she  drew back  with a  quick  gesture of
refusal.
     "I don't see why you want to shake hands with his mistress."
     "As you like, of course," he began in embarrassment.
     She stamped her foot on the ground. "I hate you!" she cried, turning on
him with  eyes like glowing  coals. "I hate you  all! You come here  talking
politics to him; and  he  lets  you  sit up the  night with him and give him
things to stop the pain, and I  daren't  so much  as peep at him through the
door! What is he to you? What right have you to come and steal him away from
me? I hate you! I hate you! I HATE you!"
     She burst  into  a  violent fit of sobbing, and, darting  back into the
garden, slammed the gate in his face.
     "Good Heavens!" said  Martini to  himself, as he walked down the  lane.
"That  girl  is  actually  in  love  with  him!  Of  all  the  extraordinary
things----"PART II: CHAPTER VIII.
     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.